Modern dress code (rant)

[Louis VI the Fat]

Went to the beach this afternoon.

Anyway, late in the afternoon we had some drinks on a terrace, went to the bathroom to make ourselves look presentable, and then had diner at the Hotel Sonnevanck, smack in the middle of that cozy little town.

I took the liberty of googling that restaurant. A statue of Betty Boop stands on the counter, people dress in a casual manner, the menu is not in French, the priciest and finest item on the menu is 'T-bone steak met Beurre de Paris'...




*insert pesky remarks about Adrian mistaking a beach bistro for fine dining here*

~~~

More seriously: I must wholeheartedly agree with your take on modern public behaviour though. It is terrible. Almost exactly one century ago, Proust wrote his famous novel 'À la recherche du temps perdu'. With scenes of him and his classes eating in the beach resort restaurant of Cabourg’s Grand Hotel, the peasants and fishermen outside, their noses pressed against the window, staring at such novelties as people eating with knife and fork and refraining from burping contests for entertainment.

Now though, these peasants are all middle-class. They are no longer outside, they occupy the table next to you. I don't know how this came about. For lack of proper insight, I blame modern social-democracy, my default position.

Actually, no. Their mere emancipation is not to blame. The lower classes were much better behaved a few decades ago. Back then, lower classes still strove to become middle-class, middle-classes to become upper-class, upper-classes to distinguish thmselves from every new wave of arrivistes. All tried to assume the tastes and refinements of the established classes. Emancipation meant to uplift oneself above the class of one's birth, for each class. This whole idea of civilising oneself seems lost. I think there is an emancipation of stupidity, of barbarism, of uncouthness. People know they are and they take pride in it, cultivate it.
I like relaxed social manners and customs. A Hawaii shirt and sneakers are not inapropriate per se. I can also understand a simple lack of manners. What I will never get used to though, is people knowing they are a public nuisance and lacking every whiff of shame about it, even taking pride in it, in being a social imbecile.

Not to troll, but I think this problem has hit the Netherlands even harder than other places in Europe. The difference with Belgians and Germans is striking. In volume of speech, social restraint and modesty, dress manners, the Netherlands and it's immediate neighbours belong to different planets. Currently, there is not a more uncouth nation in the civilised world than the Netherlands. Social experiments gone horribly wrong? A social collapse of Dutch society, in the wake of it's political upheavals of the past few years? I don't know.