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nswer R.' Quetieonsi
By WALTER MUBDOCH
Why do some people like being rude? N.R., Adelaide, B.A.
THIS question will not be
thought trivial by anyone
who remembers the famous
passage in Burke beginning,
"Manners arc of more im
portance than laws." He goes
on to show that while the
law "touches us but here and
there, and now and then," the
manners of the community in
which we live affect us every
day of our lives.
Therefore I think your ques
tion an interesting and import
ant one, and I wish I were
psychologist enough to be able
to answer it adequately. Un
fortuntely, I can only guess.
You ask me, not why people
are rude, bat why some people
seem to enjoy being rude. Of
course many people are rude
without enjoying their rudeness
-without even being conscious
of it. They are mannerless be
cause they have never been
taught the rudiments of good
manners. Or they are manner
less because they are self
centred and quite insensitive to
other people's feelings. It never
occurs to them that they would
not like to be spoken to as they
speak to others. This form of
discourtesy is not to be taken
too seriously. It merely im
plies a defect in our national
system of education, which cer
tainly ought to include elemen
tary teaching of politeness.
Your question relates to a
more objectionable class than
those who are ill-mannered
through ignorance of how to
behave. You are certainly
right in assuming that some
people are consciously and de
liberately ill-mannered, and
positively wallow in rudeness.
As I say, I can only guess at
the nature of their enjoyment.
At its worst, it may be due to
a streak of sadism in their
mental make-up; they enjoy
hurting people's feelings as
children of the baser sort en
joy hurting a butterfly by tear
ing off its wings.
At its best, it may be due to
a certain defiant sincerity.
They despise the veneer of con
ventional politeness. They will
be honest at all costs. They
will speak the truth though the
heavens may fall. They take
a delight in being the apostles
of candour in a society of
smooth-spoken humbugs.
But in nine cases out of ten
we have to fall back, for an
explanation of their enjoyment,
on that badly over-worked
theory, the inferiority complex.
As a general rule, people who
are ill-mannered suffer from a
subconscious feeling of in
feriority. Their rudeness is a
form of self assertiveness. With
out knowing it, they are trying
to convince themselves that
they are the superiors of the
persons they are addressing. It
is a kind of bravado, and it
gives them a momentary and
barren pleasure.
About once a week, on an
average, I receive an abusive
letter. The authors of these
letters ought to be able to sup
ply you with an answer to your
question; but I doubt if they
really could, because they
probably don't know them
selves the source of their evi
dent gusto. I shall copy out
a letter received last week:
"Dear Sir,--I do not believe
that the various questions you
answer are written to you by
common-sense people. Any
body who knows how to use
his reference books would not
bother to write to you. If
reasonably intelligent men de
pended more upon their own
common sense and did a bit of
thinking for themselves, they
would learn about things more
accurately than by listening to
you and to over-rated philo
sophers like Bertrand Russell.
Your punctuation, anyhow, is
terriblel"
Of course anyone has a per
fect right to criticise my
punctuation or, for that matter,
the shape of my nose. In fact,
everything in the above letter
may, for all I know, be per
fectly true. But there are vari
ous ways of telling the truth;
and the writer has chosen the
way which reveals, in every
sentence, the presence of a
typical inferiority complex.
I have quoted the letter as a
good example of the queer fact
you speak of. The author of
it evidently enjoyed himself
immensely. Why anyone should
find enjoyment in such things
is as I say, a psychological
enigma. But we are all enigmas
in one way or another.
Which is the most intelligent race? K.R.V., stwell, Vi.
IT remains to be proved that
any one race of human
beings is more intelligent than
any other race. This sounds
like wilful paradox; we have
grown so accustomed to think
ing of ourselves as a highly in
telligent people that it seems
outrageous to suggest that we
may be on the same intellec
tual level as the Dyaks of
Borneo or the Hottentots or the
Patagonians.
Nevertheless, anthropologists
seem to be gradually coming to
the conclusion that there is no
such steep inequality of intelli
gence as we are in the habit
of assuming. For instance, one
well-known authority on the
subject maintains that the
average full-blooded Australian
aboriginal is fully as intelligent
as the average white.
