A problem in manners

HAROLD NICOLSON

Suggesting that habitual good taste is often more questionable than taste that is denounced as bad

■ We are, I fear, entering an epoch in which the criterion of goodand bad-taste (I discuss its ethical and not its aesthetic aspect) may assume an importance out of all proportion to its merits either as a standard or as an ideal. The decay of religious and social convention, the reaction against all absolute or rigid rules of conduct (a reaction which is one of the healthiest and most welcome signs of our enlightened age)—all these will tend, unless we are vigilant and alert, to give to the standard of "good and bad taste" a value which it does not merit and which will, in all certainty, be abused. There is something singularly pernicious in this halfway region between morals and good manners; in this ethical no-man's-land in which, at night time, creep the feline qualities of caution, dissimulation, and self-regard.

I can admire, and indeed reverence, the old puritan theories by which black was really black and white was really white: I can understand the man who believes only in ethical relativity, and who rejects all moral generalisations as inapplicable to the infinite variation and complexities of human motives or activity: but I cannot tolerate those who confuse social convenience or convention with the function of man's unconquerable mind, or who would shackle the wide-winged sweep of human nature by imposing upon it the automatic gestures, the rigid mechanism, of "good form."

■ There is something peculiarly insidious about the standard of good-taste. There are many men who would prefer it to be said that they had acted cruelly, selfishly, perhaps even unfaithfully, than that they were guilty of lack of taste. "Your action," so runs the accusation, "appears to me, and I may say to others with whom I have discussed the matter, to have been in singularly bad taste." One squirms at receiving such a letter. One feels more ashamed than is even remotely reasonable: one is too mortified to be angry. Why is it that this particular accusation should reduce one to wounded silence? What is it in this insinuation which is so peculiarly difficult to resist? It is time that we endeavoured to clear our minds upon the matter. For in the next thirty years this issue between goodand bad-taste is going to play an undeservedly important part.

The reason why this dagger of "bad-taste" penetrates so insidiously between the ribs is that it is double-edged. On the one side it has an ethical application,—it is a criticism of one's lack of heart. On the other side it has a social application,—it is a criticism of one's ignorance of conduct. Not only has one behaved with moral clumsiness and cruelty, but one has sinned against the herd, one has violated the totem, one has broken or ignored the taboo. We are not, even today, sufficiently trained in self-diagnosis to analyse these feelings at once, and to discount and isolate those elements in the criticism against us which need not necessarily cause us pain. I do not in the least mind (in fact I enjoy) violating taboos and totems, nor do I wince for one moment when accused of being a traitor "to my country and my class."

■ If a man says to me "What you did appeared to me unkind"—I am prepared to defend myself, to express contrition if need be, if need be to make full amends. But when a man says to me "Your action was in singularly badtaste and I may say that several other people . . . . etc." then I shroud my head in shame, too crushed to think of excuse or reparation, too wounded to do more than creep into some silent corner to die. If, however, before any narcotic effect is allowed to chloroform my self-diagnosis, I am able to detach the ethical from the social criticism, then I can easily reject the latter as totem and taboo.

For if we examine this accusation of "badtaste" from the point of view, not of the accused, but of the accuser, we shall see that it proceeds from purely petty motives of selfprotection. The people who are most lavish in maintaining the ideal of good-taste and in decrying its opposite are in most cases people who are not very certain of their own sense of values. Their attitude towards life is entrenched in no very secure dug-out, they are not very happy either about their lines of communication or their reserves. They 'thus rely upon the wire before them, and they are continually erecting fresh entanglements, barbed and rusted, wherewith to give themselves the security which they do not feel.

You will notice, for instance, that those persons who are absolutely certain of, or indifferent to, their social position are the very people who least frequently resort to the measure of good-taste. It is only when men or women feel insecure either about their own position, or about the values which such a position represents, that they call in the assistance of the wire entanglements. One does not wire-in a place which is either impregnable or which one has no particular desire to defend. You will notice also that the phrase "in badtaste" is often in the mouths of old and middle aged people who have been unable to adapt themselves to the changing standards of the time. They feel that the things they strove for and defended do not, to the younger generation, seem worthy of endeavour or defence. They therefore accuse the younger generation of showing bad-taste. Fear, also, is an emotion which stimulates the elderly to erect their harbed wire. People, and with excellent reason, are afraid of cancer, and they prefer to name the thing obliquely, to say "a long and painful illness," to say, "something inside." Such people, when they say to you, "What is your Aunt Ethel suffering from?" are deeply shocked if one answers "Cancer!"—even though one may be really sorry about it, even though there may be no doubt about it at all.

