Is impertinence a thing?

[pmccarthy]

Does impertinence still exist? It presupposes that there is someone of a higher station who should be respected, and that seems no longer to be the case. Can a child be impertinent to a parent, a pupil to a teacher, or a journalist to a Prime Minister? If we are now all socially equal, Jack is as good as his master and your opinion counts the same as mine, then there can be no impertinence. So when did the change occur? I seem to remember impertinence being harshly criticised when I was young.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Very insightful post, PM. Perhaps a belief in impertinence has gone underground. It lives on in other forms. Authority figures regularly resist good advice by belittling its source. It's seen in politics, business, the workplace and the military. It's also rife throughout academia, where anyone challenging the existing, comfortable paradigm cops it.

 

Last night I watched a fascinating challenge to the orthodox history of NZ. Despite the wealth of hard-won evidence, it seems that these upstarts are being impertinent.