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Don’t Be Cruel

02.22.04   /   Comments.06   /   Filed Under: "art" + Pop

When I was in grad school, I had an evening seminar that was lead by a rotating group of guest artists. One particular session was lead by David Pease. During a class he asked us what was the one characteristic every artist should have. I blurted out, “They should be nice.” This was answered with uproarious laughter until the class realized that I wasn’t joking. Then everyone took a shot at my comment. “You’ve got to be kidding.” “Niceness won’t get you anywhere.” “You need to be tough to succeed.” I quietly took their jabs hoping that the topic would change quickly.

Lately, I’ve been listening to old editions of This American Life (TAL) while I’ve worked in my office. I came across one entitled Allure of the Mean Friend. Ira Glass writes on the TAL website:

“What is it about them, our mean friends? They treat us badly, they don’t call us back, they cancel plans at the last minute, and yet we come back for more. Popular bullies exist in business, politics, everywhere. How do they stay so popular?”

In one example on the program, an experiment was carried out at Lula’s Cafe in Chicago’s Logan Square, just a quarter mile from our apartment. One of the more friendly waitresses at Lula’s was getting lousy tips, so she was wired with a hidden microphone and proceeded to be curt with half her customers and kind to the other. After receiving the cold shoulder from his waitress, one regular who was known for being a lousy tipper ended up giving her a 20% tip for the first time ever.

I was also reading an article by Gordon Marino this last week about teaching ethics in schools:

“Ethics education also ought to include training to make us better able to detect inner reflections that are solely in the service of the pleasure principle…

“Festinger taught that when we hold conflicting beliefs, we are motivated to change them in predictable directions. For example, suppose you would like to believe that you are a compassionate individual who is willing to help the poor. At the same time, you think that it would be nice to have lower taxes, and you are convinced that the welfare system increases the government’s draw on your wallet. If Festinger is right, you might be inclined to try to convince yourself that the welfare system has to be cut, not because you want lower taxes, but because having fewer welfare benefits will motivate people to find jobs. Cutting benefits would be for their own good…

“People who presume to teach ethics should help their students be honest with themselves about their own interests. Such candor is, of course, part of the Socratic curriculum of coming to know yourself. But it is hard psychological work, which we do not value much in these post-Freudian times. Unless our ethics students learn to examine themselves and what they really value, their command of ethical theories and their ability to think about ethics from diverse perspectives are not likely to bring them any closer to being willing and able to do the right thing.”

It is always easier to select the lesser of two kindnesses. And it is infinitely easier to be cruel. Such is ethical gravity.

To return to Ira Glass’s words, “What is it about them, our mean friends? They treat us badly, they don’t call us back, they cancel plans at the last minute, and yet we come back for more.” This American Life, never really answered the question. It just provided examples of a masochistic tendency to love those who despise us. So what is it about our mean friends?

Our elected officials don’t usually represent the majority yet they get reelected. Heads of corporations could probably care less about the janitors who vacuum their offices for minimum wage, but the janitors empty their trash every night. The most popular girl in school was typically the meanest and she was elected prom queen. Meanness gets rewarded and the meek serve their tormentors’ purposes.

Honestly, I think our reasons for honoring the despicable and kowtowing to the mean are infinitely varied. Nature does seem to prefer the exception to the rule.

Cruelty can be good for business and social stature. My grad seminar was probably right. If I want to be guaranteed an extravagant income, to get into the big art shows, and receive mention in the right publications, I should probably start my backstabbing campaign soon. If I think that I need to be nice, I probably won’t ever become a “great” artist, but I’d rather be a good person. I still think that every artist should be nice.

Note: On a related topic, look at some examples of what one school is teaching kids about being kind (via what a quiet stiff).

Comments

andrew
no. 1 / posted 02.25.04 / 10:25 AM

hmm, that explains a lot about Lula’s cafe’s service.

dan
no. 2 / posted 02.26.04 / 3:20 PM

I read what I could of the comments at porkshoulder before my attention span gave out, so forgive me if this has been said.

