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Citation: Harper's Magazine Oct 1998, v297, n1781, p12(4)
Author: Lapham, Lewis H.
Title: Members only.(satire on careerism and social
climbing)(Editorial) by Lewis H. Lapham
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COPYRIGHT 1998 Harper's Magazine Foundation
Only God helps the badly dressed.
--Spanish proverb
As the editor of a magazine with offices in New York I talk to a good many
young people newly arrived in the city with the hope of finding a career--if
not in the literary trades then somewhere in Wall Street or television--and
over the last ten or fifteen years I've listened to their questions turn
nervous and cold. A generation ago the graduates of the country's well-to-do
universities might have mentioned the name of a dead poet, or asked about the
prospect of adding purpose to their lives, or said something about truth and
its untimely betrayals. The philosophical questions appear to have gone
missing in action, rendered futile by the prices asked for New York real
estate (apartments no bigger than jail cells renting for $1,500 a month) and
by the six years of President Clinton's glib smiling in the face of justice
and Kenneth Starr.
Every now and then I come across a wandering idealist intent upon saving an
orphan or a whale, but mostly I meet people to whom the fervors of social
protest seem superfluous or quaint. They don't talk about changing the system,
only about the means of improving their access to it, and, they smile with
their mouths but not their eyes. Impatient with metaphors and bored by
sentiment, eager to advance the token of their lives around the Monopoly board
of the standard American success, they ask for introductions to Woody Allen
and the maitre d' at Balthazar, about the hope of meeting Peter Jennings and
where do the editors of the Conde Nast magazines go expensively to lunch.
I wish I thought the questions misplaced, but even the dullest students of
the American economic scene haven't failed to notice the widening chasm
between rich and poor or the increasingly obvious disparities between the
civic-minded theory taught in school and the profit-making facts posted on the
walls of the news and entertainment media. As was true in the early years of
the American republic, the country is governed by a commercial oligarchy, but
the oligarchy has become so all-encompassing, and the broad mass of the
American people so dependent upon its corporate whim--for work, pension,
medical care, club membership, views of Europe--that the business of getting
ahead in the world comes to resemble the eighteenth-century practice of
"obtaining a place at court."
The candidates for a life of privilege and ease offer themselves as
apprentices to the art of self-advancement, eager to learn the bows and
curtsies appropriate to what both George Washington and Benjamin Franklin
would have recognized as the dance of grace and favor. Impressed by their zeal
but not always able to address their concerns about the finer points of
etiquette, I've made notes over the last few years of their most frequently
asked questions. The notes take the form of simple precepts and helpful
suggestions, and although the indicated lines of approach don't guarantee
anybody's safe arrival on the sunny heights of an American success, at least
they encourage a correct posture and a proper tone. The list is by no means
complete (nothing about pets, no mention of eye shadow), but I like to think
that any supplementary questions can be answered by glancing at the jewelry of
the other people in the room.
CHOOSING COMPANIONS
Seek out the acquaintance of people richer and more important than
yourself, and never take an interest in people who cannot do you any favors.
The rule admits of no exceptions. When Henry Kissinger was secretary of
state, he put it plainly to a woman seated next to him at a Washington dinner
party. "A great nation," he said, "is like an ambitious hostess. It cannot
afford to invite unsuccessful people to its parties."
In the event that you become either rich or famous, you may collect friends
in the way that Nike acquires prize athletes or Philip II of Spain collected
dwarfs.
THE NORM OF MEDIOCRITY
A blessing in disguise. Why we're all standing here on the lawn in
Southampton, talking to Steven Spielberg and Hillary Clinton about Bosnia and
the shiitake mushrooms. If the world arranged itself along the lines set forth
by men and women of genius, how would it be possible to elect a president or
bestow an Academy Award? Who could anybody invite to dinner?
Take to heart the words of the late Paul D. Cravath, patriarch of the New
York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, who was speaking to a quorum of
young and ambitious lawyers: "Brilliant intellectual powers are not essential;
too much imagination, too much wit, too great cleverness, too facile fluency,
if not leavened by a sound sense of proportion, are quite as likely to impede
success as to promote it. The best clients are apt to be afraid of those
qualities."
