Notes on (Not) Being Nice

Louis Balfour: Presenter of Jazz Club

(Played by John Thomson)

 

 

I. 

 

According to a book published in 2017 by Alain de Botton and his fellow eggheaded idealists at The School of Life [1], niceness is something that needs to be rediscovered; for niceness is, they say, a hugely important quality and one of the highest achievements of humanity. 

Conceding that the Latin root of the word nice - nescius - means ignorant and that niceness is often equated with being weak, poor, boring, and sexless, those who affirm it as a virtue insist that to be nice is not only to be more pleasing and agreeable, but also to be more charitable and forgiving; more patient and willing to listen to others. 

 

However, I think this is to conflate niceness with kindness, despite the Stoic insistence on keeping these things distinct [2]. 

 

 

II. 

 

D. H. Lawrence, of course, would have none of Botton's bullshit. He mocks those who pride themselves on being nice and insist upon others being likewise. 

 

Particularly the English who, he says, are so awfully nice that they probably qualify as the nicest people in the world: "And what's more, they're very nice about being nice" [3]. It's their niceness that makes them superior. 

Unlike the puppeteer in Walter Wilkinson's novel The Peep Show (1927), Lawrence is offended by those who are too nice to him. 

 

Thus, whereas the former refuses to be embittered by his experiences and is determined to remain cheerful in the belief that, on the whole, most people are nice to him, the latter says he would "spit on such niceness" [4]. 

For Lawrence thinks it naive to retain faith in an ideal of niceness when "the world is not altogether a nice place to show puppets" [5] and is full of people who are mean and vulgar and callous beneath their niceness. 

 

Because I think that's true, I would echo Lawrence's prayer: "God save me from the nice ordinary people" [6] - and from having to be nice!

 

   

Notes

 

[1] Alain de Botton is a Swiss-born British author and pop-philosopher who co-founded The School of Life in 2008. The book - On Being Nice - was published by The School of Life in 2017. 

      For the record: I don't like Botton and I don't like his School. I also agree with Lisa Levy who dismissed an earlier series of self-help books published by the School as consisting of jargon "pitched somewhere between the banal banter of daytime talk shows and the schedule for a nightmarish New Age retreat".        

      See her essay 'How to Think More (But Not Better): Alain de Botton's School of Life', in the Los Angeles Review of Books (11 May, 2013): click here.

[2] If I'm not mistaken, in Stoic philosophy whilst kindness involves treating others fairly and is therefore an aspect of justice (one of the cardinal virtues alongside wisdom, courage, and moderation), niceness is not seen as fundamental to human goodness (and might even be thought to be simply the appearance of kindness; one might behave nicely in order to seem good).   

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'The English are so nice!', The Poems, Vol. I., ed. Christopher Pollnitz (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 568-569. The line quoted is on p. 569.

[4] D. H. Lawrence, 'Review of The Peep Show, by Walter Wilkinson', in Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 321-327. The line quoted from is on p. 326.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid., p. 327.