Stefan Themerson

The Chair of Decency

The Chair ofDecency

g© 1982, 2007 by Stefan Themerson Estate.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproducedor transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic ormechanical, including photocopy, recording or any informationstorage and retrieval system, without permission in writing fromthe copyright holder, except for quotes in reviews.

Photographs of Stefan Themerson in Amsterdam, together withscans of a page from the "The Chair of Decency" manuscript andStefan's copy of Een leerstoel in fatsoen, were provided byThemerson Archive.

First Edition

OBSCURE PUBLICAnONSPaul Rosheim, Series Editor

307 River Street, Apt. 18Black River Falls, Wisconsin 54615

"Watch Out for Obscure Publications"

The Chair of Decency

Stefan Themerson

Obscure Publications. 2007

THE HUIZINGA LECTURE

At the end of February 1981, Stefan Themerson received a letterfrom A.S. Spoor, the editor-in chief of NRC Handelsblad inRotterdam, as follows:

"Dear Mr. Themerson,

Since 1972, when we celebrated the centenary of Johan Huizinga's,the famous Dutch historian, birthday in Leiden, the University ofLeiden organises, together with the Nederlandse Maatschappij voorLetterkunde and the Dutch Daily NRC Handelsblad, annual lectures,called "HuiZinga-lectures", in honour of Johan Huizinga. Alternate­ly, the lectures are given by a Dutch and a foreign lecturer.

The first Huizinga-lecture took place on December 8, 1972. TheDutch author and essayist Rudy Kousbroek spoke about ethologyand cultural philosophy. In the years thereafter we had MaryMcCarthy; the Dutch publicist Jan Pen; the French essayist andphilosopher, Jean Fran~ois Revel; the Dutch historian and biographerof Bakunin, Arthur Lehning; professor Noarn Chomsky; the Dutchauthor Karel van het Reve; professor Golo Mann, and professor E.H.Kossman. We shall be proud to be able to add your name to this listas the lecturer for 1981."

Furthermore, Stefan learned that the lecture would be published in abrochure, and that after the lecture he will be invited to be thecustomary "Huizinga-buffet-supper" at Spoor's house. Other inviteeswere to include the previous speakers, friends from universities,writers, members of NRC Handelsblad staff, and perhaps a fewpoliticians.

The lectures were always on a Friday in December, and Stefan's talkwas to be on December 11 tho

Stefan accepted, and called his talk 'The Chair of Decency'. He sentthe text ofhis talk on 28th October 1981 so that it could be publishedin advance. When a lady from Leiden telephoned him to find outwhat the lecture was about, and how to describe it on the invitation,Stefan wrote that couldn't answer the question and could she ask Mr.Spoor, to enlighten her.

The lecture took place in a church and Stefan recalled that at onepoint the bells rang, unannounced, to celebrate the occasion.

The lecture appeared in Dutch translation in NRC Handelsblad, on12 December 1981, and a small booklet published by Athenaeum ­Polak & Van Gennep, Amsterdam in 1982. It was republished in anedition of the first fifteen Huizinga lectures, Aile Cultuur is Streven,Amsterdam, 1987.

Regrettably, A.S. Spoor's introduction to Stefan Themerson's lecturewas mislaid in his office, Stefan never saw it, and has not beenpublished.

The theme of The Chair ofDecency - posing our innate biologicalgoodness against the dangerous influence of culture and beliefs - isboth a culmination and a precis of Themerson's thought and attitude.It runs through his lifetime of writing, in novels, essays and poems.After The Chair ofDecency, the theme was crystallised in 'The Aimof Aims', sometimes presented as prose and sometimes as a poem.

Themerson concluded that Means are more important than Aims,that they should in fact BE the Aims. Aims are cultural, he said, butthe proper Means are biological.

Jasia Reichardt

11

The Chair of Decency

Means ratherthan Aims

Gentleness­biological;Aggression­cultural

I am greatly honoured in being asked to addressyou and to give this lohan Huizinga Lecture, andI hope you will agree with me in thinking that he,who taught us that the subject of Cultural Historyis not History but Culture, would find congenialto him the two theses which I'm going to submitto you for your consideration.

The first thesis, putting it simply, asserts thatMeans are ofgreater importance than Aims.

The second asserts, that, contrary to whatclergymen and policemen want us to believe,Gentleness is biological and Aggression iscultural, not vice versa.

There are two ways we can take to arrive at suchconclusions:

a scholarly way - by employing analysis,discussion, argumentation;

and a meandering way - by living a verylong time and letting our experiences do themental work for us.

As my age has become much more impressive thanmy scholarship, I have chosen to voyage with youalong the latter, the meandering way.

History&physicsorFaifes firervas gens!&the Leyden bottle

...

Let me begin by confessing that when I first heardthe name of your noble university, as a youngschoolboy, some 60 years ago and miles awayEastwards, it was not in connection with yourgreat historian, but in association with thephysicist (P. van Musschenbrock) who in 1745invented the so called Leyden bottle.

1745 was the year when the famous phrase 'Apresvous, messieurs les Anglais' originated, and theword 'pragmatic' referred to the anny defeated atFontenoy, not having yet become a philosophicaltenn meaning that our doctrinarian assertions areto be judged by their consequences.

