When Alison and I visited Charlotte, North Caroline several years ago, which is a tourist town, I was struck by the waitresses and waiters wed encounter. For the most part, they were so over the top with a greeting and faux enthusiasm that I was put off. Today, I read this in a Guardian in a review of Jean Paul Sartres legacy. It states How then should we approach Sartre’s writings in 2014? So much of his lifelong intellectual struggle and his work still seems pertinent. When we read the “Bad Faith” section of Being and Nothingness, it is hard not to be struck by the image of the waiter who is too ingratiating and mannered in his gestures, and how that image pertains to the dismal drama of inauthentic self-performance that we find in our culture today. Sartre turned down a Noble Prize for Literature in 1964. Perhaps waiters and waitresses today in tourist hotspots could turn down their faux enthusiasm and just be friendly. Makes me appreciate Alisons essay Waitress With an Axe to Grind.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 00:28:13 +0000