I am referring, of course, to
fundamental intelligence, the
basic gifts, the mental capacity
with which the child starts out
on his life's voyage. No-one
will maintain that all races are
alike in those acquired skills
which are the results of educa
tion, of social environment, of
economic advantages, of the
political inheritance which is
alike for no two races. That
the children of one race are
more intelligent than the child
ren of another race--this, I
say, remains to be proved, and
seems improbable.
I read the other day a news
paper interview with Maria
Montessori. The article, I may
say in passing, filled me with
surprise; I had no idea that
this world-famous woman of
genius was still alive. She is,
it appears, very much alive,
though she must be over 80
years old. It is rumoured that
she is soon to be awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize, a well
deserved though somewhat be
lated tribute to a woman whose
place is with" Pestalozzi and
Froebel as an educationist who
had a deep insight into the
mind of childhood and the
proper way of dealing with it.
Her book, "The Montessori
Method," has been translated
into every European language;
and every teacher knows some
thing of the miraculous results
her method achieved. A doctor
of medicine, she turned her
attention to the training of men
tally defective children in a
Roman slum. When her pupils,
apparently half-witted to begin
with, proved themselves able to
pass the ordinary examinations
with credit, it occurred to her
to ask herself why the same
method should not be used
with normal children.
The result was that the name
of Maria Montessori became
known wherever teaching is
taken seriously as a profession;
and it may be said with assur
ance that no school today is
what it would have been if this
great discoverer had not lived.
Well, the point is that no
higher authority on the minds
of children could be quoted;
and her opinion-no, she says,
it is not an opinion; she is
absolutely certain---that child
ren, the wide world over, are
psychologically equal, "in
Honolulu as in Central Africa,
in India as in Australia, poor
and rich, civilised or not."
And on this belief she. bases
her idea of "education for
peace." The issues of peace and
war will lie in the hands of
those who are now children;
and the pathway to peace lies
in the education of the child
ren of all nations who are all
equal in mind-power. If she is
right in her assumption, and if
she can show how "education for
peace" can be brought about,
it will be the crowning achieve
ment of a long life devoted to
the service of humanity.
Is federation of the world possible ?
J.G., BunburS, W.A.
'?HIS, if you don't mind my
saying so-or even if you
do-is an absurd question. My
own opinion, expressed several
times in this column, is that
some form of world federation
is inevitable, if the human race
is to survive. You may dis
agree with that opinion. You
may think that world federa
tion is to the last degree im
probable. You may even think
it highly undesirable. But I
don't see how anyone can think
it impossible.
What you mean, I suppose, is
to ask whether federation of
the world is feasible; of course
it is possible, but is it practical
politics? Is it not a utopian
dream,
A few short years ago almost
everyone would have answered
in the affirmative; the idea
would have been dismissed as
fit only for airy visionaries and
wild cranks. But recent events
have opened a good many
eyes. New and devilish weapons
of warfare have wakened most
of us to the fact that a law
less world may well be a
suicidal world. We have come
to see the immeasurable power
of destruction which another
world war will inevitably bring
into play.
And we have come to see that
another world war is hardly to
be avoided unless we can some
how manage to substitute inter
national law for international
anarchy. At present, interna
tional law is a mockery. What
is the use of a law which any
nation can break when it feels
so inclined--a law which there
is no international law-court
to interpret and no international
police to enforce?
Nations are supremely egotis
tical; and it will accordingly be
supremely difficult to induce
any nation to give up its
national sovereignty, its im
memorial claim to be both
judge and jury in its own case
and to decide on the rights and
wrongs of its own actions. Dif
ficult, but surely not impos
sible. The hydrogen bomb has
made many converts even be
fore it has actually come into
existence.
Some form of properly con
stituted supra-national govern
ment is, I believe, quite certain
to come. The only question,
the dread question-Will it
come in time to avert unspeak
able disaster?-is one which I
can't answer, and which no
body can answer. We 'can only
hope against hope, and work
and not grow weary. It is now
the greatest thbng to work for.
$