All across history, especially in written records, we can distinguish a very clear barrier between formality and informality, whether it is in language, dressing code, behaviours and manners, or situations. Rarely, if ever, we find no distinction between those two systems. As examples, we find that in Ancient Egypt there were two different kinds of writing, the hyroglific and the demotican, the first one for heightened uses, such as religious purposes, and the other one for everyday content, such as accounting.

This formal-informal distinction also carries within itself a form of class division. Higher classes, the wealthy, rulers, and so on, make use of the formal manners, whilst the informal registry is mostly associated with inculture and lower classes. In fact, perhaps this social division is the source for the existence of formality, being that the behaviours, languages, and fashion favoured by the mightier streams of society. The higher classes of society tend to make use of more refined accessories and language to show their wealth and power. Their clothes are made by the most exclusive taylors out of the best available materials, and their language is filled with their finest vocabulary in order to impress their fellows.

However, this shows that formalisms exist prior to their choice by the higher classes, as they’re simply comprised of the most refined of each sector: the most precise and cultured of vocabulary, the most expensive and radiant of clothings, the most elegant of manners and behaviours, and so on. The only reason why those are mostly seen in higher classes is because those have the time and resources to afford them, or to put them in action. If you have to work for much of your time as a peasant, or building a pyramid, you don’t have time to develop a higher vocabulary through reading, or much interest in fancier but less practical clothings and manners. Formality just isn’t practical for everyday work.

Regardless of it’s origin, this division between the formal and informal has been clearly present in all of recorded history, together with its connection with class division, whether those are economical, social, or political classes. It’s also clear that what we consider to be formal today is different from what was considered formal a century or longer ago, though, ironically, the change isn’t a matter of fashion changes. What was formal years ago, whether it’s five years ago or two hundred, still is formal today, and what is informal nowadays, would’ve been so in the past as well. The change has been more of a flexibilization of what we consider formal to include things that in the olden days would’ve been taken as informal.

We can see this change very clearly, as it has happened not in several generations of changes, but rather quickly in the last century. Fifty years ago standard notions for behaviours and fashion would match what we consider rather formal today. Wearing shirts, ties, and suits was not only a thing for businessmen and white collar workers, but a thing for the everyday as well, being an actually standard set of clothes for men; same with women’s fashion. Nowadays, those sort of clothes are only visible in financial districts and office buildings, not even in most formal events and fancy locations.

Our every day manners and language have become less formal as well. Swearing and cursing is now largely accepted by most speakers, and our vocabulary has consistently shrunk decade after decade, whilst slang words and fillers have a larger and larger weight in our speech. Those words falling in disuse have generally become considered to be for more proper and formal use, which they didn’t use to be a few decades ago. Our manners have become more and more lax too, accepting behaviours that would’ve been considered even offensive not that long ago.

This tendence of cultures to develop in favour of relaxation of formality isn’t new, and in fact has been steadily happening all across history. We can see this in language, where languages tend to evolve accepting as formal what would’ve been vulgar previously. A good example for this is Latin in the Roman languages of Europe. All modern Roman languages of Europe have come from Latin in some extent, but not from classic or formal Latin language directly, but instead from what was referred to as Vulgar Latin, together with the local dialects of the different regions.

This phenomenon is due to perhaps the fact that informal contexts are the most common in the everyday lives of the vast majority of the population, thus they have a larger overall use, becoming accepted over time. This acceptation could also come from the rise in social rank of members of lower classes into higher ones, whether this happens through military career, social progress, or economical success. Those individuals newly incorporated to the powerful segments of society bring with themselves the language and manners that they have been raised by, therefore incorporating them into their new social environment.

On the other hand, there is also the possibility of “the coolness of informality”. Being “cool” or fashionable, is connected to behaving dettached to the reality around oneself, unimpressed, a behaviour often favoured by refined classes, such as Renaissance Italy’s sprezzatura. We could consider the use of informal manners and vulgarisms as a form of being unimpressed by the formalities of high society, a reaction that could be considered “cool” by many. In other words, the loss of formalisms might be driven by a matter of fashion. It may be just trendy to wear fancy clothes with not much care, as if it were a matter of rebellion against the accepted norm that many perceive as cool. It is indeed true that rebellion is closely related to coolness perception. Revolutionary leaders, breaking the rules, outlaws… They’ve all got a halo of mystery and interest around them, they’re all sort of fashionable, they’re rather cool.

Which is the likeliest explanation though? When we see all of those modern celebrities in comparison to the ones of fifty years ago, what has changed? The Beatles, which were the largest music celebrities just a generation ago, would perform their shows in clothes that we would consider very formal and serious, singing in jackets and ties, whilst today’s superstars barely wear anything but tracksuits and t-shirts. It would be uniamginable for celebrities contemporary to The Beatles to make use of the manners and language that celebrities employ today. If we look closely to the variation of those concepts, we can see how it has been more of a “rebellion against established standards” than anything else. In the past few decades we’ve been consistenty breaking barriers and taboos, getting rid of many prejudices and achieving newer levels of liberal thinking. Thus the answer is clear: being formal is just uncool over time.

As it is a permanent development over time that has been happening for hundreds of years progressively, it’s hard to believe that this is going to stop. In fact, most likely, it is inevitable. However, despite regarding this phenomenon as the development of a more and more liberal society, is such a thing actually true? Is this liberalization? Should we be proud of it? If we understand liberalism as a political movement that pursues the elimination of legal and economic barriers between individuals in the search for equality of rights and obligations, we certainly live in a more liberal society today than in any other point in history, and this is quite related to the loss of formality we’ve been discussing.

Nevertheless, social stereotypes remain in our society, and they’re exactly the same ones that two centuries ago or more. We still undertake many due to their clothing and manners, considering them stupid, incultured, and other disrespectful attributes. Again, it isn’t that formality has vanished, it just has changed it’s sets. We would relate those adjectives to other sets of behaviours and styles, but, essentially, there would be a set of them that we would take as inadequate and vulgar. In this sense then, our liberalization has spectacularly failed, being it’s achievements plainly cosmethic.

Perhaps it is necessary for our understanding of society the existence of a formal-informal division, and its changes over generations are simply a matter of trends. It’s now trendy to wear jeans; perhaps they’ll be the formal clothes of the next generation. Maybe tracksuits are the suits of the 22nd century. Formality seems in decay, but it’s all just the evolution of fashion.