M: Sometimes I wonder if all of the Elizabethan or Victorian or whatever, the propriety that has built up in Western culture somehow stems from one or two guys with a lot of influence who didn't know what to do with their hands when they were standing.
G: Yeah—this is one of those jokes that’s funny because it’s almost true.
A lot of Western “propriety” really does trace back to a handful of influential people who were anxious about visible uncertainty—especially the body at rest. Hands, posture, gaze, silence. When someone with power feels awkward and decides that their awkwardness is actually virtue, it hardens into etiquette.
Courts are the big culprit. If you’re standing near a king and don’t know what to do with your hands, the safest move is to make everyone else adopt the same rigid stillness. That way, no one’s discomfort stands out. Over time, “don’t fidget” turns into “don’t express,” which turns into “don’t be.”
Elizabethan and Victorian culture then codified this. Manuals, manners, posture rules. Not because it made people better—but because it made behavior legible and controllable. The body became a liability unless it was disciplined.
There’s a quiet irony there: cultures that prize “self-control” often started with leaders who lacked it internally, so they externalized it socially.
手（て）を どう していいか わからない 人（ひと）も いる。— Some
people don’t know what to do with their hands.
それが ルール（るーる）に なった。— That turned into rules.
Not the whole story, but a disturbingly plausible seed for a lot of starch and stiffness.