My schoolboyish notion of chivalry made mequite impressed by these phrases exchangedbetween Lord Hay and Ie Comte d'Auteroche:'Faifes firer vas gens!', 'Non, monsieur! a vousl'honneur!' - but the Leyden bottle wasinfinitely more fascinating. Just imagine: anempty marmalade jar; you coat it with tin foil,within and without; you connect the inside withan electric friction machine, and then, later on,hey presto! you approach your finger - and aflash of lightning!

Who would have predicted at the time that theRoad of Political History, on which the battle atFontenoy was an episode, and the Road of theHistory of Nuclear Science, on which the Leydenbottle was also an episode, would become so

2

Analogies mislead

As little historyas possible

entangled with each other that we should againhear the familiar words: 'Faites jeter vos bombes,messieurs les Russes!', 'Apres vous, messieurs lesAmericains!', 'Non, messieurs! a vous I 'hon­neur!'

*

We yearn for metaphors, models, parables, thatwould help us to understand. We long foranalogies, though we know that to argue byanalogy is liable to produce false conclusionsfrom true premises. Because analogies are mis­leading. Not only historical analogies.

Imagine two identical pieces of ice: one floatingon the surface of the river Styx, the other on theriver Scamander. The similarity of the situationmay tempt us to draw one and the sameconclusion. And yet, one piece of ice may be inthe process of growing, because the temperatureis falling, while the other piece of ice may be inthe process of melting, because the temperature isrising. The example looks trivial, but it won'tlook so trivial if, instead of comparing twoidentical pieces of ice in two rivers, you compare,say, two identical numbers of prisoners, notnecessarily political, in two countries of whichone is moving up, and the other down, on the roadof progress, or freedom, or reason, which isprobably one and the same road.

To know the direction of the movement, we must,of course, have history. But we need not as muchof it as possible but as little of it as possible. It is

3

Human size&Humanunderstanding

the momentum, the vectorial quantity of thepresent fraction of a second that tells us where theaircraft is going to. The history of its yesterday'smeanderings confuses our judgment. Can Historyreally explain how it happened that we findourselves where we are today, with so much dirton the heels of our shoes and so much blood onour hands?

'Faites Jeter vos bombes!', 'Non, messieurs! avous l'honneurf' It isn't even clear: do theycalculate how many of their bombs to throw oneach other, or on us, who are in between?

*

Once upon a time, we used to help ourunderstanding of the world by reducing (orenlarging) everything to Human Size. By humansize I mean things bigger than a flea and smallerthan an elephant; history longer than the durationof a single flap of the wings of a moth and shorterthan a century; weights heavier than a petalfalling down from a cherry tree and lighter thanthe burden Atlas held up on his shoulders.

There we are: the e.G.S. system of ClassicalPhysics.

Egyptian Gods, and Greek Gods, and RomanGods, were of human size. And Jesus also choseto be born of human size, so that it would· beeasier for us to understand His way of dealingwith the enormity of the Tragic factor containedin the edifice built by His Father.

4

Experiments&experiences

Today, things are the other way round. Today, allour poor human-size phenomena are beingexplained to us by reference to things very big,such as galactic dust, primordial soup, the BigBang (which reduces our Cosmos from somethingnecessary, fundamental, to a mere historical,contingent event), or else they are explained byreference to things very small: molecules, chainsof DNA, atoms, quarks ... all those things that areproved by experiment but unknown to experience- unless you'll say that proving something byexperiment, even an imaginary experiment, is anexperience.

*

A scientist counts some figures, he finds that theproportion of little white mice that have survived,or not survived the experiment, is significant, andhe smiles as he goes to the canteen to have hiscup of tea.

A writer finds the right word and the right placeto put it in the right sentence, and a smile appearson his face.

A little peeing-boy lifts up his little penis, andwhen the liquid parabola hits the target, his eyesbrighten with pleasure. Or else, he sulks becauseof some disappointment. Or cries because he hashurt his thumb.

These are simple experiments and experiences.But there are some others which don't produce

5

The very small

The very big

laughter, or sulking, or cries of pain:

The little boy holds in both hands a big box ofchocolates. But he is not interested in the contentsof the box. He is interested in its lid. Because onit, there is a picture of a pretty lady who isholding in her hands a box of chocolates on thelid of which there is a picture of a pretty ladyholding in her hands a miniature box ofchocolates on the lid of which ... The boy's eyescannot come any closer, his seeing processescannot go any further, but his thinking processescan. Now, ifhe comes to the conclusion that thereis no end to the series of pretty ladies holdingboxes of chocolates, maybe, one day, he'llbecome an axiomatic mathematician, or adogmatic politician ... ? On the other hand, if hethinks there must necessarily be somewhere therethe very tiniest, ultimate pretty lady whom youcan't reduce any further, maybe he'll become aphysicist, or a novelist ... ?