As someone who considers himself a fellow artist, I must take issue with a few notions. The notion that an artist has to be nice, or mean, or sad, or any one way degrades art as a concept. These ideas limit art. They make art much smaller than it really is.

An artist needn’t be nice. Nor need she be mean. Nor sad. There is, I believe, only one characteristic that is an absolute prerequisite to be an artist. Humanity.

If that sounds trite to you, I don’t mean it to be. What I’m saying is not that you need only to be a human to make art. I’m saying an artist must be keenly in touch with his humanity to make valid art. Any work not richly connected to the artist’s humanity is of no use to anybody. Thus, a sad artist can make great art, and a cruel artist can make great art, and a nice artist can make great art. Of course the greatest art is made by people who are in touch with all those parts of themselves.

Chris, you are a mean person (somewhere inside you), and a happy person, and a sad, and a bitter, and a scared, and a glorious. I believe that the better you know all those qualities in yourself, indeed, the better you know yourself, the better the artist you will be.

chris
no. 3 / posted 02.29.04 / 12:17 AM

Dan,

So to recap, you wrote, “The notion that an artist has to be nice, or mean, or sad, or any one way degrades art as a concept. These ideas limit art.” Yet you go on to write that “an artist must be keenly in touch with his humanity to make valid art.” So, to avoid limiting art, artists mustn’t be any one thing, but they must be one thing and that is in touch with their humanity or else their art is invalid. Riiiiiight.

I’m a little lost as to why you are mentioning that here. I made no mention of the quality of art stemming from mean people. Yes, Dan, “a sad artist can make great art, and a cruel artist can make great art, and a nice artist can make great art.” But mean people just make for mean people. And mean artists just make for mean artists. And mean people/artists do “better” in society.

I said that I thought that artists should be nice. I work with artists every day. When I encounter an artist that is mean, rude, or egotistical to the point of demeaning me without provocation, it just reinforces my belief that every artist should be nice. I say this because I believe that every person should be nice.

My examples were of people I know as well as some stories from others illustrating that niceness doesn’t usually yield the big bucks, a corner office, a promotion, an acting gig, or an art show. Niceness gets you a position serving the mean people who shoved you and/or others down for their gig.

I’m sure I am a mean person somewhere inside of myself (you should have read this comment before I edited it), but I’d rather be a nice artist and therefore a nice person. And I hope that you are a nice actor. And I hope that everyone can just be nice people. I fail to see how that could really degrade the quality of life on earth let alone the quality of art.

dan
no. 4 / posted 03.02.04 / 2:47 AM

Chris- I really didn’t mean to offend (to be honest, I’m not sure what offended specifically). Nor did I mean to imply that I think that niceness is anything but a desireable quality in an artist or a person. Actually, I was responding more to the porkshoulder debate than to your posting (is that bad form?).

Just to clarify- I wasn’t saying that an artist “mustn’t be any one thing.” I was saying that an artist needn’t be nice or mean, etc. I was saying that an artist can still be good (or perhaps their art can still be good) if they aren’t nice. I personally think they should be nice, but that’s just a personal preference, not a prescription for art.

As for life outside of art. I don’t buy that being cut-throat is any better a strategy for success in any field than being nice. I think the truth is that both qualities are incidental. Success, it seems to me, is about drive and a powerful belief in one’s own abilities.

Chris
no. 5 / posted 03.02.04 / 10:08 AM

Dan,

No offense was taken. But to make sure that your commentary is taken in the correct context, you may want to post your comments on the appropriate entry in the future.

Timothy
no. 6 / posted 03.08.04 / 8:36 PM

Being mean is sometimes the misinterpretation of people who are simply standing up for themselves. The waitress got a tip through the cold shoulder because she made the fellow realise that he’d been taking her for granted. Being nice sometimes just sends the signal, “you can walk all over me”.

/.. Comments are Closed ../

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