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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 We often ask why politeness is out of date, and everyone replies with a smile: This is democratic.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 ones 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 peoples 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)
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 ones 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 peoples 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)
