My previous post on Walker Percy’s Moviegoer, a very funny novel I recommend to those who know a bit about American history & wonder how the country changed in the first half of the 20th c., was about the problem of niceness, a very indifferent replacement for political virtues or theological virtues, hence an impediment to reflection, too.
Now, I’d like to add to that description of America & to deepen the analysis. Previously, I talked about how the Nicene Creed might be replaced by the liberal This I Believe, suggesting that individuality is sacrosanct; but we have to leave behind religious categories like the sacrosanct, so instead we’d have to call individuality neutral ground—it’s a formal concept, it’s not quite clear what individuality can mean, but it’s to do with how we see each different individual: each individuality has to be respected without being known, so we cannot honestly praise each other, but must assume one’s as good as another. Hence, we have to be nice to each other, which however implies that we know this much about individuality, it means none of us are dangerous, but also none of us are particularly impressive—other attitudes would be reasonable in those cases.
Now, the next examples are much more frivolous than creedal issues, but their influence is greater & they point to an important problem. Niceness is less important than friendliness. Here’s Percy’s protagonist Binx on the true stories of Reader’s Digest:
I am happy to have the magazine. The articles are indeed cute & heart-warming. People who are ordinarily understood to dislike each other or at least to be indifferent toward each other discover that they have much in common. I seem to recall an article about a subway breaking down in New York. The passengers who had their noses buried in newspapers began to talk to each other. They discovered that their fellow passengers were human beings much like themselves & with the same hopes & dreams; people are much the same the world over, even New Yorkers, the article concluded, & given the opportunity will find more to like than to dislike about each other. A lonely old man found himself talking excitedly to a young girl about his hobby of growing irises in a window box, she to him about her hopes & dreams for a career in art. I have to agree with Mrs. Schexnaydre: such an episode is indeed heart-warming. On the other hand, it would make me nervous to be present at such a gathering. To tell the truth, if I were a young girl, I would have nothing to do with kindly old philosophers such as are portrayed by Thomas Mitchell in the movies. These birds look fishy to me.
Next up, Hollywood:
I switch on television & sit directly in front of it, bolt upright & hands on knees in my ladder-back chair. A play comes on with Dick Powell. He is a cynical financier who is trying to get control of a small town newspaper. But he is baffled by the kindliness & sincerity of the town folk. Even the editor whom he is trying to ruin is nice to him. & even when he swindles the editor & causes him to have a heart attack from which he later dies, the editor is as friendly as ever & takes the occasion to give Powell a sample of his homespun philosophy. “We’re no great shakes as a town,” says the editor on his deathbed, teetering on the very brink of eternity. “But we’re friendly.” In the end Powell is converted by these good folk & instead of trying to control the paper, applies to the editor’s daughter for the job of reporter so he can fight against political corruption.
Friendliness in the sense intended here means knowing & therefore liking people. It is supposed to warm the hearts of the indifferent, mollify the hearts of the hostile. It’s supposed to solve the problems of the big city, where all are strangers. It seems like it’s necessary to have an entire public education—propaganda, if you will—to get it across, though. Perhaps once people achieve neutrality, niceness, it’s actually harder than previously to achieve friendliness, even though it seems the former was intended as preparatory to the latter. The stupidity of the examples Percy chooses is connected to their ubiquity; the suggestion it that people really would want it to work, that America has all the goodwill it could need. The earnestness that might make sense in a community is instead turned around to mass media of communications. Niceness is imaginary.