Altruism: Its Nature and Varieties. George Herbert Palmer

These are matters relating to the separate self, while manners give expression only to what all can share. Our ardent personal passions, even when entirely justified, often need to be flattened down before they can be fit to express. Manifestations of the social passions, kindness and pity, are seldom improper. These give a double opportunity for sympathy. We share the feelings both of the sufferer and the humane speaker. But the emotions that terminate in ourselves, like joy and grief, require care. On the whole, Smith thinks we may count on sympathy with our small joys and large griefs. Happiness is something delightful to share, at least until it becomes so great as to awaken envy. And though it is disagreeable to hear of petty annoyances, which a gentleman passes lightly by, serious misfortune is so much a part of the common lot that all will sympathize in hearing of it and be pleased that they have in this instance escaped. The death of a relative may not improperly put its mark on our very clothing, but it is indecent to speak of our vexations from servants and children.

      Here, then, we see human society reposing on a widely distributed and systematized altruism. Mutual consideration is here the rule. The apostle states it admirably: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” The separate self is allowed no place; the conjunct self is the only person recognized. Surely, any one who undertakes to examine the varieties of altruism must begin with these beautiful and little-noticed moralities.

      Begin, but not end here. For while I believe all that has thus far been said is true, I see so much else to be true that I devote a section of this chapter to a criticism of manners. Wherein do manners fail to embody altruism completely? In three respects: they are trivial, self-protective, and enfeebling. The study of these deficiencies will show us the way to altruism of a higher kind.

      The triviality of manners requires no long demonstration. All must have felt it and, probably enough, have been surprised at my counting such matters deserving of a place in a serious ethical discussion. It is as if I had devoted a section to brushing the hair. Many things more or less connected with the comfort of daily life we do not talk or think much about, and such are manners—never good until they become instinctive. They express merely our superficial relations with our fellows, our outward behavior, our acts and not our motives. The man of considerate manners may be inwardly considerate, too; but he may be the very reverse and have shaped his conduct with a view to social success. Indeed, it may truly be said that manners become more prominent as the occasions of human intercourse diminish in importance. Organized “society,” in which manners flourish, is treated as of little consequence by the sober body of the community. This, then, is the first defect of manners when regarded as an embodiment of altruism: they are of limited range and do not necessarily involve the whole man.

      But they are open to a graver objection. They are fundamentally self-protective. If my first account of them were the whole truth, society people would be the least selfish of mankind. That is not their reputation, for manners are, after all, grounded in distrust of our fellow man. I said that the chief aim of manners was to avoid offense; that is, we anticipate being offended when we meet, and take precautions against it. The need of such precautions against the turbulent ego I have shown already. Until I can be sure that people will not shock me by tasteless attire and heavy talk, that they will not unload on me what concerns only themselves, that they will not be tedious, didactic, or intrusive, in short, that they will be trained to play the social game for general enjoyment rather than individual gain, I shall keep away from company. Manners express these doubts. They preserve an interval between me and those who might press too near. Emerson says of them that they are a contrivance of the wise for keeping fools at a distance. No doubt they may also express affection and pleasure in humankind. I only assert that this is not necessarily their meaning. They may be mere social safeguards, restraints to which each of us submits in Hobbistic fashion in order to protect ourselves.

      But there is one further point in our disparagement of manners. He who accepts the code, indorses, and practises it, finds himself in the long run enfeebled. Accordingly, a healthy nature is always a little restive under manners. The child rebels against being taught how to behave. He wants to behave as nature prompts. When full of glee he would laugh aloud, but is told that loud laughter in company is not proper. Is there not danger that the continual check which manners put on exuberant nature may, in the process of rubbing off social excrescences, rub off much of nature too? How large will be the “due opportunity for self-expression” in a society whose prime aim is “the avoidance of offense”? It must be remembered that checking expression checks thought. We do not develop strong interests when moving among those who stare if we mention them. In company, people may grow quick, clever, neat in repartee, compliment, and paradox, but they do not become reflective, solid in judgment, distinctive in individual taste. Such things come more readily in isolation. It is wise advice George Herbert gives:

      “By all means use sometimes to be alone.

       Salute thyself. See what thy soul doth wear.

       Dare to look in thy chest, for ’tis thine own,

       And tumble up and down what thou find’st there.

       Who cannot rest till he good fellows find

       He shuts up house, turns out of doors his mind.”

      The fact is that in bidding us all the time to be regardful of others, manners make too sharp a division between the conjunct and the separate self; and it is disastrous to each to be set up to the exclusion of the other. In detachment the conjunct self grows empty, the separate self surly and brutish. They belong together. When either has been unduly emphasized, it is wholesome to give the other a chance. Society, the special field for the cultivation of manners, would soon be sterile soil were it not abandoned during lenten intervals and summers in the country. After meeting a multitude of people and being obliged to adjust ourselves to only such matters as all can understand, what a relief it is to be in the open fields, social conventions dropped, responsibilities forgotten, and no regard for others marking our words, acts, or dress!

      And now we see why all the words which name the ingenious system of man’s best approach to man contain a tinge of evil. Every one is a disparaging term, though meant for praise. Politeness, courtesy, good breeding, propriety, decency, civility—manners is the best of the long list, for it states with less of praise or blame the mutual consideration expected whenever person meets person. But it is not altogether clean. It lingers on the outside and so suggests triviality, suspicion of our neighbor, and the enfeebling of originality. That these baser qualities are not inherent in manners is true enough. A well-mannered man may have a friendly soul. But he may have one of an opposite sort. Manners, therefore, though altruistic in form, are not necessarily altruistic in matter. They can, accordingly, be regarded as only the beginning of our inquiry. No human society, it is now evident, can be formed without recognizing the altruistic principle; but in manners that principle may be employed as naturally for an egoistic as for an altruistic purpose. What we are in search of is a situation in which a man sincerely prefers another’s good to his own.