The School of Life

by The School Of Life

  Grand vs. Small Gestures

  The frank person is often very kind but in a bold way. They are interested in enormous acts of generosity and kindness towards major sections of humanity: perhaps the rescue of the whole continent of Africa or a plan to give every child in the country an equally good start in life. But a consequence of their enthusiasm can be a certain impatience with smaller gestures, which they may view as a distraction from larger causes. There is really no point, they may feel, in spending time and money sending people flowers, writing notes after a dinner or remembering birthdays when a fundamental transformation of the human condition is at hand.

  The polite person also cares passionately about spreading kindness, love and goodness on a mass scale, but they are cautious about the chances of doing so on any realistic time horizon. Yet their belief that perhaps one can’t improve things enormously for a huge number of people in the coming decades makes them feel that it is still very much a worthy goal to try to effect modest, minor improvements in the lives of the few humans one does have direct contact with in the here and now. They may never be able to transform another person’s prospects entirely or rescue the species from its agony, but they can smile and stop for a brief conversation with a neighbour. Their modesty around what is possible makes them acutely sensitive to the worth of the little things that can be done to attenuate the bitterness of existence. Far more than their frank counterpart, they’ll often find time for a chat.

  Self-Certainty vs. Self-Doubt

  The frank person has a high degree of confidence as to their ability to judge relatively quickly and for the long term what is right and wrong about a given situation. They feel they can tell who has behaved well or badly or what the appropriate course of action should be around a dilemma. This is what gives them the confidence to get angry with what strikes them (immediately) as rank stupidity, or to blow up bridges with people they’ve become vexed with, or to state a disagreement emphatically and to call another person stupid, monstrous or a liar to their face. Once they have said something, they know they can’t take it back but they don’t really want to. Part of their frankness is based on the notion that they can understand at speed the merits of any situation, the characters of others and the true nature of their own commitments.

  The polite person is much more unsure on all these fronts. They are conscious that what they feel strongly about today might not be what they end up thinking next week. They recognize that ideas that sound very strange or misguided to them can be attempts to state – in garbled forms – concepts that are genuinely important to other people and that they themselves may come round to with time. They see their own minds as having great capacities for error and as being subject to imperceptible moods which will mislead them, and so are keen not to make statements that can’t be taken back or to make enemies of people they might decide are in fact worthy of respect further down the line.

  The polite person will be drawn to deploying softening, tentative language and holding back on criticism wherever possible. They will suggest that an idea might not be quite right. They will say that a project is attractive but that it could be interesting to look at alternatives as well. They will concede that an intellectual opponent may well have a point. They aren’t just lying or dodging tough decisions. Their behaviour is symptomatic of a nuanced and intelligent belief that few ideas are totally without merit, no proposals are 100 per cent wrong and almost no one is entirely foolish. They work with a conception of reality in which good and bad are deviously entangled and in which bits of the truth are always showing up in unfamiliar guises in unexpected people. Their politeness is a logical, careful response to the complexity they identify in themselves and in the world.

  Both the frank person and the polite person have important lessons to teach us. But it may be that at this point in history it is the distinctive wisdom of the polite person that is most ripe for rediscovery and articulation, and that may have the most effective power to take the edge off some of the more brutal and counterproductive consequences of the reigning ideology of frankness.

  DIPLOMACY

  Diplomacy is an art that evolved initially to deal with problems in the relationships between countries. The leaders of neighbouring states might be touchy on points of personal pride and quickly roused to anger; if they met head on they might be liable to infuriate each other and start a war. Instead, they learned to send emissaries, people who could state things in less inflammatory ways, who wouldn’t take the issues so personally, who could be more patient and emollient. Diplomacy was a way of avoiding the dangers that come from decisions taken in the heat of the moment. In their own palaces, two kings might be thumping the table and calling their rivals by abusive names; but in the quiet negotiating halls, the diplomat would say, ‘My master is slightly disconcerted that …’

  We still associate the term diplomacy with embassies, international relations and high politics, but it refers in essence to a set of skills that matter in many areas of daily life, especially at the office and on the landing, outside the slammed doors of loved ones’ bedrooms.

  Diplomacy is the art of advancing an idea or a cause without unnecessarily inflaming passions or unleashing a catastrophe. It involves an understanding of the many facets of human nature that can undermine agreement and stoke conflict, and a commitment to unpicking these with foresight and grace.

  The diplomat remembers, first and foremost, that some of the vehemence with which we can insist on having our own way draws energy from an overall sense of not being respected or heard. We will fight with particular tenacity and apparent meanness over a so-called small point when we have a sense that another has failed to honour our wider need for appreciation and esteem.

