Slights, Taunts, Insults–The Making Of Character

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”. How often had Marley Brixton heard that old saw from her mother. “You are too thin-skinned”, her mother went on. “Too sensitive for your own good. Live and let live for a change.”

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Of course that bit of advice went in one ear and out the other, because Marley’s mother had no idea what the girls said to her during recess or on the walk home, how insulting the whispered asides were, or how offended she was at their….indignities.

Marley unfortunately was one of kind, the worst hand any pre-teen could possibly be dealt.  With frizzy hair, wide-set eyes, and a mouth far too big for her face, she was an easy target for the straight-haired, blue-eyed, perfect teeth in-crowd. The Celestial Dealer hadn’t stopped there either.  Marley was pigeon-toed, tall for her age, and a redhead.

Adolescent claques being what they are, the abuse dealt by the Barbies, as Marley called them, was no worse than in any other school. “Girls are bitches”, said her mother, “and that is as permanent a feature as anything on God’s green earth”.

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That, of course, didn’t help Marley; and each day she had to run the gantlet.  The Barbies’ taunts were orchestrated.  The girls nearest to the curb ragged her about her hair.  In the next rank were the prancing monkeys who crabbed along after her, scraping their knuckles, and waddling with exaggerated knock-knees.  Then came the Ubangi, pumping their lips and puckering kisses at her. 

Every day it was the same.  There was no let up, and she had no recourse.  There was no protector in the wings, no chivalrous knight to defend her honor, no righteous girlfriend to stand up to her tormentors.  She was on her own.

“Bullies”, said her mother when Marley told her of the gantlet, the asides, and the catty comments in the halls; but she had no intention of fighting her daughter’s battles, going to the principal to demand justice under the new Inclusivity Rule.  Lord knows, she had to fight her way through her own girl gantlets and far worse.  She had been suspended for fighting with Becky Lieberman who had called her a cunt.  There was no way that Margot Brixton was going to let that little bitch get away with sexist slurs; and before it was over, she had clawed Becky’s face, pulled our clumps of her thin, unsubstantial hair, and clubbed her tits with her knapsack. 

Becky went blubbering to the principal who, seeing her raw, bleeding cheeks, disheveled hair, and unkempt uniform, yelled at Margot, pointed to the door, and told her to leave the school premises. Margot was denied Harvard because of the stain on her high school record.  Despite the efforts of her lawyer mother and father to expunge all reference to ‘the delinquency’, it remained indelible and very visible to the Admissions Office. Yet Margot had won.

If she had found a way to best the Barbies of Jefferson High, beat them at their own game, and bring down the leaders of the girlie cabal, so could her daughter.

Bullies, despite the constant criticism of them, are necessary – indispensable in fact. Their abuse may be hard to take; but it is nothing compared to the humiliating practices of real-life adult bullies. Bullies toughen the hide.

It doesn’t take long for a young employee in a new job to encounter a supervisor who is in over her head, who lacks confidence, who is intimidated by the smart young things under her; and who takes out her frustration and feelings of inferiority on them.  These thugs are rarely called out for what they are let alone punished; so timid underlings quit, and the more forthcoming are consigned to back offices and ignored. Better to suffer bullying early on, learn from the experience, and be equipped to counter contemptuous abuse later on in life.

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Bullies are important for another reason – they show what one is  made of. There are those who suck up to bullies and join their ranks.  Better to bully than to be bullied, they say.  Others simply avoid them and take the back stairs, walk home a different way, neither antagonize or ingratiate, and remain in the shadows. Finally there are the Margots who stand up and fight.  Bloodied and uncowed, they show the bully and the rest of the school the importance of character, moral principle, and fortitude.

The students of Jefferson High all fell into one of these three categories, and showed their true colors by such association.  Herman Banks was always a toady, eager to curry favor and skate around the edges of moral and ethical behavior. Betsy Barton never lost her timidity and willingness to trade recognition, popularity, and acclaim for invisibility; and Don Chalmers never backed down from a fight.  Their early encounters with Bobby Parker, the bully, were the first episodes of character.  It might have taken years for them to realize, let alone accept who they were; but they all returned to their encounters with Bobby.