Never show the proofs of intelligence or taste. The effect is as
self-defeating as being seen to think on television.
THE SERVILE SMILE
The smile must be flexible yet firm, conveying principled approval as well
as eager assent. Think of a waiter in a Las Vegas restaurant bringing Bruce
Willis a lobster or a blonde, or Barbara Walters interviewing a celebrity
whose net worth exceeds $40 million. Of course you wish to do your patron's
bidding (who in his right mind would not?), but, more important, you
understand the brilliance of the word, the rightness of the act. The lips
should be slightly parted, the head tilted expectantly upward, the expression
one of barely suppressed amazement.
The smile shows to its best effect when accompanied by small exclamations
of spontaneous joy: "How beautiful!" "How wise!"
TOPICS OF CONVERSATION
Guests invited to small dinners for President Reagan received a telephone
call on the afternoon prior to the event in which it was explained by one of
Reagan's social advisers that the President preferred the conversation
"light," preferably confined to sports, gossip, and movies. President Bush
substituted geography for movies, and President Clinton substitutes policy
analysis for all movies except Saving Private Ryan, but otherwise the list of
topics remains constant.
The mention of money in large enough denominations always commands respect.
If you wish to attract the attention of the company at a cocktail or dinner
party, usually it is sufficient to speak of your recent encounter with a sum
in excess of $500 million. Perhaps you have fresh news of an expensive divorce
or a merger of telephone companies said to amount to $34 billion. You need not
know any of the individuals privy to the deal. For a brief and luminous
moment, the money achieves the stature of celebrity, almost as if it were
Robert Redford standing in a circle of light, and your audience, whether of
corporation presidents or university professors allegedly Marxist, will admire
you for your sense of propriety, your good taste, your dedication to America's
family values, your choice of friends.
GOSSIP
Don't make the mistake of thinking gossip trivial or unimportant. It is the
means of putting clothes on money and the sine qua non of any conversation
that promises to advance your career. Like a display of lace or cufflinks, a
show of lurid anecdote (about the corporate chairman's shoe fetish or the
politician's cat) demonstrates the range of one's acquaintance among the
company of the great. Do not dwell on the details. You wish to convey an air
of knowingness, a proof of being in the loop, and if you attempt too elaborate
a narrative, you run the risk of getting it wrong. Somebody else in the room
(the corporate chairman's mistress, the politician's lawyer) might have better
information, and you will be seen as a mere reader of cheap newspapers.
SLANDER
Rumor tinged with malice and therefore the most precious form of gossip,
especially when smeared on the names of people who happen to be rich,
good-looking, or successful. If a famous person can be made to look as weak
and stupid as oneself, the weight of one's own envy and resentment becomes
easier to bear. When invited to spend a weekend with important journalists or
movie stars at Martha's Vineyard, it is considered polite to bring four items
of unpublished slander in lieu of a house gift or a bottle of wine.
AT THE PRESS PREVIEW
The correct attitude is grateful and abject. The ladies and gentlemen of
the fourth estate open and close the doors to the lighted rooms of celebrity,
and they must never--repeat, never--be made to look foolish.
When talking to Ted Koppel, the wise careerist imagines himself speaking to
the late Charles de Gaulle or to one of the stones on Easter Island. In the
presence of Geraldo Rivera the attribution of gravitas is more difficult, but
the awkwardness sometimes can be overcome by thinking of Geraldo as a
Renaissance prince in a portrait painted by Bronzino, his ignorance redeemed
by the dignity of an ermine cloak and the lilt of a velvet hat.
CLICHES
Make unsparing use of them. The empty word is the correct word. Contrary to
the opinion of snobbish New York intellectuals, the agreeable murmur of cliche
is always preferable to the expression of strong feeling, which is an
embarrassment. Think of waterfalls in the lobbies of Hyatt hotels. Practice
the sound by reading aloud the essays of Roger Rosenblatt or the editorial
page of the Washington Post.
DINNER PARTIES
A truly fashionable dinner party ends at the moment when all the guests
have arrived and everybody has been seen or not seen. Once attendance has been
taken, the rest of the evening is superfluous. The guests might as well be
spun sugar blown into the shape of Venetian glass and filled with lemon
mousse.