  Knowing the intensity of the craving for respect, diplomats – though they may not always be able to agree with others – take the trouble to show that they have bothered to see how things look through foreign eyes. They recognize that it is almost as important to people to feel heard as to win their case. We can put up with a lot once someone has demonstrated that they at least know how it is for us. Diplomats put extraordinary effort into securing the health of the overall relationship so that smaller points can be conceded along the way without attracting feelings of untenable humiliation. They know how much – beneath pitched fights over money or entitlements, schedules or procedures – a demand for esteem can stir. They are careful to trade generously in emotional currency, so as not always to have to pay excessively in other, more practical denominations.

  Frequently, what is at stake within a negotiation with someone is a request that they change in some way: that they learn to be more punctual, or take more trouble on a task, or be less defensive or more open-minded. The diplomat knows how futile it is to state these wishes too directly. They know the vast difference between having a correct diagnosis of how someone needs to grow and a relevant way to help them do so. They know too that what holds people back from evolution is fear and therefore grasp that what we may most need to offer those whom we want to acknowledge difficult things is, above anything else, love and reassurance. It helps greatly to know that those recommending change are not speaking from a position of impregnable perfection but are themselves wrestling with comparable demons in other areas. For a diagnosis not to sound like mere criticism, it helps for it to be delivered by someone with no compunctions to owning up to their own shortcomings. There can be few more successful pedagogic moves than to confess genially from the outset, ‘And I am, of course, entirely mad and flawed as well …’

  In negotiations, the diplomat is not addicted to indiscriminate or heroic truth-telling. They appreciate the legitimate place that minor lies or omissions can occupy in the service of greater truths. They know that if certain local facts are emphasized, then the most important principles in a relationship may be forever undermined. So they will enthusiastically say that the financial report or the home-made cake was really very pleasing and will do so not to deceive but to affirm the
truth of their overall attachment, which might be lost were a completely accurate account of their views to be laid out. Diplomats know how a small lie may have to be the guardian of a larger truth.

  Another trait of the diplomat is to be serene in the face of obviously bad behaviour: a sudden loss of temper, a wild accusation, a very mean remark. They don’t take it personally, even when they may be the target of rage. They reach instinctively for reasonable explanations and have clearly in their minds the better moments of a currently frantic but essentially lovable person. They know themselves well enough to understand that abandonments of perspective are both hugely normal and usually indicative of nothing much beyond passing despair or exhaustion. They do not aggravate a febrile situation through self-righteousness, a symptom of both not knowing oneself too well and a very selective memory. The person who bangs a fist on the table or announces extravagant opinions is most likely to be simply rather worried, frightened, hungry or just very enthusiastic: conditions that should rightly invite sympathy rather than disgust.

  At the same time, the diplomat understands that there are moments to sidestep direct engagement. They do not try to teach a lesson whenever it might first or most apply; they wait till it has the best chance of being heard. At points, they disarm difficult people by reacting in unexpected ways. In the face of a tirade, instead of going on the defensive, the diplomatic person might suggest some lunch. When a harshly unfair criticism is launched at them, they might nod in partial agreement and declare that they’ve often said such things to themselves. They give a lot of ground away and avoid getting cornered in arguments that distract from the deeper issues. They remember the presence of a far better version of the somewhat unfortunate individual currently on display.

  The diplomat’s tone of reasonableness is built, fundamentally, on a base of deep pessimism. They know what the human animal is; they understand how many problems are going to beset even a very good marriage, business, friendship or society. Their good-humoured way of greeting problems is a symptom of having swallowed a healthy measure of sadness from the outset. They have given up on the ideal, not out of weakness but out of a mature readiness to see compromise as a necessary requirement for getting by in a radically imperfect world.

  The diplomat may be polite, but they are not averse to delivering bits of bad news with uncommon frankness. Too often, we seek to preserve our image in the eyes of others by tiptoeing around harsh decisions – and thereby make things far worse than they need to be. We should say that we’re leaving them, that they’re fired, that their pet project isn’t going ahead, but we mutter instead that we’re a little preoccupied at the moment, that we’re delighted by their performance and that the scheme is being actively discussed by the senior team. We mistake leaving some room for hope for kindness. But true niceness does not mean seeming nice, it means helping the people we are going to disappoint to adjust as best they can to reality. By administering a sharp, clean blow, the diplomatic person kills off the torture of hope, accepting the frustration that is likely to come their way: the diplomat is kind enough to let themselves sometimes be the target of hate.

  The diplomat succeeds by being a realist. They know we are inherently flawed, unreasonable, anxious, laughably absurd creatures who scatter blame unfairly, misdiagnose pains and react appallingly to criticism – especially when it is accurate – and yet they are hopeful too of the possibilities of progress when our disturbances have been properly factored in and cushioned with adequate reassurance, accurate interpretation and respect. Diplomacy seeks to teach us how many good things can still be accomplished when we make some necessary accommodations with the crooked, sometimes touching and hugely unreliable material of human nature.