But now he looks up and notices above the portalof the Cathedral a bronze semi-circular high­relief, in the middle of which sits the Holy Motherof God, holding in her hands a model of thewhole Cathedral, above the portal of which . . .No, this time he doesn't try to look 'inwards'.This time his mind moves outwards and makeshim imagine a huge, invisible Mother of Godholding in her hands the real Cathedral, and then,a bigger still, bigger than the sky, Mother of Godholding in her hands . .. There he stops. Eitherhis intuition has told him that the whole thing isbecoming ridiculous in the way only grown-ups

6

can appreciate, or else, perhaps . .. Who canknow? Perhaps the very biggest, the ultimateMother of God is, by some conjuring trick, ahocus-pocus which only grown-ups can explain,the same person as the tiniest pretty lady with thebox of chocolates . . . ? He tries a piece ofchocolate, and his mind has already dismissed thevery big and the very small, and gone back to thehuman-size imaginary experiences: a comic strip,Nat Pinkerton detective stories, Pitigrilly'snaughty phantasies? Things are again natural,intelligible, and simple. But then he meets some

a Great Confusion Great Masters who want to claritY his thoughts,and everything becomes a Great Confusion.

*

The adventures ofan imaginaryschoolboy in hissearch for aphilosopher-king

Scientists?

The first of the Great Masters whom ourimaginary schoolboy met was a man called Platowho, over 2000 years ago, in a discussion with hisintellectual friends, expressed the view that thetroubles of mankind will not end till truephilosophers are given political powers andbecome rulers of states. As our imaginaryschoolboy was well aware of the troubles ofmankind, and wished them to cease, he decided toundertake a search for a philosopher true enoughto be a good replacement for Mrs Thatcher, MrReagan, and the like. It so happened that the firstphilosopher he met in his noble search, was oneof the Natural Philosophers, nowadays calledScientists.

The world of the Scientist's mind wassandwiched between two worlds: the outsideworld, and the world of the blackboard on which

7

Painters?

some mathematical white squiggles were chalked.The Scientist was very conscientiously trying toachieve a sort of aesthetic, pretty, one-to-onerelationship between the patterns he chalked onthe blackboard and the patterns he was able todiscern in the world. Meanwhile, theMathematician who stood at the Scientist'selbow, watched jealously that the pattern on theblackboard would form by itself an independent,consistent set, free of contradictions. Thisconscientious striving after some concordancebetween the FORMS produced on the blackboardand the REALITY of the world, pleased ourimaginary schoolboy so much that he was alreadywilling to suggest a Scientist-cum-Mathematicianas the replacement for the political rulers . . .Alas, the very next day, he met in a tramcar hisprofessor of chemistry, attired this time in the fullregalia of the military uniform of Major-general,and learned that the subject of the professor'sresearches was poison gas.

Disheartened by this discovery, he turned fromthe Scientist's laboratory to the Painter's studio.The world of the Painter's mind was alsosandwiched between two worlds: the outsideworld and the world of the canvas covered withpaint on which various shapes and colours beganto appear. Some were referring to the outsideworld, some others to the inner world of thePainter, and some others still to the inner world ofthe canvas itself. All this pleased our imaginaryschoolboy very much, but when, the very nextmorning, he learned that the very same Painterhad gone to an art gallery and there assassinated

8

Philosophers?

the very first President of a republic that had justachieved its independence, he, the imaginaryschoolboy, decided that that method of replacingpolitical rulers by members of the thinking classeswas perhaps not what Plato would advocate.

Confused by his experiences, our imaginaryschoolboy came to think that perhaps Confusionis a necessary, immanent part of all HumanUnderstanding, and so he directed his steps towhere the Confusion was the greatest, he went tosee Philosophers. Great philosophers.

The trouble with great philosophers is that eachgreat philosopher tends to define things in hisown idiosyncratic way. Because a really greatphilosopher would never accept another reallygreat philosopher's definition of a philosophicalterm. It seems even that the very greatness of areally great philosopher consists in giving adifferent meaning to a term used by other mortals,philosophers or not.

There was, however, one among them who wasnot only a great philosopher but also a great man,who cared 'for what is noble, for what isbeautiful, for what is gentle. Who saw inimagination the society that is to be created,where individuals grow freely, and where hateand greed and envy die because there is nothingto nourish them.' And so, at last, our imaginaryschoolboy thought that he had already arrived atthe end of his search for the platonic philosopher­king, -president, or - at least - -prime minister,when - and it happened late in the year of our

9

Symbolic logic&ordinary lives

Democracy (?)

Lord 1948 - the Philosopher came to a logicalconclusion that the United States should threatenan immediate nuclear war on Russia for thepurpose of forcing nuclear disarmament upon her.This statement was so unexpected that thePhilosopher himself soon forgot that he made it- so out of harmony with his past and futurethoughts and deeds, for which he and his wifewent to prison in the country that claims to haveno political prisoners. And the schoolboy'saffection for the man hadn't suffered, but he wasdismayed by the logic that treated global issues asif they were arithmetical facts represented bysigns in the system that could be manipulated as ifthey had no meaning, the logic in which therewere no symbols representing ordinary lives ofordinary people who are neither dissidents norwar-mongers, and want to marry, or divorce, havechildren, or not, play the balalaika, drink a glassof vodka, listen to Yevtushenko, or go to acinema, just like some other ordinary people, onthe other side of the Ocean, want to marry, ordivorce, have children, or not, playa guitar, drinkcoca cola, listen to Frank Sinatra, watchadvertisements on television, or have the luxuryof dying in one's bed.

