The Decline of Etiquette and the Rise of ‘Boundaries’
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In 1950, family dinner in America was a minefield of social rules. According to one etiquette film from that year, children were expected to arrive promptly with hair combed and faces scrubbed; daughters should have changed from school clothes to “something more festive.” Most important, conversation topics had to be chosen with care. Discussing financial issues, the narrator declared, was a hard no; so were long personal anecdotes, the mention of “unpleasant occurrences,” and any references to “disagreeable news.” “With your own family you can relax, be yourself,” the off-camera voice assured viewers. “Just be sure it’s your best self.”
For centuries, strict social norms dictated what people could politely talk about—and, consequently, how much they knew about one, the 1950 guide, had begun to resemble artifacts, detritus of a socially rigid era. Conversational taboos were falling away. Etiquette manuals had lost their cultural cachet. Sexuality was being more openly discussed, thanks in part to the sexual revolution of the ’60s and the efforts of HIV/AIDS activists in the ’80s and ’90s. And books such as that frankly with mental illness were a new, raw form of memoir. In 2022, the idea that we should carefully control what personal information we share—and take in—might seem outdated, even dystopian.
