Pearls and rubies

©  2007  Rose George

I'm reading The Civilizing Process by Norbert Elias. It is apparently a groundbreaking earthshattering piece of sociology, written in the 1930s. I'm reading it to try to understand how concepts of privacy and taboo come about, because, my god, they are odd. Why, for example, is it acceptable for men and women to say that they need a pee but not a bowel movement? That's not rhetorical. I'd really like opinions. Me, I think it's because public urination by men is acceptable. Or if I were being a biological determinist or something, that pee is not dangerous (it is nearly sterile), but t'other stuff is and therefore is hidden. But that doesn't really make sense. Maybe because t'other stuff is still supposed to be done entirely in private, whereas peeing can be public. Enough for the Mairie de Paris to come up with an anti-pee wall. But that's more of the same question, not an answer.

Social conventions are extremely weird when you think about them. In Japan, it is rude to blow your nose in public. But in Europe and America it is considered normal to blow one's nose and then look at it. I have always found that bizarre and disgusting, but it is socially acceptable.

In 1558, an Italian called Della Casa wrote a book on etiquette that advised that "you should not offer your handkerchief to anyone unless it has been freshly washed...Nor is it seemly, after wiping your nose, to spread out your handkerchief and peer into it as if pearls and rubies might have fallen out of your head."