So, perhaps, after all, Plato was not quite rightwhen he said: 'If the democracy of Athens hadconsisted only of educated persons, no fatal harmwould have been done.' Perhaps the very essenceof Democracy stems from the fact that theproportion of wise to stupid, good to bad, rationalto tempestuous, is the same, whether you searchamong philosophers or priests, poets or peasants,

10

Ways of seeing theworld

The aims of aims

politicians or generals, economists or dockers inthe shipyards of Gdansk.I don't know.

There are two ways of seeing the ways of seeingthe world. One is one way, and the other isanother. And nobody knows: 'Is there, anywhere,one way of seeing the two?' This is neither astatement nor a question. It is an expression of akind of feeling. Have you ever had that feeling? Itmade me put aside all my books and thenewspapers, made me switch off the radio, mademe go to a park and sit on a bench and reflect,made me walk through the streets and reflect,made me lie on my couch and reflect, and thereflection, both melancholy and not sad, was likethe hand of a watch, moving round and round andround, always forward, and always coming backto its point of departure. Hence melancholy:because questioning the essence of progress.

I wanted to grow a crystal, and bring it to you as agift. I wanted to wrap it nicely in words, and giveit to you tonight. Alas ... and it is not that I'm notcapable of putting forms in symmetries of rhymesand rhythms . . . but crystals grow fromundisturbed tranquility, and this I couldn't find inmyself.

Thus, I got up from my bench, stopped in themiddle of the traffic, jumped out of my dream:What I shall bring you is a flaming torch, a loud­hailer, an Allons, Citoyens! Fortunately ... and itis not that I'm not capable of putting rhymes andrhythms into a howling cry ... but, having lived

11

Poetry&Politics

through hairpin bends of History, and met andseen and heard some howling voices, both trueand false (the former is more dangerous), I calledmy sense of humour to stop me, just in time.

Thus, I have come to you tonight empty-handed,having no offerings of Aims to give, because noAim is so exalted that it be worth a heartbeatmore than Decency of Means. Because, when allis said and done, Decency of Means is the Aim ofalms.

*

Some naive lovers of semantics believe that ifonly our rulers, our saviours (of all sorts), couldunderstand the meaning of their ownpronouncements, they would amend their ways.What an illusion! They, the saviours, know themechanism of Language much better than all theSemanticists, Linguistic philosophers, andLogical formalists put together. That's how theyknow how to use it to play upon the prejudices ofthe mob: you and me.

And, when a Poet, or a Novelist, becomes aDemagogue, the same applies to him. BecausePOETRY, as well as POLITICS, may be morallyvicious, and intellectually dishonest. In suchcases, both poetry and oratory - political,religious, philosophical - are like crime. Thegreater a crime is, the more impressive it is, butthe less excusable.

Thus, when all is said and done, one finds that no

12

'formalism is theopium of thethinking classes'(Allan Calder)

The end&the means

poetic rhymes, no greatness, no philosophicalsystems, no reasons of state, no politic ends, andno utopian aims are more important than decencyof means. Because, when all is said and done,decency of means is the aim ofaims.

*

And here, straight from the lopped and barkedwood of bare trunks, come some classicalformalists, who dream their dream about theworld of distinct nouns and predicates, governedby the yes-or-no law of the excluded middle, theworld in which things (including you and me andhim and her) are what they are, and are not whatthey are not. And they dream their dreams to theirlogical conclusions, which are true in all possibleworlds, except the world in which we live.Because in the world in which we live, no noun istimeless, no predicate makes sense without therest of the universe, no fact is what it is andnothing else, and no man is an island. And whenwe feel not at our ease in their dream, they say:'You must believe us, because our assumptionsare good, and our logic is true, and if you don'tsee it working, it's because our dreams havenever been tried.'

Which is not so. All dreams have been tried. Allhave worked, partly. And all have not workedpartly. And they did not work whenever their siresand seers, and the successors of the sires andseers, believed that if their assumptions are good,and their logic is true, then the conclusionsbecome aims, and all methods can be used to

13

achieve them; that the end justifies the means.

In this, their faultless formal axiomatic logicomits two facts:

ONE: that in this changing world, the way frompremises to conclusions is temporal and stormy,and you can't force your Yesterday upon yourgrandson's Tomorrow;

Two: Oh dear ... Well .. , Yes, it has been saidin the Sermon on the Mount:

'But I say unto you, That you resist no evil: butwhosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,tum to him the other also.'

It is a saintly thing to tum and offer your othercheek to be slapped. You can do it once. You cando it again. You can do it thrice. Perhaps. Butwhen the thing goes on, and your persecutordoesn't relent, and the thing becomes a method,left cheek, right cheek, left, right, left, right, left,right, all saintliness disappears, and what remainsbecomes either a low farce, not good enough forCharlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Max Linder, orLaurel and Hardy, or else it has to be stopped.Often by force. Which, invariably, becomesvicious itself. And hence a tragedy. Because wecan't do anything about it. There do exist tragicsituations when wicked means have to be used tosuppress some other wicked means that arealready with us, but to use wicked means topromote aims - defeats the aims. TheCrucifixion defeated the aims of the chief priests

14

Socialism:continuation ofChristianity byother means

'Naturalisticfallacy'

On Decency

and the scribes and the mob and theEstablishment and the Empire; The Inquisitiondehumanized the aims of Christianity; TheLabour Camps degenerated the aims of Socialism.For millions of people, Socialism was thecontinuation of Christianity by other means. Andit was the viciousness of the means that hadpoisoned the decency of its aims.