Herman found ways to insinuate and ingratiate himself with prospective investors and clients. There was no need for principle or rectitude if one was canny enough to sense weakness and be willing to compromise if needs be. Betsy Barton grew up unnoticed and unremarkable.  The deal she had struck with Bobby Parker was an all-inclusive and permanent one.  She made her way slowly and carefully, a ‘nice girl’ and faithful wife, but always looking over her shoulder.  She was risk-averse as an adult, over-protective and sheltering as a parent, and a complaisant lover as a wife.

Don Chalmers joined the military as an officer, won two Bronze Stars for bravery and heroism in combat, and was the revered mayor of his small prairie town in Minnesota for four terms.

All three children ineluctably acted the way they did.  They were born either timid , evasive, or courageous. Their early years simply consolidated their character. Run-ins with Bobby Parker were the first proofs or examples of those inbuilt, hardwired traits of personality and character.  .

Catty, bitchy girls, are different.  They bully in concert.  They swarm and surround. They travel in packs.  Their goal is the cull, not the victory. Surviving them requires less fortitude and more indifference.  “Pay no attention to them”, said Marley’s mother. “They will soon lose interest”.

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Their interest did indeed fade; but other hungry girl-packs formed to take their place.  The original center always held, and although some girls graduated and others left the neighborhood, supply always exceeded demand. There were always more than enough bitches to go around.

Like bullies, these girls were good for the school and the students. Because of their particular type of cliquish assembly, they demonstrated gender differences.  Girls have always been more socially adept, more attuned to subtlety, and far more sensitive to personality, looks, and behavior than boys; and when combined with adolescent angst, a compelling need to belong, and the mentality of the pack, they could be brutal to The Other. Girls learned about themselves and boys wised up quickly.

Boys’ braggadocio, simplemindedness (“Cunt, faggot, pussy”), and concern for their own swagger and posturing, never coalesced into disassembling packs like girls. Two or three boys were enough to rough someone up, but male ego was at stake rather than the hunt, the cull, and the kill.  Boys were easy to understand and easy to avoid.

School administrators, principals, and teachers have been trained to practice zero tolerance for bullying and intimidation.  Rules on language, behavior, and the impropriety of innuendo, slight, and even indifference are posted everywhere.  Inclusivity is the new status quo.  The weak must be protected, the strong tethered, and the abusive removed.

None of this does any good, of course. Children are simply too smart, too inventive, too socially aware, and too cruel for artificial, engineered rules to take hold. Who said that childhood was a bed of roses?  On the contrary, it is the earliest battleground in the war for social superiority, dominance, and authority.  A smooth ride that ends abruptly in the violent, brutal, and no-holds-barred world of adult society profits no one.

Political idealists insist that we are all good people, and policies of diversity and inclusivity according to which there are no weak or strong but only difference are the best in the long run.  They do indeed prepare students for the real world by sending them out with high self-esteem and a sense of respect and compassion for others.

This is nonsense. Every knackered idealist returning home at the end of the day, has to admit that he was ill-prepared for battle. The rule of tooth-and-claw was never posted, and it is the only one that matters.

Marley Brixton was an Ugly Duckling.  As she matured, all the ungainly features of adolescence developed into distinctly attractive if not beautiful ones. More importantly, thanks in large part to her mother, she learned how to deal with other women.  Once bitchiness was correlated with sexual competition, it became less threatening; and as she developed into an alluring young women, the cattiness and defensive aggressiveness of girl-packs made less and less difference.

Other girls were not so lucky. Their deck could never be reshuffled, and the hand they were dealt was it for life. Depending on personality and character, they emerged from the school experience either hardened at bitter or newly savvy and cynical about life in the raw.  In all cases, however, the bullying/girl-pack experience was beneficial and necessary. Laissez-faire is always the better policy.