AT THE CONFERENCE
Fit the tone of your presentation to the comfort of the accommodations. If
the sponsors have gone to considerable trouble and expense (handsome views of
the mountains or the sea, a first-class dining experience, aerobics classes,
monogrammed golf balls, horseback riding, etc.), you can safely endorse the
urgent cry for social reform, the fierce statement of uncompromising
principle, the call to revolution. The luxury of the setting already has
decided the issue in favor of the status quo, and your opinion will be
understood as decorative, like rapping at Lincoln Center.
If on the other hand you find yourself in second-class surroundings (not
enough towels, views of a parking lot, no chocolate on the pillow), your words
most likely will be accepted at par value. They should be muffled and opaque,
available to at least four interpretations and five apologies.
At conferences that offer a choice between the tennis and the rafting trip,
choose the rafting trip. Drifting downstream encourages a pleasant state of
passivity and eliminates the risk of a careless or impolitic aggression.
MEETINGS
A good meeting is one at which nothing happens. The work already has been
done by the staff, and the participants read from scripts like those given to
the good shepherds in a nursery-school Christmas pageant. Sit erect, second
all the motions, remember everybody's name.
FLATTERY
Comparable to suntan lotion or moisturizing cream. It cannot be too often
or too recklessly applied.
The novice careerist might think that very important people (movie stars,
corporation presidents, secretaries of state, etc.) grow tired of hearing
themselves praised. The presumption is false. Important people listen to
little else except praise, and they tend to regard all other forms of speech
as un-American.
Never miss a cue for the mandatory compliment, no matter how hackneyed or
insincere. Hesitation implies doubt, which is insulting. The lizard eye of
greatness closes as silently and abruptly as the lights going down on a failed
play.
WORKING THE ROOM
Don't go to the room; let the room come to you. Too much moving around
implies anxiety and need, which in turn suggest an unhappy comparison to
Mortimer Zuckerman or an undernourished ferret. Stand quietly somewhere
between the foyer and the buffet table, and try for an appearance as warm and
obliging as the toasted cheese.
BOOKS AND AUTHORS
A good author is a rich author, and a rich author is a good author. The
demonstrated capacity to make money, as if by court order, confers the stamp
of genius.
Any book that you keep on a shelf for longer than four months you may
presume to have read. The aging process makes the author's name familiar
enough to drop with confidence into a conversation about capitalism or the
Balkans. If you happen to see the author on a television talk show, or if you
encounter his or her name in a gossip column, you may claim acquaintance with
the book after only two months.
CONSCIENCE
No matter what crimes a man may have committed, or how cynically a woman
may have debased her talent or her friends, variations on the answer "Yes, but
I did it for the money" satisfy all but the most tiresome objections. Have a
drink, count your money, swing a new golf club, admire your name in the
papers. Who will hold you to account?
If still pursued by doubts, take comfort in the dilemma of a man who wishes
to acquire a reputation for villainy. What, as a practical matter, could the
fellow do? He could deal in child pornography or indulge a taste for
cannibalism. Offenses of lesser magnitude merely invite the usual offers from
Rupert Murdoch and the Disney Company.
THE RESUME
The greatest of the American literary forms. Construe your life as a
display counter at Bergdorf Goodman, and aspire to the effrontery of Richard
Darman, a Washington careerist of the first rank who moved from the White
House staff to the Treasury Department in the autumn of 1985 and took with him
a letter of praise signed by President Reagan and written by himself.
Handsomely framed on the wall of his new office, the letter awarded to its
author all the credit for all the great works of Reagan's first term in
office:
"Your abilities, your intelligence, and your willingness to work long hours
are well known in Washington because they have been your trademark for many
years. With such an extraordinary combination of talents, there is no question
in my mind that you could have been a success in any career you chose. But,
while you have been successful in both the business and academic worlds, you
have chosen to devote yourself instead to a career that has chiefly been
oriented toward public service. Knowing you as I do, I know it is your deep
love of America, and your strong belief in its future greatness, that has
impelled you to make this choice."
Commit the letter to memory. It speaks with the voice of genius.
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