America, and Americans, are generally a rough-hewn lot. We have a few dignified ceremonies — among them presidential inaugurations or funerals — but otherwise not many elaborate, refined, polite events. We are, thankfully, unburdened with the fancy pageantry of Britain. Britain, though, was no match for Louis XIV, whose court was the very model of elaborate, intricate politeness. The Sun King was no doubt polite and refined, but what of France? A second-rate economic power to Britain, France was torn by strife less than eighty years after his passing. All the while, America was growing, shaking off colonial bonds, and thereafter on the way to reaching from one side of the continent to another.
Politeness helped Louis XIV and his guests, but was useless for the progress, welfare, and success of his stagnant nation. Politeness (as so many have observed) was just a means of social restriction, and a way to stifle criticism.
That’s not an American trait: we were a nation born of vigorous writers, pamphleteers, and robust debate. Now, these centuries later were are a nation of newspapers, radio, television, and — here’s my favorite — bloggers. There may be a few people in this town’s stagnant, atrophied, cloistered clique who find this website upsetting, and, well, impolite.
That’s too bad — because when you turn away from serious inquiry and robust debate, you turn your back on the American tradition you have inherited.
In the end, the town clique only use the idea of ‘politeness’ or ‘optimism’ as ways to deflect legitimate criticism, and as a mask for its inability to offer principled, sensible, honest defenses of its often selfish, short-sighted actions.