Is Polite Society Polite? and Other Essays

by Julia Ward Howe

THE word "society" has reached the development of two opposite meanings. The generic term applies to the body politic en masse; the specific term is technically used to designate a very limited portion of that body. The use, nowadays, of the slang expression "sassiety" is evidence that we need a word which we do not as yet possess.

It is with this department of the human fellowship that I now propose to occupy myself, and especially with one of its achievements, considered by some a lost art,—the salon.

This prelude of mine is somewhat after the manner of Polonius, but, as Shakespeare must have had occasion to observe, the mind of age has ever a retrospective turn. Those of us who are used to philosophizing must always go back from a particular judgment to some governing principle which we have found, or think we have found, in long experience. The question whether salons are possible in America leads my thoughts to other questions which appear to me to lie behind this one, and which primarily concern the well-being of civilized man.

The uses of society, in the sense of an assemblage for social intercourse, may be briefly stated as follows: first of all, such assemblages are needed, in order to make people better friends. Secondly, they are needed to enlarge the individual mind by the interchange of thought and expression with other minds. Thirdly, they are needed for the utilization of certain sorts and degrees of talent which would not be available either for professional, business, or educational work, but which, appropriately combined and used, can forward the severe labors included under these heads, by the instrumentality of sympathy, enjoyment, and good taste.

Any social custom or institution which can accomplish one or more of these ends will be found of important use in the work of civilization; but here, as well as elsewhere, the ends which the human heart desires are defeated by the poverty of human judgment and the general ignorance concerning the relation of means to ends. Society, thus far, is a sort of lottery, in which there are few prizes and many blanks, and each of these blanks represents some good to which men and women are entitled, and which they should have, and could, if they only knew how to come at it.

Thus, social intercourse is sometimes so ordered that it develops antagonism instead of harmony, and makes one set of people the enemies of another set, dividing not only circles, but friendships and families. This state of things defeats society's first object, which, in my view, is to make people better friends. Secondly, it will happen, and not seldom, that the frequent meeting together of a number of people, necessarily restricted, instead of enlarging the social horizon of the individual, will tend to narrow it more and more, so that sets and cliques will revolve around small centres of interest, and refuse to extend their scope.

In this way, end number two, the enlargement of the individual mind is lost sight of, and, end number three, the interchange of thought and experience does not have room to develop itself.

People say what they think others want to hear: they profess experiences which they have never had. Here, consequently, a sad blank is drawn, where we might well look for the greatest prize; and, end number four, the utilization of secondary or even tertiary talents is defeated by the application of a certain fashion varnish, which effaces all features of individuality, and produces a wondrously dull surface, where we might have hoped for a brilliant variety of form and color.

These defects of administration being easily recognized, the great business of social organizations ought to be to guard against them in such wise that the short space and limited opportunity of individual life should have offered to it the possibility of a fair and generous investment, instead of the uncertain lottery of which I spoke just now.

One of the great needs of society in all times is that its guardians shall take care that rules or institutions devised for some good end shall not become so perverted in the use made of them as to bring about the result most opposed to that which they were intended to secure. This, I take it, is the true meaning of the saying that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance," no provision to secure this being sure to avail, without the constant direction of personal care to the object.