Such taboos are variable in different grades of society and in different countries. They do not always come from fear: on occasions they come from delicacy. I had a housekeeper once at Oxford whose refinement was excessive. I wrote to say that I was returning on Thursday and would she please have everything ready. She answered that the chimney had been mended, the carpet cleaned, and that my "bed" had been carefully aired. She put the word "bed" in quotation marks,—feeling it indelicate to mention such a matter to a young man except in an oblique manner, as if she were quoting someone else. To her, poor old silly, the absence of those quotation marks would have indicated bad-taste: but I do not feel that, essentially, Mrs. Pawlings was being more idiotic than all the other elderly men and women who wince when younger people call a spade a spade.

∎I think it right to recognize, to respect, and even to pander to the taboos that proceed from fear or delicacy. I am perfectly prepared not to use the word "cancer" or the word "bed" if it gives pain to others. Fear and modesty, even if pathological, are both respectable qualities. But the taboos which come from self-protection should be attacked with .the utmost ruthlessness. One of the worst of these is the old-age taboo. The old of every generation band together in a palsied conspiracy for the purpose of informing the young that any gibes directed at old age are "in the very worst of taste." This is rubbish. Old age may, and should, fill one with pity and terror: it should never inspire one with respect. The only thing that deserves unstinted admiration is energy and youth. One!s admiration for all other qualities should be carefully stinted. Let us be gentle with .the old, polite to them, indulgent to them; but let us snub them severely when they pretend that they merit our respect.

Far worse, however, than the old-age taboo is the "gentleman" taboo. There are a great many people in England, and even in America, who imagine that if one behaves like a gentleman one need not behave like anything else. It is difficult to trace the origins of this curious and unchristian fallacy. Pontius Pilate, as is obvious from his conduct, was a perfect gentleman: had he lived today he would have been a member of the Marlborough Club. St. Paul, it is equally obvious, wasn't a gentleman in the least: nor were Julius Caesar, Cicero, Caligula, Richard Cteur de Lion, Henry VIII, Henri IV, Elizabeth, Cromwell, Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great, Napoleon, Byron, Goethe, Bismarck, or Lenin. Every one of these important people behaved repeatedly in the very worst of taste.

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It is evident that good-taste is not a very important constituent of success. But success, you will object, is not everything. No, it is not everything, hut it is a great deal. And, curiously enough, it is in our less successful moments that we tend most frequently to dwell upon good-taste. For goodtaste is the unguent with which we salve the wounds of our own insufficiency; and, as being a compensatory and not an absolute ideal, as being an excuse for not getting something better, it should be regarded with suspicion by all alert and honest minds.

I do not mean by all this that I reject the theory that such a thing as bad-taste exists. I mean only that as a criterion of conduct taste is variable, subjective, and all too frequently blurred by personal preferences or disappointments. I should, agree, for instance, that it is bad-taste to take mean advantages especially in physical matters. Bad-taste is something more than a mere lack of kindliness or perception. It is an aggressive indelicacy, it is insensitiveness translated into action. The classic instance of what I mean is furnished by the conduct of Trelawny at Missolonghi. You know the story. Trelawny was absent when Byron died and returned two days later. Byron was lying in his coffin under a heavy scarlet pall. Trelawny made an excuse to be left alone with the body, and then quickly raising the pall, examined Byron's crippled leg. He thereafter published the result of these furtive investigations. "The secret," he wrote—I have not the exact words with me, "was divulged. The left leg was withered to the knee. Apollo possessed the limbs of a satyr." Now no one could deny that Trelawny's conduct was lacking in good-taste. In the first place it is bad-taste to examine the deformities of your friends after they are dead. In the second place it is worse taste to publish the result of your examination. And in the third place it is a mistake to tell lies about it all. Byron's leg was not withered to the knee,—there was in fact no external sign at all that he was crippled. The fact was abundantly pointed out in furious letters written to the papers by people who had often seen Byron bathing, and who knew that what Trelawny said was untrue. In the second edition of his book, Trelawny altered the passage. He said that both legs were perfect and that there was no trace whatever of any deformity. I do not, however, contend that Trelawny's action was in any way commendable.

I should go further. I should admit, that within limits, there must be rules of the game. Unkindness in any form is clearly disgusting, and a certain conventional setting may be necessary to canalise and coordinate our desire not to give pain. Let us admit, therefore, that there is a changing standard which is called "good-taste". Let us avoid falling into the opposite fallacy of the Surréalistes in Paris, who, from justifiable hatred of the bread and milk of conventional kindliness have set themselves the task of doing one unkind action every day. But let us not at the same time elevate what is merely a convenience into a law, or render unto God the things that are Caesar's. Otherwise we shall cabin our hearts and minds in standardised boxes.