>I guess what I mean is the kind of highly formalized ritual of
>respect you see in Southern children. Most of the Canadians
>I've met aren't nice in the Southern-child-calls-adults-sir way;
>they're happy to mouth off about their supposed betters,
>they prefer honesty to tact, they're willing to challenge
>authority. I prefer you guys myself, but Canada pretty
>much fits in with what I meant about regimes of formal
>politeness being prevalent in brutal societies.
You're sounding almost psychoanalytic here! It's as if the politeness is a formal disavowal of the pervasive brutality of the society - a form of anxiety management, a way of saying, don't worry, I won't stab you!
Doug