After a Blankenese shipowner had licked the back of her hand extensively, mistaking it for a perfectly formed hand kiss, the wife of an Austrian diplomat leaned towards her husband and said: “Remind me to pack a towel next time.” Etiquette, manners, rules of conduct, a wide field.
And terribly complex. Traditional manners and customs from courtly, patriarchal epochs meet the sensitivities of the digital age. Nowhere in everyday life in the 21st century do the passages of time intersect so blatantly as in the regularity of social interaction, nowhere are the upheavals of our time so evident.
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