*

Now, let us not get ourselves sidetracked byacademic questions: How to define what is notdefinable by definition: how to define 'wicked'and how to define 'decent'. As if we didn't knowwhat we mean when we use these words, howeverdifferently we use them. As if the reality of theemotive and commanding force that is in us wasless real than the confused reality of things towhich these unanalysable undefinabilities refer.Thus, whatever your notions of the wicked and ofthe decent are, whatever is the practical use youmake of them, the wickedness of your means willdestroy your aims, even if those aims are goodonly for some group, class, faith, race or nation,and to the detriment of all the rest of us, becauseall wickedness destroys all decency, and even forthe wickedest logician the aim of aims is somesort of decency ofmeans.

*'Decency'! What an embarrassing word! Youhave to brace yourself to pronounce it. But Icouldn't find a better one. If you want to refer to

15

'Pretence of vice'

(from: Men & Ideastranslated byJ.S. Holmes &Hans van Marie)

something wicked, vicious, offensive, aggressive,you have a hundred words to choose from, andpeople show confidence in you, they assume thatyou know what you are talking about. But if youbrave it out and use the word 'decent', they thinkyou are a sissy, a nincompoop. Johan Huizingaknew that characteristic of our age. He called it'Pretence of vice'. In his essay The Task ofCultural History, published" in 1929, he regardedit as

'a modern repetition of the sentimentalism of theeighteenth century, but in a completely differentform. The old sentimentalism' he wrote, 'feltitself to be intimately bound to the respect ofvirtue. It tended to balance passion and virtue inwhat was often a neck-breaking fashion.Nowadays this is no longer necessary. Passionalone, or what figures for it, is enough. In everydepiction of reality in either word or image " . .the element of passion must be played up. Moralnorms definitely may not be praised. Virtuouspeople assure themselves of their halo of themodem by means ofa eulogy of immorality. Sucha eulogy is as much a form of cultural hypocrisyas a sanctimonious display of virtue was ever ableto be.'

And, we can add, it is still more acute today thanit was when he wrote about it. That's why, I mustconfess, I felt as if I'- were actually displayingsome sort of courage when I decided to use theword 'decency' in a straightforward way.

What sort of courage?

16

Dogcatchers

.Flower Children

When I was a small boy, one early morning onmy way to school, I met a gang of dog-catchers.A sordid big wooden box on wheels, pulled by ablind horse, at the back of the big box a littlebarred window through which you saw a pack ofstray dogs, already caught and condemned todeath, except for a bitch in heat who seducedthem there. The dogcatchers were four in number.Three were for rounding up while the fourth wasarmed with a long stick at the end of which therewas a short rope with a slipknot, like a lasso. Hewas just ready to lift it to catch a stray brownmongrel, when I, the little schoolboy, put my littlefoot deliberately into the centre of the loop,knowing perfectly well how the brutes, theruffians, would curse, and jeer, and laugh, andmake fun of it. Why is it so that today, as soon asI decided to use the word 'decency', I had thesame feeling, the feeling of putting my footdeliberately into the loop ofa lasso?

*

What the word 'decency' stands for is not onlylaughed at, it is also hold up to scorn and derision.Do you remember the Flower Children? Youngpeople, dressed with flowers and bells,proclaiming Flower Power, and carrying flowersas symbols of universal peace and love, not awareperhaps of how much hatred had been created inthe world in the name of love! I feel as if I sawthem yesterday, but it was nearly twenty yearsago, in the sixties. One night, at about that time, Iwas sitting in a pub, on the comer of Randolph

17

Second thesis

Avenue and Warrington Crescent, slowingsipping my whisky, when a man of my age tookthe seat beside me and started a conversation bysaying how awful the new generation is. 'Oh, yes... ' I said. You see, in France you start by saying'Mais. non!', even if you agree with what hasbeen said. In England you start by saying '0 yes .. . ' even if you disagree. You say 'Oh yes but ..., So I said: 'Oh yes, but do you know whathappened to me yesterday? I was walking withmy wife along the Edgware Road when we sawsome young people, four boys and two girls,marching in a row in our direction. When theywere a step or two in front of us, we stopped, notwithout some apprehension, and they stopped,and gave us a bunch of flowers. Upon which theyquietly went their way.' As I said that, the man inthe pub, the man of my age, put down his glass ofbeer, and said ... Well, do you know what hesaid? He said: 'How disgusting!'

*

I have been meandering for so long around thatCinderella word 'decency', because I need it. Ineed it for my Second thesis: that gentleness isbiological and aggression is cultural, not viceversa. In other words, that, in general, peopledon't like to be murderers, unless it is for the sakeofan idea.

