Saturday, 22 January 2011

If you enter a bathroom where a woman is standing naked... how do you display true tact?


In his recent LRB article on Wikileaks, "Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks" (recommended), Slavoj Žižek (2011) answers:
In Baisers volés, Delphine Seyrig explains to her young lover the difference between politeness and tact: ‘Imagine you inadvertently enter a bathroom where a woman is standing naked under the shower. Politeness requires that you quickly close the door and say, “Pardon, Madame!”, whereas tact would be to quickly close the door and say: “Pardon, Monsieur!”’ It is only in the second case, by pretending not to have seen enough even to make out the sex of the person under the shower, that one displays true tact.

4 comments:

  1. Gwyneth22 January 2011 at 09:56

    I would be very impressed if a man thought to make the second comment, for tactful reasons, in a split-second moment of surprise.

    Although the times I have been surprised in the shower - it has been I who spoke/bellowed. "Get out!" Ha.

    ReplyDelete
  2. t of Cha22 January 2011 at 09:58

    "bellowed" :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Donna22 January 2011 at 16:57

    In this case, politeness is far better than tact. For with tact, he denies her a comment of her beauty. With politeness, he is respectful yet acknowledges her beauty and sexuality.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Asian Cha22 January 2011 at 17:04

    Irène made a similar point by asking the question "but would that make the woman in the shower feel bad for not looking distinctly attractive and feminine enough?!"

    ReplyDelete