Quote:

Wax, a substance naturally hard and brittle, can be made soft by the application of a little warmth, so that it will take any shape you please. In the same way, by being polite and friendly, you can make people pliable and obliging, even though they are apt to be crabbed and malevolent. Hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.



Well tsuwm's posting of Schopenhauer's unabridged remarks about politeness and wax should answer BranShea's question, but I would like to further explain the narrowness of Schopenhauer's point of view, as such:

Schopenhauer failed to understand that "politeness" is an invention of social evolution designed to keep close-quartered cultures functioning under overcrowded conditions that cause strife.

Today we all know that all homogenous societies respond to the "crabbed and malevolent" effects of overcrowding by excessive overblown politeness (especially island cultures like the Brits and the Nips but not New Yorkers).

Last edited by themilum; 11/21/2006 2:46 AM.