E|C n. 44, 2025

The Ill-Mannered and the Art of Being Ill-Mannered

Edited by Alice Giannitrapani e Gianfranco Marrone (Università di Palermo)  

Bad manners are often lamented today, as though incivility were more pervasive than ever. We frequently find ourselves irritated by certain unbearable behaviors – on trains, at the dinner table, in the classroom, even in bed. Just as often, we hear critics, willingly or not, denouncing a decline in civility compared to times past. Once we spoke of the "civilization of the image"; now, it seems, we must contend with the "incivility of bad manners." But is this truly a contemporary phenomenon, easily blamed on the usual "new" communication technologies? And what, if anything, can the science of meaning offer to our understanding of it?
Manners, good or bad, involve evaluative judgments about behavior. Such judgments are not only aesthetic – assessing the appropriateness of an act – but also ethical, measuring its alignment with a shared or contested system of values (hence the distinction between "good" and "bad" manners). Incivility is therefore a political matter as much as an interpersonal one: it presupposes a recognized standard, a norm from which the ill-mannered individual deviates. Identifying with certain codes of conduct fosters a sense of belonging and collective identity; breaking away from them, conversely, can generate alternative ways of living, following the classic principle of internal conformity and external differentiation. The ill-mannered individual is, by definition, eccentric – a-normative in statistical terms, diverging from the behavior of the majority. They stand out, either by excess – speaking too loudly, dressing for an informal meeting as if attending a wedding, giving gifts so extravagant as to cause embarrassment – or by deficiency – whispering when clarity is needed, arriving at a wedding dressed for work, failing to offer thanks when courtesy demands it. Sometimes, the ill-mannered are unaware of their missteps and thus become objects of ridicule – or, in their spontaneous lack of self-consciousness, may even elicit empathy. Other times, incivility is deliberate: flouting conventions to assert oneself as an outsider, a rebellious nonconformist, or as a sign of emancipation from outdated moral standards. Public figures, particularly in popular culture, often cultivate their image through acts, clothing, or language that intentionally violate social norms.
This produces a varied landscape of roles associated with breaches of decorum: the cafone – the coarse individual unaware of the norms of civility; the parvenu – the new money whose ostentation betrays a lack of refinement; the social climber; desperate to seem "naturally" elegant but constantly at risk of exposing their insecurity. Such figures are defined through contrast: the wrong behavior stands out against the right one; outdated behavior against progressive; vulgarity against refinement.
Bad manners can thus arise from different causes – ignorance, deliberate provocation against the mainstream, or popular identity, where incivility is embraced and celebrated, as in certain criminal subcultures. From the perspective of others, responses to ill-mannered behavior can vary: at times judged aesthetically, at others ethically or politically. Interactions may shift accordingly: an act of deference might be met with rudeness, expressing disdain for a form of politeness seen as excessive or insincere; a vulgar gesture by a singer on stage might be read as an emblem of coolness.
Studying these dynamics around incivility can thus reveal the strategic rationalities underpinning individual and collective behaviors.
Ultimately, disputes over manners reflect deeper conflicts between value systems, showing that standards of politeness are always relative to time and place. What is considered polite in one culture or era may be deemed improper or even offensive in another: eating with one's hands, for instance; displays of gallantry, which today may risk being perceived as sexist; or the recent trend of "shoes-free" households.
Manners – good or bad – are always co-textual: shaped by the cultural reference, but also by the specific place and situation. In the 1990s, an advertising campaign in Italy – and similarly in France – famously proclaimed “It only happens at McDonald's”, legitimizing a momentary suspension of decorum, tolerated – and even encouraged – precisely because it was framed as spatially and temporally contained: a kind of cathartic carnival that, ultimately, reaffirmed the value of everyday civility. Similarly, prohibitions against singing at the table, wearing gemstones in the morning, or men wearing hats indoors illustrate how the rules of decorum are deeply context-dependent – mandatory in some settings, irrelevant in others.
This issue of E/C (No. 44) is dedicated to exploring these themes, offering manners as a crucial lens through which to understand social life.

Some of the possible lines of research to be explored are as follows:

- Pop culture, media figures, literary characters, and advertising narratives: from Molière’s The Bourgeois Gentleman to Mowgli in The Jungle Book, from the Blues Brothers to the recent Barilla commercial celebrating the "scarpetta" (sopping up sauce with bread), the media offers a wide range of portraits of the ill-mannered—as well as narratives of conversion, where the ill-mannered become well-mannered, and vice versa.
- Politicians: Whether carefully crafted public personas or unintentional breaches of protocol leading to potential diplomatic incidents – or even poorly worded posts by political movements – the contemporary public sphere appears increasingly shaped by the phenomenon of political incorrectness.
- Animals and children: Often likened to one another due to their proximity to a state of nature, both are seen as requiring "training" through pedagogical models that vary – and sometimes contradict one another: from strict discipline to permissiveness, from behaviorist approaches to Montessori-inspired ones, shifting notions of education inevitably reshape conceptions of ill-mannered behavior as well.
- Spaces of incivility – or spaces that encourage incivility: McDonald's, as previously mentioned, but also more generally any informal venue where behaviors normally deemed unacceptable are, at least ostensibly, tolerated (stadiums, nightclubs…), only to give rise to new forms of behavioral codification (the Isle of Wight Festival?). This also includes spatially specific forms of incivility: in theaters, gyms, beaches, and so on.
- Objects and accessories: From large crucifixes worn as jewelry, to chewing gum, sunglasses perched on one's head even at night, men wearing hats indoors, and, of course, smartphones used in cinemas or at the dinner table—how objects are used can reveal degrees of (mis)education. Certain objects or technologies, when first introduced, are themselves often marked as impolite or inappropriate (such as mobile phones in the late 1990s).
- Comparisons across time and space: Exploring how forms of incivility have transformed, persisted, or even developed paradoxical meanings across different historical and cultural contexts.
- Modes of expressing incivility: Analyzing the verbal, gestural, somatic, and acoustic registers through which inappropriate behavior is communicated.

Bibliographic References

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Fabbri, P., 2021, Biglietti di invito, Milano, Bompiani.
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Goody, E.N., ed., 1978, Questions and politeness, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
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Deadline for submission of final essays: 20 August 2025

Publication: November 2025

Papers should have a maximum length of 40000 characters and may be submitted together with an abstract in English of a maximum of 1000 characters.

Send proposals to:

alice.giannitrapani@unipa.it
gianfranco.marrone@unipa.it

Download the Call for Papers 44 (.PDF)