La Dolce Vita vs Making A Difference–The Choice Is Obvious

There is a scene in Woody Allen’s Match Point where the con man tells his prospective prey that he doesn’t want to teach tennis all his life. He wants “to make a difference”. Of course this is all nonsense.  All he wants is to marry the daughter of one of Britain’s wealthiest families and be set for life.

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Making a difference has gained currency since the social revolution of the Sixties. Individuals, especially when united with others, can effect social change; and to do otherwise, say committed progressives, would be to fail one’s moral imperative.

Before the Sixties making money was the American way and justifiably respected. Even though Sinclair Lewis satirized the bourgeoisie of the Minnesota plains, he respected their enterprise, optimism, and hard work. Highfalutin ideas and turning the prairie into money were inconsistent as Carrie, the heroine of Main Street, finds out the hard way.  In the end, however, she comes to accept the goodness and principled life of the good people of the town, and puts her reverence for books, art, and theatre on the shelf.

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The post-War boom of the 40s and 50s was remarkable; and Puritanical conviction, the international demand for American products and services, and the wide-open economic climate of the times enabled rapid growth.  Most small communities like those of Main Street were conservative, inward-looking, proud of their heritage and traditions, hard-working, and optimistic; and saw no need to look outward as the contributed their bit to American enterprise. .

The Sixties changed all that.  We are all brothers, the Movement preached, and together we can erase a centuries of racial injustice, economic inequality, adventurism, and war; and become the world’s first truly participatory, populist, liberal democracy.

All of this – small town boosterism and international progressivism alike – required hard work, commitment, rectitude, a belief in the possibility of progress, and a belief in American exceptionalism.  Promoting American ingenuity or moral commitment both require dedication, discipline, and energy. 

European intellectuals have always sniffed at American exceptionalism.  There really is no such thing as progress, they have always claimed, and point to Tolstoy, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and fifteen hundred years of incessant continental conflict and war for proof.

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The English upper class have always sniffed at American enthusiasm and bravado. The world is a far more subtle, nuanced place than these prairie rubes imagine, they say, and better to act when necessary than to bleat on about hope, progress and salvation.

No matter how much members of French literary salons may pillory the United States, just about everybody wants to come here.  If America were contiguous to Europe, hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern and African migrants would be climbing the fence. These peasants have always worked hard for a living and their families, so why not work hard for greater rewards?

There are always two sides to every argument, and those who propose living the good life – la dolce vita – have a point. The Puritans had it all wrong, say the Italians. Life is far too short to be spent on severe, nose-to-the-grindstone, unremitting work. Social progress? Folly. Celestial rewards for those who toil in the vineyard? Nonsense.  A life of probity, abiding by the law, saving, and modesty? Absurd.

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Of course the Italian court was a model of aristocratic principle and means.  In Florence no less than Paris or London, the aristocracy followed the same rules of kingship, political rule, and lineage. Florence led the world in industry and banking in the early Renaissance, and Italy was never an economic slouch.  In recent years its antiquated system has begun to wobble and teeter under EU pressure; but has begun to reform, produce, and modernize.

Yet Italians have not lost the dolce vita spirit. American Puritanical enterprise can be influential up to a point.  Outside the boardrooms of Turin and Genoa, it has made only a dent – a ding on the elegant, graceful, and supremely beautiful Ferrari. La dolce vita or French joie de vivre are still as culturally defining as they always have been. No American would ever take a month of uninterrupted summer holiday like the French still do, cramming the TGV to Lyon and the Riviera every year on August 1st, enjoying the Mediterranean until la rentrée. Long lunches, siestas, trysts, cinq à septs may be under siege, but they are holding their own.

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“The United States is so bloody serious”, said an Italian friend of mine. Nothing is taken lightly, he said.  Everything is turned into an issue, a cause, or a purpose.

A few years ago I was in Rome to meet colleagues at FAO before heading out to Africa. On my way to the 10th floor conference room, every time an attractive woman stepped into the elevator, she was greeted with smiles and appreciative nods. There was nothing aggressive or untoward; nothing unpleasant or embarrassing. The men acknowledged the woman’s beauty, and she appreciated the attention. 

