http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\11\04\story_4-11-2009_pg3_4
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
PURPLE PATCH: Rudeness is democratic -Emile Faguet
If the worship of incompetence reverberates with a jarring note through
our domestic morals, it has an effect hardly less harmful on the social
relations of men in the wider theatre of public life. We often ask why
politeness is out of date, and everyone replies with a smile: "This is
democratic." So it is, but why should it be? Montesquieu remarks that "to cast
off the conventions of civility is to seek a method for putting our faults at
their ease." He adds the rather subtle distinction that "politeness flatters
the vices of others, and civility prevents us from displaying our own. It is a
barrier raised by men to prevent them from corrupting each other." That which
flatters vice can hardly be called politeness, but is rather adulation.
Civility and politeness are only slightly different in degree; civility is cold
and very respectful, politeness has a suggestion of flattery. It graciously
draws into evidence the good qualities of our neighbour, not his failings, much
less his vices.
There is no doubt that civility and politeness are a delicate means of
showing respect to our fellow-men, and of communicating a wish to be respected
in turn. These things then are barriers, but barriers from which we derive
support, which separate and strengthen us, but which, though holding us apart,
do not keep us estranged from our neighbours.
It is also very true that if we release ourselves from these rules,
whether they are civility or politeness, we set our faults at liberty. The
basis of civility and politeness is respect for others and respect for
ourselves. As Abbé Barthélemy has very justly remarked: "In the first class of
citizens is to be found a spirit of decorum which makes it evident that men
respect themselves, and a spirit of politeness which makes it evident that they
also respect others." This is what Pascal meant by saying that respect is our
own inconvenience, and he explains it thus, that to stand when our neighbour is
seated, to remove our hat when he is covered, though trifling acts of courtesy,
are tokens of the efforts we would willingly make on his behalf if an
opportunity of being really serviceable to him presented itself.
Politeness is a mark of respect and a promise of devotion.
All this is anti-democratic, because democracy does not recognise any
superiority, and therefore has no sympathy with respect and personal devotion.
Respect to others involves a recognition from us that we are of less importance
than they, and politeness to an equal requires from us a courteous affectation
that we consider him as our superior. This is entirely contrary to the
democratic ideal, which asserts that there is no superiority anywhere. As for
pretending to treat your equal as though he were your superior, that involves a
double hypocrisy, because it requires a reciprocal hypocrisy on the part of
your neighbour. You praise his wit, only in order that he may return the
compliment.
Without, however, insisting on this point, democracy will argue that
politeness is to be deprecated, because it not only recognises but actually
creates superiority. It treats an equal as a superior, as though there were not
enough discrepancies already without inventing any more. It seems to imply that
if inequality did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it. It is
tantamount to proclaiming that there cannot be too much aristocracy. That is an
opinion which democracy cannot endure.
Considered as a promise of future devotion, politeness is equally
anti-democratic. The citizen owes no devotion to any person, he owes it only to
the community. It is no small matter to style yourself "your most humble
servant"; it means that you single out one man from among many others and
promise to serve him; it means that you acknowledge in him some natural or
social superiority, and according to democracy there are no superiorities,
social or natural, and if there were such a thing as natural superiority,
nature has no business to allow it. This is tantamount to proclaiming a form of
vassalage - a thing which is not to be tolerated.
As to the absence of politeness considered as "a means of giving free
play to one's feelings," we recognise that in one sense this also is
essentially democratic. The democrat is not proud of or pleased with his
faults; not at all; only ex hypothesi he does not believe in their existence. A
failing is an inferiority of one man in relation to another; the word itself
implies it; it means that something is lacking, that one man has a thing which
another has not. But all men are equal, therefore, argues the democrat, I have
no failing; therefore I need not try to conceal and control my alleged
failings, as they are at worst merely mannerisms, and are possibly virtues.
The democrat, in fact, like young men, like most women, and like all
human beings who have begun to think but do not think very profoundly, knows
his failings and assumes that they are virtues. This is very natural, for our
faults are the most conspicuous parts of our character, and when we are still
at the self-satisfied stage it is our faults that we cherish and admire.
Consequently, politeness, in that it consists in concealing our faults, is
intolerable to a man who is impatient to display qualities that to him appear
commendable and worthy. The usual reason why we do not correct our faults is
that we mistake them for qualities, and think that any practice which requires
their concealment must be quite absurdly tyrannical.
The democrat is therefore profoundly convinced of two things; first, that
all men are equal and that there is no such thing as inferiority or failing,
and secondly, that what men call faults are really natural characteristics of
great interest. He believes that faults are popular prejudices invented by
intriguers, priests, nobles and rulers, for their own base purposes to inspire
the poor with humility. He looks upon this sense of inferiority as a curb on
the people's power, all the more potent that it works from within and has a
paralysing effect on its energy. He is persuaded that, from this point of view,
politeness is an aristocratic instrument of tyranny.
This explains why, when the wave of democracy swept over France, it
brought with it a perfect frenzy of rudeness, all the more curious in a nation
remarkable for courtesy. It was an affirmation that, appearances
notwithstanding, neither superiorities nor excellences of human character had
any real existence.
Rudeness is democratic.
Auguste Emile Faguet (1847-1916) was a French literary critic and author.
He was selected to the French Academy in 1900. The above is an excerpt from his
book "The Cult of Incompetence" (1912)
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