Episode 8 The Model Person: traffic, politeness, French kissing and fingernails

In the past two episodes, I’ve been talking about how society needs to be structured in order for particular types of individuality to exist. In this episode I discuss two types of social structure: the system of traffic laws and culturally specific politeness norms. My interest in traffic laws comes from spending lots of time as a young girl annoying my parents while they were driving. My interest in politeness comes from having lived in a few different cultures and getting things very very wrong (like slamming my jaw into the cheekbones of complete strangers).

Legal systems in most societies are based upon the principle of rationality: laws dictate what is the most rational choice so that people are compelled to make that choice or face unpleasant consequences. When someone breaks the law, they are usually held to a standard of rationality: they are judged according to what a rational person would do.

If people were rational – and only rational – would we need politeness norms? Politeness norms are based upon the principle that other people might be offended by our behaviours. But why would rational people be offended? In their seminal work on linguistic politeness theory, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage, Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson argue that politeness behaviour is not irrational. They based their theory on the idea that people are rational, but that they also have something called face. Face is the thing that keeps people from stating what they want in a straightforward way. Rather than ‘You there. Wrap this plaster around my finger so the nail stays in place’, they might say something like, ‘I’m so terribly sorry, I know this is very cheeky, but can I ask a big favour of you? Would you be willing to help me out? I know you’re in a rush….’ etc. To use a politeness strategy that attends to negative face, acknowledge that the person they’re talking to would rather be left alone, as in the example above. To attend to positive face, make the person you need help from feel like they’re just like you – part of a select group of people, as in ‘Help a fellow Goth?’

Whereas the legal system relies upon the notion of the rational or the reasonable person, the politeness system (at least as described by Brown and Levinson) relies upon the notion of the ‘Model Person’ – someone who has both rationality and face.

I bring these notions up here because I want to explore the idea that these two types of system create a notion of a particular type of individual – an individual whose uniqueness has been stripped away and who is strangely disembodied. Next week I’ll discuss how difficult it is for some social systems to theorise in terms of individuals with bodies.

For more on Linguistic Politeness, check out the Linguistic Politeness Research Group.