Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) - Herbert Spencer (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
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To It.
Thus Is It, Too, With Social Usages. We Read Of The Chinese That They
Have "Ponderous Ceremonies Transmitted From Time Immemorial," Which Make
Social Intercourse A Burden. The Court Forms Prescribed By Monarchs For
Their Own Exaltation, Have, In All Times And Places, Ended In Consuming
The Comfort Of Their Lives. And So The Artificial Observances Of The
Dining-Room And Saloon, In Proportion As They Are Many And Strict,
Extinguish That Agreeable Communion Which They Were Originally Intended
To Secure. The Dislike With Which People Commonly Speak Of Society That
Is "Formal," And "Stiff," And "Ceremonious," Implies The General
Recognition Of This Fact; And This Recognition, Logically Developed,
Involves That All Usages Of Behaviour Which Are Not Based On Natural
Requirements, Are Injurious. That These Conventions Defeat Their Own
Ends Is No New Assertion. Swift, Criticising The Manners Of His Day,
Says--"Wise Men Are Often More Uneasy At The Over-Civility Of These
Refiners Than They Could Possibly Be In The Conversation Of Peasants And
Mechanics."
But It Is Not Only In These Details That The Self-Defeating Action Of
Our Arrangements Is Traceable: It Is Traceable In The Very Substance And
Nature Of Them. Our Social Intercourse, As Commonly Managed, Is A Mere
Part 2 Chapter 2 (On Manners And Fashion) Pg 94Semblance Of The Reality Sought. What Is It That We Want? Some
Sympathetic Converse With Our Fellow-Creatures: Some Converse That Shall
Not Be Mere Dead Words, But The Vehicle Of Living Thoughts And
Feelings--Converse In Which The Eyes And The Face Shall Speak, And The
Tones Of The Voice Be Full Of Meaning--Converse Which Shall Make Us Feel
No Longer Alone, But Shall Draw Us Closer To Another, And Double Our Own
Emotions By Adding Another's To Them. Who Is There That Has Not, From
Time To Time, Felt How Cold And Flat Is All This Talk About Politics And
Science, And The New Books And The New Men, And How A Genuine Utterance
Of Fellow-Feeling Outweighs The Whole Of It? Mark The Words Of
Bacon:--"For A Crowd Is Not A Company, And Faces Are But A Gallery Of
Pictures, And Talk But A Tinkling Cymbal, Where There Is No Love."
If This Be True, Then It Is Only After Acquaintance Has Grown Into
Intimacy, And Intimacy Has Ripened Into Friendship, That The Real
Communion Which Men Need Becomes Possible. A Rationally-Formed Circle
Must Consist Almost Wholly Of Those On Terms Of Familiarity And Regard,
With But One Or Two Strangers. What Folly, Then, Underlies The Whole
System Of Our Grand Dinners, Our "At Homes," Our Evening
Parties--Assemblages Made Up Of Many Who Never Met Before, Many Others
Who Just Bow To Each Other, Many Others Who Though Familiar Feel Mutual
Indifference, With Just A Few Real Friends Lost In The General Mass! You
Need But Look Round At The Artificial Expressions Of Face, To See At
Once How It Is. All Have Their Disguises On; And How Can There Be
Sympathy Between Masks? No Wonder That In Private Every One Exclaims
Against The Stupidity Of These Gatherings. No Wonder That Hostesses Get
Them Up Rather Because They Must Than Because They Wish. No Wonder That
The Invited Go Less From The Expectation Of Pleasure Than From Fear Of
Giving Offence. The Whole Thing Is A Gigantic Mistake--An Organised
Disappointment.