Let me at once make it clear that I am not goingto talk about Ethics. I'm not going to talk aboutEthics because I'm not interested in Ethics. AndI'm not interested in Ethics because I'm interested

18

Ethics&ethical phenome­na; discovered&invented

I am the proof

The fact that yourmothers haven'teaten you isremarkable; don'ttake it as a matterof course

in what Ethics is about. You see, this is not aparadox. I am interested in what Ethics is about,but She is not. She, the academic Goddess ofEthics, is interested only in herself. I aminterested in ethical behaviour, but she isinterested only in ethical terminology. For the lasteighty years she's been sharpening her linguistictools, but she thinks it would be unladylike to usethem. So let me leave her and her tools to heracademic Robinson Crusoe insularity, and goback to what one would expect to be, but isn't hersubject matter, namely ethical phenomena.

The trouble with ethical phenomena is that someof them are discovered and some of them areinvented. Those we have invented didn't existbefore, and we may cal1 them Cultural EthicalPhenomena. It's easy to point out some of them:The Ten Commandments, Code Napoleon,Principles of Literary Criticism, or PoliceRegulations. But what about those which did existbefore, and which we may cal1 Biological EthicalPhenomena? Have there really been any? Do wehave any proofs of their existence? Wel1 ... Myvery presence here, in front of you, is the proof.

Now, I beseech you, do please take what I'msaying in the literal sense of the words, withoutal1egory or metaphor. I repeat, my very presencehere in front of you is the proof. The proof thatwhen I was smal1 and defenceless, my motherdidn't eat me, even when she was very hungry.And your very presence here is the proof thatyour mothers haven't eaten you. And you willagree with me that they didn't eat us not because

19

Gentleness is bothbiological&ethical

Honnones &pheromones arealso emotive &commanding

The survival ofthe gentlest

of some clergyman or policeman who might ormight not have exhorted them not to. And thelioness also wasn't in the habit of eating her cubsmillions of years before she devoured a Christianwho could have taught her the Lesson. She notonly wouldn't eat them, she would lick them withall the gentleness of her red, rough, stinkingtongue. That's why I said in the first half of mythesis that gentleness is biological. It is biologicalin the strict genetic sense. It is both genetic andethical. What a pity that philosophers put Natureand Ethics in two different compartments. Thereis no reason why we should call 'ethical' only thatnonnative kind of behaviour ofour brain structurewhich answers to do! don't! must! ought! good!bad! given by a divine or civic authority, and notto that triggered by honnones or pheromones. Thelatter, the genetic demeanour, is much strongerand of greater significance. It is this that makesthe survival of the species possible.

Young boys and girls are taught that unfortunateDarwinian expression 'the survival of the fittest',and they imagine a strong muscular male, aMuhammad Ali, or a Tarzan, Gmh! But theprodigious strength of Cassius Clay was precededby the gentleness of his mother, and thechivalresque strength of Tarzan by the gentlenessof the female African Ape who brought him up.So perhaps The survival of the gentlest is more tothe point. Because when the gentleness disappearsthrough mutations, as might have been the casewith the dinosaurs, or through some culturalfactors, as might still happen to men, theextinction of the species is inevitable.

20

Tragic Necessityis in Nature, Evilis in Culture(for more about'Tragic Necessity'see:factor T, byS.T., London1956)

Original Sin&Original Virtue

It is a pity that the truth about Original Virtue, thevirtue of biological gentleness, has been engulfedin our lore by the cultural invention of OriginalSin, the sin of natural evil. There is TragicNecessity, but no natural-evil, in the man whokills for food. And there is no natural evil in thelioness who kills her Christians. All the evil is inthe culture of the Emperor who has sent them onto the sands of the arena. Maybe that's how theirfaith survived that of the Emperor. Because it washe who used vicious means. They, so far as Iknow, were still innocent plebeian crusaders, nottaking other people's lives, not sending letter­bombs by post, not planting time-bombs in thetabemae, shooting at a quadriga, or hijacking asea-going triemis. It's curious that I understandthose simple lovers of God better than Iunderstand that sophisticated lover of Art, the artof happenings, the Roman Emperor Nero. Though1 am not a believer.

On the contrary, I am too-oo religious, if you seewhat I mean, to believe in anything, if you seewhat I mean; not even in the Linguistics, if yousee what I mean, of the anti-mystic mystics, ifyou see what I mean; because I'm too religious, tobelieve in anything, ifyou see. what I mean.

*

Original Virtue excuses no man. Original Sindoes. Original Sin is a pretext for pessimism;Original Virtue is not. We have studied OriginalSin for ages and preached it as the deprivation of

21

The Chair ofDecency

On clergymen&policemen

Grace involving Guilt, and as the source of allordinary sins and miseries. But the study of theOriginal Virtue of gentleness and of theconsequent ordinary virtues of common decencieshas been most neglected. And yet, thephenomenon itself exists, and has enough virilityand reality to claim as a right its place inphilosophy, science, and public life. Should wenot study it as we do other demonstrable thoughinvisible things? Should we not create a Chair ofDecency at our Universities? A Chair of thePhysics of Decency and of the MolecularChemistry of Gentleness? A Department ofAltruism? A Faculty of Kindness? A KinseyReport on unselfish behaviour in human male andfemale? A Research Institute for the studies ofstructural difficulties in the mechanics of inter­governmental good manners?