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On returning to the United States, I was taking the elevator to a meeting in the State Department when a beautiful woman got on at the third floor.  Immediately all men raised their eyes to the ceiling to avoid any possible intimation of sexual aggressiveness or unwanted attention.  The intimidated men turned away.  The woman did not exist.

It is easy to say that this sexual ignorance is only a result of the current progressive focus on diversity and social equality; and that this evangelism has forced otherwise open and tolerant people into hiding.  Yet as Sinclair Lewis pointed out, it is in the American character to be evangelical, to insist on social and cultural homogeneity, to follow the rules, and to stifle any anti-communitarian impulses. The careful, emotionally parsimonious but exuberant American is for real.

An Italian American family I knew in New Brighton had retained much of la dolce vita of the Old Country.  Dr. Lavaca was a model of bella figura.  He spent hundreds on handmade Italian suits, imported shoes from Venice, silk ties, and a weekly hair-styling. He looked great, spiffy, elegant, and cut a fine figure walking down the corridors of New Brighton General Hospital.  He worked attentively if not overly hard, limited his practice to what he alone could manage, refused the pressures of the new medical groups that were becoming more and more common, and enjoyed golf, winter vacations, the best restaurants of the area, and more than one girlfriend. 

Work, he knew, was always an item to be factored in, but limited to place and time.  He, for example, worked extremely hard in college and medical school, knowing that his degrees and honors would be tickets a life of wealth, success, and leisure.  Once certified, and operating his practice out of a spacious, well-appointed office on West Main Street, he relaxed. Because of his easy, laissez-faire attitude, he was known for his bedside manner; and as a physician he could refer complicated cases to specialists, thus eliminating risk to himself and his patients.  Even in a small city like New Brighton, he prospered both economically and socially.  His was a good life, enjoyed to the fullest because he had figured out how to accommodate both American Puritanical enterprise and la dolce vita.

Why would anyone limit their life to purpose, when there is good evidence for a purposeless, random, and meaningless one? Why would anyone invest in social progress when thousands of years of history have demonstrated that it simply does not happen? Why would anyone flagellate themselves for not doing more for others when as Christians believe, the only contract worth considering is that between the individual and Jesus Christ? And faith in him, said Martin Luther, was the only currency abroad.  Good works don’t count.

In other words, there is every reason to aspire to la dolce vita. ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die’ has always been the most sensible adage.

Not everyone is like Henry Lavaca, and each person’s definition of the good life is different.  Some tend more to artistic pleasures – art, music, and dance; others prefer literature, philosophy, and history; and many more like to kick back with brats and beer.  The point is not what one considers to be elements of la dolce vita; but how to enjoy it.

The case of Axel Notting is a good one. A number of years ago Axel joined an international relief organization which distributed food in countries of the developing world. Axel had no ‘service motive’ whatsoever, and signed up because he wanted to see the world. The New Brighton Herald ran an article on him.  The headline read “Local Man Does Good” and described the work he was to do in the poorest areas of India.

Throughout his long career, Axel led the good life. He was dutiful to his work, but it was a means to an end. It was not difficult, and he had plenty of free time to himself. He stayed at the best hotels, ate at the finest restaurants, spent long weekends at beach resorts, and had Angolan, Palestinian, and Danish lovers.

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Thanks to his excellent French and Portuguese, he was able to meet and socialize with intellectuals, artists, imams, and political activists. His eleemosynary mission was the enabler for his brand of good life.  If the people of the Congo, Bolivia, or Chad benefitted from his work, so much the better. Alleviation of their problems was a by-product of his work.  Enjoying life was its principal attainment.

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Alex and Henry Lavaca were two of a kind. Neither believed that purpose or mission was important.  Results were all that mattered; and both discharged their duties responsibly and well.  Most importantly, they enjoyed life. Una cena senza vino e como una giornata senza sole, goes the Italian proverb; and both Henry and Alex never let a day go by without a glass of wine.