And Then Note, Lastly, That In This Case, As In All Others, When An
Organisation Has Become Effete And Inoperative For Its Legitimate
Purpose, It Is Employed For Quite Other Ones--Quite Opposite Ones. What
Is The Usual Plea Put In For Giving And Attending These Tedious
Assemblies? "I Admit That They Are Stupid And Frivolous Enough," Replies
Every Man To Your Criticisms; "But Then, You Know, One Must Keep Up
One's Connections." And Could You Get From His Wife A Sincere Answer, It
Would Be--"Like You, I Am Sick Of These Frivolities; But Then, We Must
Get Our Daughters Married." The One Knows That There Is A Profession To
Push, A Practice To Gain, A Business To Extend: Or Parliamentary
Influence, Or County Patronage, Or Votes, Or Office, To Be Got:
Position, Berths, Favours, Profit. The Other's Thoughts Run Upon
Husbands And Settlements, Wives And Dowries. Worthless For Their
Ostensible Purpose Of Daily Bringing Human Beings Into Pleasurable
Relations With Each Other, These Cumbrous Appliances Of Our Social
Intercourse Are Now Perseveringly Kept In Action With A View To The
Pecuniary And Matrimonial Results Which They Indirectly Produce.
Who Then Shall Say That The Reform Of Our System Of Observances Is
Unimportant? When We See How This System Induces Fashionable
Extravagance, With Its Entailed Bankruptcy And Ruin--When We Mark How
Greatly It Limits The Amount Of Social Intercourse Among The Less
Wealthy Classes--When We Find That Many Who Most Need To Be Disciplined
By Mixing With The Refined Are Driven Away By It, And Led Into
Dangerous And Often Fatal Courses--When We Count Up The Many Minor Evils
It Inflicts, The Extra Work Which Its Costliness Entails On All
Professional And Mercantile Men, The Damage To Public Taste In Dress And
Decoration By The Setting Up Of Its Absurdities As Standards For
Imitation, The Injury To Health Indicated In The Faces Of Its Devotees
At The Close Of The London Season, The Mortality Of Milliners And The
Like, Which Its Sudden Exigencies Yearly Involve;--And When To All These
We Add Its Fatal Sin, That It Blights, Withers Up, And Kills, That High
Enjoyment It Professedly Ministers To--That Enjoyment Which Is A Chief
End Of Our Hard Struggling In Life To Obtain--Shall We Not Conclude That
To Reform Our System Of Etiquette And Fashion, Is An Aim Yielding To Few
In Urgency?
There Needs, Then, A Protestantism In Social Usages. Forms That Have
Ceased To Facilitate And Have Become Obstructive--Whether Political,
Religious, Or Other--Have Ever To Be Swept Away; And Eventually Are So
Swept Away In All Cases. Signs Are Not Wanting That Some Change Is At
Hand. A Host Of Satirists, Led On By Thackeray, Have Been For Years
Engaged In Bringing Our Sham-Festivities, And Our Fashionable Follies,
Into Contempt; And In Their Candid Moods, Most Men Laugh At The
Frivolities With Which They And The World In General Are Deluded.
Ridicule Has Always Been A Revolutionary Agent. That Which Is Habitually
Assailed With Sneers And Sarcasms Cannot Long Survive. Institutions That
Have Lost Their Roots In Men's Respect And Faith Are Doomed; And The Day
Of Their Dissolution Is Not Far Off. The Time Is Approaching, Then, When
Our System Of Social Observances Must Pass Through Some Crisis, Out Of
Which It Will Come Purified And Comparatively Simple.
How This Crisis Will Be Brought About, No One Can With Any Certainty
Say. Whether By The Continuance And Increase Of Individual Protests, Or
Whether By The Union Of Many Persons For The Practice And Propagation Of
Some Better System, The Future Alone Can Decide. The Influence Of
Dissentients Acting Without Co-Operation, Seems, Under The Present State
Of Things, Inadequate. Standing Severally Alone, And Having No
Well-Defined Views; Frowned On By Conformists, And Expostulated With
Even By Those Who Secretly Sympathise With Them; Subject To Petty
Persecutions, And Unable To Trace Any Benefit Produced By Their Example;
They Are Apt, One By One, To Give Up Their Attempts As Hopeless. The
Young Convention-Breaker Eventually Finds That He Pays Too Heavily For
His Nonconformity. Hating, For Example, Everything That Bears About It
Any Remnant Of Servility, He Determines, In The Ardour Of His
Independence, That He Will Uncover To No One. But What He Means Simply
As A General Protest, He Finds That Ladies Interpret Into A Personal
Disrespect. Though He Sees That, From The Days Of Chivalry Downwards,
These Marks Of Supreme Consideration Paid To The Other Sex Have Been But
A Hypocritical Counterpart To The Actual Subjection In Which Men Have
Held Them--A Pretended Submission To Compensate For A Real Domination;
And Though He Sees That When The True Dignity Of Women Is Recognised,
The Mock Dignities Given To Them Will Be Abolished; Yet He Does Not Like
To Be Thus Misunderstood, And So Hesitates In His Practice.