Some people who refuse to take notice of theOriginal Virtue of Gentleness and prefer tobelieve in the Original Sin of Evil, are of theopinion that we would all be committing all theactual sins, all the time, on all occasions, were itnot for two reasons: The first is voiced by theclergyman who tells us that there is a system ofrewards after death; the second by the policemanwho reminds us that there is a system ofpunishments on earth. It is regrettable that noserious academic research has been done on thepracticality of these two systems. Or, if it has, thatit hasn't become common knowledge.

The only piece of research I saw on the firstsubject, was a badly documented report saying

22

(see:Cardinal PO/littio,London 1961, butsee also a reportby Clifford Longley,Religious AffairsCorrespondent ofThe Times,15.9.1981)

(The Times.27.8.1981)

(The Times,5.10.1981)

that a certain time at a certain place there was aproportionally greater number of RomanCatholics than of Unbelievers among those whohad been convicted in the criminal courts. Towhich Msgr Gavami said: 'All statistics lie'. MsgrZorge said: 'Frogs commit still less crimes thanUnbelievers, so what?' Msgr Liutprand said: 'Tocommit a crime, you've got to have guts, andcatholics have guts.' And a little Franciscanbrother hanged himself in his cell. As scientificresearch, surely not enough to generalise upon.

Nor have we anything like a Kinsey Report on thesecond subject. The Police. All we have isopinions and exclamations, silences and screams.Even from their own professionals.

'I don't give a damn for the bleeding hearts, theso-called liberals and marxist agitators who cando nothing but complain about police brutality',says Mr James Jardine, Chairman of the PoliceFederation. 'Police are political in any society,'says Ms Irene Wilson, a Staff Tutor at the PoliceStaff College, 'both as individuals and as anoccupational group.' 'The police attractsconservative and authoritarian personalities,'explains Detective Chief Inspector Gorman.

But hark! Here is Chief Inspector Butler. Hedoesn't think opinions are enough. He advocatesACADEMIC RESEARCH INTO POLICEMEN'S

ATIITUDES OF MIND. 'There is an unfortunate lackof academic research on the police,' he says,'such research should be encouraged.' Thus, as Iam a practical man, it occurred to me that,

23

Whom to electto the Chair ofDecency?

'Wouldn't youdefend yoursister ... ?'

perhaps, it might be a good and practical idea toelect to our academic Chair of Decency not anOxford Moral Philosopher, preoccupied with suchproblems as . .. I quote literally: Whether fromThis is good you can always infer Thereforechoose it, for instance This is a good chocolatetherefore Take it, which, in ethical context,becomes Let everyone take it, but, rather, theChiefInspector who is familiar with what's goingon behind the Closed Doors of a police station,and has personal knowledge of crueltiescommitted in the name of Justice, crueltiescommitted in the name of Charity, and crueltiescommitted for their own sake.

Well, I don't know ... Our attitude towards thepolice is most ambiguous, equivocal, confused ... Once upon a time, before the atomic age, asergeant in the army would give a lesson ofpatriotism to a conscript by putting to him thisstandard rhetorical question: 'Wouldn't youdefend your sister if a man was trying to rapeher?' This psychological trick didn't work withonly one man who was a pimp and whose sisterwas a well known whore, but otherwise it musthave been effective because it was used in thearmies of many countries. In peace time, thequestion will rather be: 'Wouldn't you call apoliceman?'

We all avoid the policeman when we are breakingthe law, but we expect him to be within call whenthe law-breaker attacks us. And yet, when we seea policeman marching a handcuffed man, greenwith fear, not into a cage in the zoo, where we

24

Behind ClosedDoors

could observe what was happening, but behindthe Closed Doors of the police station, outfeelings are confused, to say the least. We don'tlike the closed doors behind which one person isin the power of another, whether it's a policestation, a prison, or a mental home. Our thoughtsvacillate. Though I once met a young man whosethoughts didn't vacillate at all. He know exactlywhat to do, and did it in his own unusual way.

He was neither a criminal, nor a victim ofpersecution, nor a victim of his own thirst forpower, but it just so happened that he had had afew pints of beer and, late one night, whenwalking in the streets of London, he felt a suddenurge to empty his bladder. As everything wasclosed, he turned into a narrow side-street, stoodin a niche in front of a padlocked door, andunzipped, or unbuttoned, when a heavy hand fellon his shoulder. Two policemen were standingbehind him. The shock was such that his vesicalsphincter contracted and he was unable todemonstrate his reasons for being where he was,upon which he was accused of trying to 'breakand enter'. After spending the night in the policestation, he was taken to the court, where, as notools had been found of him, that charge waschanged to that of vagrancy, for which he wasduly fined. All this enraged our hero so that he ...well, can you guess what he did? He joined theForce and became a policeman. 'For great ideaslet fools contest,' he said. 'If you can't love them,and want to do something about it, join them. Allable-bodied, honest young dreamers should jointhe police, or become prison warders, or mental

25

Open the doors

CODA

Facts are beyondcontroversy,'truths' are not

hospital nurses.'

