Niceness is overrated
Via a commenter at Jerry’s, a salient remark by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker in 2002, in a Talk of the Town piece on Niceness.
The problem, of course, is that niceness is overrated as a virtue. Many cultures are nice. The Southern antebellum aristocracy was marvellously well-mannered; its members left tasteful calling cards, entertained gracefully, and conducted their personal affairs with the utmost discretion. But they had few other virtues; in fact, it was the practice of niceness that helped to keep other values, such as fairness, at bay. Fairness sometimes requires that surfaces be disturbed, that patterns of cordiality be broken, and that people, rudely and abruptly, be removed from their place. Niceness is the enemy of fairness.
He may have derived that from Mark Twain – it’s related to what Twain called Sir Walter disease. The South was rotten with delusions about chivalry and other such nonsense while it wouldn’t have recognized justice if it had bitten them on the ass.
Wow, you learn a new thing every day. This got me searching and came up with:
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/civilwar.htm
There’s a variety of grass called Sir Walter that is advertised on the TV. I wonder if it is a lawn that uses niceness to cover the inequality of other grass types?
http://www.sirwalter.com.au/
[…] Venom, Vom And All Things Vile… Posted by bensix under Rhetoric Leave a Comment This is worth amplifying, and not just because it’s a valuable thought from Malcolm […]
Or if it burned their cities to the ground after they committed treason. Hypothetically.
The Antebellum South was actually riddled with interpersonal and collective violence, and not just that directed at slaves. It was, indeed, possibly one of the most violent societies of the modern era. See David Grimsted’s American Mobbing, 1828-1861: Toward Civil War [OUP, 1998]. Mob-rule was endemic, especially when combined with fear of outsiders who might be ‘abolitionists’ – an all-purpose term that we might recognise in the modern ‘terrorist’. ‘Duelling’ was equally common, in a context when ‘duelling’ sometimes meant smashing someone over the head from behind…
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by PZ Myers, Wayne de Villiers, Oscar Vitorino, Michael De Dora and others. Michael De Dora said: I know a bunch of reasonable jerks. Does that make reason overrated? RT @OpheliaBenson Niceness is overrated http://dlvr.it/DHNcX […]
Being nosy I can’t help but see that someone called Michael De Dora has claimed that…
If the proposition was “reason is enough to convince anyone” then yes, because just as people adopt a pose of affability while doing great harm, people can adopt a pose of reason while being very unreasonable. Rational debate is thus made irrelevant.
We can see this same process in diplomat speak (and as brought to public attention by wikileaks). Very polite ane measured words are used at the table, but are a veneer of lies.
Dave – quite. I haven’t read the book you cite but I have read others. One thing I learned (I don’t remember where) is that the South was also very under-educated. A much smaller proportion of the population (the white population, of course) got higher education than in the North. The South was like Sparta: men were trained as soldiers. The reason is the same in both cases: they lived as a minority among people they were forcibly subjecting. They were, in short, terrified. There’s a myth that the South was all grand and genteel and refined, all Ashley Wilkes, but in fact it was thuggish in the extreme.
That’s the point of the Grangerfords in Huck Finn. Lots of airs and graces on the surface, and kind in their way, but ultimately a pack of brutes and brutalized women. Talibanish. Sparta; Mississippi; Somalia; it’s all the same thing.
Many years ago MAD Magazine did a point-by-point analysis of typical hero-vs-villain movie dialogue and discovered (tongue-in-cheek of course) that the audience had it backwards: villains were the virtuous and polite “good guys” and the heroes were models of everything wrong. “Ah, Captain Intrepid, I’m so pleased to see that you’ve dropped in to see my little death ray demonstration. I do hope you find it enjoyable, I took such care to make your restraints as comfortable as possible.” “The hell I will!” etc.
I’ve been thinking recently that maybe gnu atheism would be more acceptable to its critics if it became less aggressive — and instead tried for passive aggressive. Instead of debate points or point-and-laugh, we could respond to religious and pseudoscientific nonsense with raised eyebrows, stifled smiles, and kindly-meant changes of subject, all why darting amused little glances at bystanders.
“Oh, wait … you’re not joking? You’re serious? I mean … well, yes. That’s just fine. No, really, that’s fine. Angels and miracles. God and morality. Science and religion not in conflict. Oh, my. Right. Heh heh. Interesting. Well …that’s really rather sweet, you know. I certainly won’t say a word against it. I’m sure we all have our little … well, none of us are perfect, are we? The important thing is you mean well. Really.”
They want nice? Oh, we’ll give them nice. We’ll give them ‘nice’ till they beg for good old-fashioned outspoken honesty.
<i>Sparta; Mississippi; Somalia; it’s all the same thing.</i>
Yes but did the good ol’ boys and Somalian thugs wear togas and scream ‘This is Alabama/Mogadishu!’ when disposing of some unwanted emissary?
Yeah, the Bond villains call him Mr Bond, don’t they? The British have long complained how Hollywood villains are disproportionately portrayed by British actors, but they are yer suave, elegant villains, not dishevelled thugs.
I find that the angrier I am, the more polite and formal I become.
The Alan Rickman ploy. Brilliant, Sastra.
That is very. . . interesting, Miss Benson. I have long observed your activities with some fascination. You intrigue me. (Imagine the Anthony Hopkins delivery.)
You have to remember that in the Antebellum South discourtesy between whites could result in either a beating or a duel depending on social class…
Much the same applied in Georgian England which is where the southerners got their manners.
And arguably not just Bond villains but men of violence in general tend to observe elaborate codes of courtesy amongst themselves (even though they may not immediately appear as such to casual observers who may just see swearing and jostling) – the possible negative consequences of showing ‘disrespect’ are very high indeed.
This point also does inform the discussion of English rudeness in the other post down below – cheery working class folk and people in smaller towns and self-contained suburbs have to be polite (BTW their is a reason that politeness is rooted in polis) because there are some potential negative consequences to not being so – middle class assholes in London or New York can shove you aside as they race for taxis or trains and let heavy doors slam in your face because they can.