Series:
Essay #4:
Synopsis:
Imagine you’re my car mechanic. I want my car fixed and you want to get paid, so we relate as I-and-It where each of us is means to the other’s end. But even though the transaction is an It exchange, we respect Thou in the other.
Out in the world, we make open and acceptable use of each other, and it works so long as we play our roles. My mechanic’s role is to fix my car and my role is to pay money. We all have roles to play, be it employer--employee, doctor--patient, seller--customer. Role maintenance is the key to maintaining a respectful I-and-It relationship. Think of the grade-school teacher who’s too nice. The kids eat him up, so he can’t do his job. Think of employees whom the boss treats as friends: these are the employees who sue the company. For me as lawyer, I can be friendly with clients but never friends. On its face, it should be OK to be friends with a client, but it rarely goes well. Role-boundaries get blurred, expectations unsettled, and nobody feels comfortable. The road to hell is paved with good intentions: we want so much to be nice and be liked, that we make it too personal.
What’s my point? Be a professional. A professional plays his role by the code, like Russell Crowe in the movie, The Nice Guys. Russell Crowe’s character made money by beating people up. He got hired to send a message to his costar in the movie, Ryan Gosling. Crowe politely chose a finger on Gosling’s left (not right) hand, told Gosling to tell his doctor it was a spiral fracture, said “take a deep breath,” then Crowe sent the message (by breaking the finger) and wished Gosling a good day. The Russell Crowe character was a professional; the beating wasn’t personal and the Gosling character didn’t take it personally. Later, an enforcer came to Crowe’s apartment to get information from Crowe, but that enforcer was nasty and made it personal: he tried to force Crowe to eat his own tropical fish from his own fish tank. Crowe kindly advised him about professionalism, Crowe said, “if you beat me up, trash my place, I get it, it’s your job, but what did you do? you did something different, you made an enemy, now even if I knew something, I wouldn’t tell you.”
In a broader sense, I’m talking about courtesy. Courtesy maintains Thou in an It-world. When we’re out in the world using people and being used, courtesy and manners give us our proper respect. Good manners are a form of respect. When I think about the truly classy people I’ve met over the years, they don’t show off their good manners. Instead, they use manners to make others feel comfortable and respected even when engaged in an It transaction.
Courtesy and roles permit Thou to exist as a real presence behind the necessity of the transaction. They do so by opening a buffer zone of detachment between us. I don’t call you “brother” and I don’t pretend to be your friend or that our transaction is anything but It. I openly and respectfully use you in the transaction, and yes, I respect that you use me too. So it’s personal but not too personal, which reminds me of something I recently heard from the actor, Matthew McConaughy. He said that the one big Hollywood lesson is… it’s not personal. Before he became a star, Hollywood types didn’t give him the time of day; after he went big, they all lined up to flatter him. He learned to accept the game because it’s not personal.
So I politely play my role in the transaction, and you do too, and we each respect that the other is sovereign-master of himself and he has his own ends to which he’s entitled. Roger Scruton in his essay, Real Men Have Manners, said that “Manners, properly understood, are the instruments whereby we negotiate our passage through the world…. All such customs point toward the same end: the maintenance of human kindness.” Mr. Scruton went on to say:
“Politeness makes you part of things and so gives you an enduring edge over those who never acquired it. And this gives us a clue to the real nature of rudeness: to be rude is not just to be selfish, in the way that children (until taught otherwise) and animals are instinctively selfish; it is to be ostentatiously alone. Even in the most genial gathering, the rude person will betray, by some word or gesture, that he is not really part of it.... he does not belong in the conversation.”
We are partners in dialogue, you and I, and our manners are “the minute ability to live and act for others, to stand in their gaze and to influence and be influenced by their judgment.” In the words of Mr. Scruton, I stand corrected in your gaze.
Years ago I read an interview with a Polish philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski. I forget everything about the interview except this: when asked to sum up ethics in one sentence, he said, “be decent.” That’s it, no more. Ordinary life rarely permits a Thou relation in the midst of transaction. And yet, it’s my implicit recognition of you as Thou that supports it all. Courtesy and manners, playing my role, and making of myself a useful and dependable means to the achievement of your reasonable ends: by this I recognize you as Thou in an It-world.
It and Thou
The Professional It
Courtesy and manners, playing our roles, being responsible: by this we recognize each other as Thou in an It-world