4 - Polish, police, polis

Summary

On 24 February 1989, referring to the relations between British higher education and the Conservative government of Mrs Thatcher, the ‘Times Higher Education Supplement published a leader entitled The Pitfalls of Rudeness’. It argued that in the management of higher education in Britain, an old public order of civilized discussion, aiming for at least the appearance of dialogue and consensus, had been replaced by a new order, that of diktat from on high:

Today politeness is out of fashion. Rudeness is chic. The prevailing ethos of British society is now of confrontation rather than accommodation. Edge not ease. In this the Government which has matched its spirit to that of the 1980s is both a trend setter and a follower of fashion. It is certainly very rude. It never says sorry. It is not interested in the other side of the question. It lectures rather than listens.

The nostalgia for a more democratic consensus is perhaps based on an illusion – do universities really listen rather than lecturing? But these remarks do have the merit of reminding one that politeness can be a political matter.

Such is the point of my title, based as it is on a word-play, a confusion of two similar, but unrelated word families. The first set is made up in English by the series: polish, polite, politeness, and in French: poli, polir, politesse. The second, stemming from the Greek polis, includes politics, policy and police, and in French politique, police, policer.