In Other Cases, Again, His Courage Fails Him. Such Of His
Part 2 Chapter 2 (On Manners And Fashion) Pg 95Unconventionalities As Can Be Attributed Only To Eccentricity, He Has No
Qualms About: For, On The Whole, He Feels Rather Complimented Than
Otherwise In Being Considered A Disregarder Of Public Opinion. But When
They Are Liable To Be Put Down To Ignorance, To Ill-Breeding, Or To
Poverty, He Becomes A Coward. However Clearly The Recent Innovation Of
Eating Some Kinds Of Fish With Knife And Fork Proves The Fork-And-Bread
Practice To Have Had Little But Caprice For Its Basis, Yet He Dares Not
Wholly Ignore That Practice While Fashion Partially Maintains It. Though
He Thinks That A Silk Handkerchief Is Quite As Appropriate For
Drawing-Room Use As A White Cambric One, He Is Not Altogether At Ease In
Acting Out His Opinion. Then, Too, He Begins To Perceive That His
Resistance To Prescription Brings Round Disadvantageous Results Which He
Had Not Calculated Upon. He Had Expected That It Would Save Him From A
Great Deal Of Social Intercourse Of A Frivolous Kind--That It Would
Offend The Fools, But Not The Sensible People; And So Would Serve As A
Self-Acting Test By Which Those Worth Knowing Would Be Separated From
Those Not Worth Knowing. But The Fools Prove To Be So Greatly In The
Majority That, By Offending Them, He Closes Against Himself Nearly All
The Avenues Though Which The Sensible People Are To Be Reached. Thus He
Finds, That His Nonconformity Is Frequently Misinterpreted; That There
Are But Few Directions In Which He Dares To Carry It Consistently Out;
That The Annoyances And Disadvantages Which It Brings Upon Him Are
Greater Than He Anticipated; And That The Chances Of His Doing Any Good
Are Very Remote. Hence He Gradually Loses Resolution, And Lapses, Step
By Step, Into The Ordinary Routine Of Observances.
Abortive As Individual Protests Thus Generally Turn Out, It May Possibly
Be That Nothing Effectual Will Be Done Until There Arises Some Organised
Resistance To This Invisible Despotism, By Which Our Modes And Habits
Are Dictated. It May Happen, That The Government Of Manners And Fashion
Will Be Rendered Less Tyrannical, As The Political And Religious
Governments Have Been, By Some Antagonistic Union. Alike In Church And
State, Men's First Emancipations From Excess Of Restriction Were
Achieved By Numbers, Bound Together By A Common Creed Or A Common
Political Faith. What Remained Undone While There Were But Individual
Schismatics Or Rebels, Was Effected When There Came To Be Many Acting In
Concert. It Is Tolerably Clear That These Earliest Instalments Of
Freedom Could Not Have Been Obtained In Any Other Way; For So Long As
The Feeling Of Personal Independence Was Weak And The Rule Strong, There
Could Never Have Been A Sufficient Number Of Separate Dissentients To
Produce The Desired Results. Only In These Later Times, During Which The
Secular And Spiritual Controls Have Been Growing Less Coercive, And The
Tendency Towards Individual Liberty Greater, Has It Become Possible For
Smaller And Smaller Sects And Parties To Fight Against Established
Creeds And Laws; Until Now Men May Safely Stand Even Alone In Their
Antagonism.
The Failure Of Individual Nonconformity To Customs, As Above
Illustrated, Suggests That An Analogous Series Of Changes May Have To Be
Gone Through In This Case Also. It Is True That The _Lex Non Scripta_
Differs From The _Lex Scripta_
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