  CODA: IN PRAISE OF KINDNESS

  Part of what can hold us back from being kind is how unattractive the concept sounds. Taking pride in being kind sounds like something we might settle on only when every other, more robust ambition had been exhausted.

  This suspicion too has a long history. For centuries, it was Christianity that intoned to us about the importance of kindness, co-opting the finest artworks to the task of rendering us more tender and forgiving, charitable and gentle. But it also, rather fatefully, identified a conflict between being successful and being kind – a conflict from which the idea of kindness has yet to recover. The suggestion has been of a choice between kindness and a lowly position, on the one hand, and nastiness and worldly triumph, on the other. It can seem as if kindness might be something of interest chiefly to those who have failed.

  The movement known as Romanticism has further cast the kind person into the role of the unexciting bore, identifying drama and allure with the naughty and the ‘wicked’ (which has become a term of praise) while bathing niceness in an aura of tedium. The choice seems to be between being authentic, spontaneous and a bit cruel or else sweet, gentle and distinctly off-putting.

  There’s a financial aspect to the dichotomy too. Kind people do not seem well cut out to win in the game of capitalism. Business success appears to demand an ability not to listen to excuses, not to forgive, not to be detained by sentiment. Kind people seem destined to end up either broke or overlooked.

  Semi-consciously, kindness also seems incompatible with sexual desirability. Being erotic appears to be connected with a degree of heedless disregard and selfishness. We want our friends to be nice, but appreciate our lovers as a touch dangerous.

  The three charges are desperately unfair. Niceness can happily coexist with being successful, interesting and sexual. It’s hardly possible to succeed without a deep interest in the welfare of one’s colleagues. It’s not possible to be uninhibited in bed without a bedrock of trust built on kindness (it’s rare to want to be enslaved and punished by someone we don’t fundamentally believe is very nice). We can be kind and successful, kind and interesting, kind and sexual.

  Kindness is a cardinal virtue awaiting our renewed, unconflicted appreciation.

  2 Charm

  SHYNESS

  Shyness may seem like an ingrained, almost natural disposition, but it is at heart a highly treatable condition provoked by a set of somewhat misfounded ideas about ourselves and our position in the world.

  Our shy episodes are rooted in an experience of difference. They, the ones who have sparked our intimidation, are all women or all men, all from the north or all from the south, all rich or all poor, all confident people or all winners. And we are not – and therefore have nothing whatever to say.

  To dislodge us from our silence, we can think of ourselves as each possessing two different kinds of identities. Our local identity comprises our age, gender, skin colour, sexuality, social background, wealth, career, religion and personality type. But beyond this, we also have a universal identity, made up of what we have in common with every other member of the species: we all have problematic families, have all been disappointed, have all been idiotic, have all loved, have all had problems around money, all have anxieties – and will all, when we are pricked, start to bleed.

  The last line is Shylock’s from his famous impassioned outburst in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, one of the most beautiful celebrations of universal identity ever delivered: ‘I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?’

  The point is relevant not just for a politically excluded minority; it can serve the shy just as well. In the face of the most daunting foreignness, expressed through accents, jobs, in jokes or age, there must remain a common core. We may come from the land of ugly boys while she is a beautiful woman; we may come from the province of the poor while he is a successful moneymaker; we are almost retired and they are starting their twenties. But we must, with Shylock in mind, look b
eyond the differences and insist on a universal commonality.

  Shakespeare had read and absorbed the writings of the Roman playwright Terence, who is remembered for one very famous declaration: ‘Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto’ (‘I am human, I consider nothing human alien to me’). Shyness is the most modest, kind and unfortunate way of insisting on the specialness of one’s particular province.

  At the heart of the shy person’s self-doubt is a certainty that they must be boring. But, in reality, no one is ever truly boring. We are only in danger of coming across as such when we don’t dare (or know how) to communicate our deeper selves to others. The human animal witnessed in its essence, with honesty and without artifice, with all its longings, crazed desires and despair, is always gripping. When we dismiss a person as boring, we are merely pointing to someone who has not had the courage or concentration to tell us what it is like to be them. But we invariably prove compelling when we succeed in detailing some of what we crave, envy, regret, mourn and dream. The interesting person isn’t someone to whom obviously and outwardly interesting things have happened, someone who has travelled the world, met important dignitaries or been present at critical geopolitical events. Nor is it someone who speaks in learned terms about the great themes of culture, history or science. They are someone who has grown into an attentive, self-aware listener and a reliable correspondent of their own mind and heart, and who can thereby give us faithful accounts of the pathos, drama and strangeness of being them.