I would have loved to be able to end this story bytelling you that he has become a great reformerwho has helped to open some hermetically closeddoors. Alas, this is a true story, not a parable, andit ends with an anticlimax. He didn't last long inthe police force. After a year or so, he resignedand is now a moderately successful businessman,buying and selling houses.

*

As you see, my Logic is not axiomatic. Shedoesn't march forward, goose-step by goose-step,from indubitable truths to indisputableconsequences, from arbitrary principles toconclusions unchecked by results, deaf to thefeedback of reality. It is empirical evidence ratherthan theoretical prejudice that shaped her bodyand guided her syllogisms.

Looking backwards over her shoulder, from theresults towards the reasons, which were theresults of previous reasons, she may never arriveat first principles, but, somewhere half-way alongthe chain of events, half-way between Man andthe first nucleic acid molecules replicatingthemselves, she comes across a fact; not across atruth, but across a fact. A very simple fact. Thefact that of all possible species of carnivora, thoseonly survived whose everhungry members did notdevour their own children before the childrengrew up and produced the next and next and nextcarnivorous generation.

26

Ethicsisphysics

Progress

This illogical behaviour, which allowed thespecies to continue, you may call 'a biologicalfact', or you may call it 'altruism', or - why not?- 'love'. If you call it 'a biological fact', then it'sphysics. If you call it 'love', then it's ethics. And,in the cruel world, in which the beast had toattack to feed not only himself but also his litter,this biological fact, this logical absurdity, thisunselfish quirk of DNA, this love, must havepreceded aggression (which, paradoxically, itcaused) and thus decency must have precededwickedness.

As time marches on, this logical absurdity ofcaring not only for himself makes the beastenlarge the field of decency from the litter to thepack, the tribe, race, class, nation, the wholespecies? Anyway, such a sequence of events iswhat I would like to call 'Progress'. And I wouldlike to think that it is carried forward not bybeliefs in fetishes, not by Great Illusions, not byaggression (WHICH, FROM BEING AGGRESSION FOR

THE SAKE OF FOOD, DEGENERATED INTO

AGGRESSION FOR THE SAKE OF IDEAS), but by itsown evolutionary momentum. In spite of ourcultural push-pulls, exercised by Grand Aims,noble or wicked.

*

When my Logic looks backwards over hershoulder, she sees that the absence of wickedmeans is more important than the presence ofGrand Aims.

27

And when she turns around and glances forwardinto the future, what she sees is the urgent needfor the food of common decencies, which willgrow not from the aggressive nightmares ofbygones, nor from the glorious blue-prints for themorrow, but from the common decencies of now.

* * *

28

VlL.A._ ~~,,-,.., In,~

'H#t4..,,-~~~~

~~~~~

l-1NUlH.-{4~,

'f<tt.k,1_~k

I-t-A..~1I*U1fLI

~~ ...t:s'~~~ 60~.~·

~fM(.·

THE CHAIR OF DECENCY

bibliography

'Johan Huizinga-Iezing 1981 door Stefan Themerson - Een leerstoelvoor het fatsoen', NRC Handelsblad, Rotterdam, 12 December 1981

The Chair ofDecency (Een Leerstoel in Fatsoen) (English and Dutchtexts of the Johan Huizinga Lecture, University of Leiden, December1981), Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 1982 (Dutchtranslation by Nicolaas Matsier)also in:

'En Uirostol i Anstadighet', Janus, vo1.6, no.25, Kristianstad, 1983,pp.31-48. (Swedish translation by Magnus Hedlund)

'Katedra Przyzwoitosci'. L6di. Panstwowa Wyzsza Szkola SztukPlastycznych, 1985. (Polish translation by Anna and Piotr Bikont)

reprinted in:

Katedra Przyzwoitosci. published by Panstwowa Wyzsza SzkolaSztuk Plastycznych, L6di, 1985

Nawa sw. Krzysztofa, no.2, L6di, 1985, pp.9-12.

Mandragora, no.l, Wroclaw, May 1986, pp.91-105.

Literatura na Swiecie, no.7, Warsaw, July 1987, pp.342-66;

Tw6rczosc, vol.XLlV, no.12, Warsaw, 1988, pp.80-91.

'Een Leerstoel in Fatsoen', in H.L. Wesseling (ed.), Aile Cultuur isStreven collected Huizinga Lectures 1972-86: reprint of originalDutch translation). Amsterdam, Bert Bakker, 1987, pp.233-44

Katedra Przyzwoitosci, with drawings by Franciszka Themerson.Book Art Museum, L6di, to coincide with the exhibition of Stefan &Franciszka Themerson. Graphic design by Malgorzata Misiowiec,limited edition 500 copies, 6 May 1994

extracts also in:

Senare omtryk i Segla i ett saIl. Stockholm, AWE-Gebers, 1987

Een leerstoel in fatsoen. Woeff Woeff en ander proza. Eds: RonaldJonkers, Nicolaas Matsier, Hans Kloos. De Bezige Bij, Amsterdam,2003. pp. 309 - 338

This edition is limited to 60 copies.

This is number fa

OBSCURE

PUBLICATIONS