subservience and gentility
In addition to pondering those two articles on British and American cultural differences that I mentioned last month, I’ve been thinking about a commentary about customer service in France that I read more recently. The anecdotes seem too outrageous to believe, but I get flashbacks to unpleasant encounters in shops in Russia and start to think they are possible. Even the surly English “barman” (bartender) in the New York Times article seems familiar from my travels.
What puzzles me the most is that, despite the turmoil of the French Revolution, France maintained a remarkably polite public culture. American English and French both have commonly used terms for addressing strangers that are used without a person’s name (sir/monsieur, ma’am/madame, miss/mademoiselle), which, it turns out, is uncommon in most of Europe. Furthermore, the French are of course known for their copious use of these terms and bonjour in greeting strangers. I find it strange that, while subservience went out the door with the French Revolution, gentility did not, whereas in Russia both were lost after the Russian Revolution.