Michael O'Hare on Real Class

Michael O'Hare on the decline of noblesse oblige among the rich in America:

[P]eople with really good manners have no problem learning to accept a business card with two hands in Asia or arriving at 10 for an “8 PM”  dinner in Mexico; people who think etiquette is a stick to beat their lessers with, on the other hand, don’t travel well.   A classy dresser contributes to a social occasion by showing respect for, and improving, the whole visual experience of the other guests without trying to draw a spotlight. A classy dresser is not an egotistical showoff, neither in a track suit at a formal dinner nor in a swimsuit on a red carpet.

When you have real class, you can accept compliments gracefully, neither deflecting nor expecting them.  When you have real class, you can set good things in motion and step out of the way so your group carries it forward and doesn’t depend on you more than necessary.  Real class is not whining and demanding rights but looking for duties and seeing them as a piece of good fortune.  It involves a fair amount of turning the other cheek, and is much more easily displayed going to bat for the people who aren’t as rich or smart or lucky as you than by standing on your rights and privileges. Henry Lee Higginson subsidized the Boston Symphony for years (and didn’t ask to have its building named Higginson Hall): that’s class.  Speaking of the symphony, another indicator of class (not dispositive, Goering scarfed up paintings all over Europe) is engagement with demanding, complicated, art.  Lots of people are on museum or opera boards who have no clue, but they at least know a sane society respects artistic sophistication and they try to manifest it…sometimes even try to actually get it.

Real class is what the economic aristocracy of our country has almost entirely lost. The American rich are wallowing in a moral slough, grasping for more and more money they have no clue what to do with, and venting their frustration that climbing over each other to new heights of wretched excess brings no satisfaction by lashing out at every social institution, and at a government whose largesse is never enough for them. Andrew Carnegie may have had his miners shot at Homestead, but he came to regret it and he also said it was sinful to die rich. He walked the talk; there are Carnegie libraries, a university, concert halls, and more all across America, still creating value.  (All the Vanderbilts, not so much.)  But Larry Ellison has his name on nothing and for all his billions, has absolutely no class and no idea that he lacks it, and a whole class of cowboy millionaires and billionaires have the fatal idea that he is a target to emulate. No, money isn’t a way of keeping score; great schools and passing laws that make us all better off and building a subway system for New York and a high-speed rail line in California is a way of keeping score. Anyone who thinks he’s self-made, and single-handedly created all the value he’s come to possess, has no class, no more class than a Gulf sheik who thinks the accident of living on top of an oil pool makes him admirable and distinguished.  Keeping track of (and taking care of) all the people without whose labor and pioneering you couldn’t have done anything, that’s how to keep score.

I agree with O'Hare on this, and I would argue that Germany's privileged have done a pretty good job preserving the kind of class O'Hare's talking about. One reason may be that inherited wealth plays a larger role in making people rich in Germany than it does in the U.S. The certain knowledge that your good fortune was an accident of birth can foster the kind of modesty and public-spiritedness that O'Hare identifies as an important indicator of class (not that it always does, of course). The notion that you're "self-made" however, often brings a sense of entitlement.

Further, a software billionaire's not likely to have the attachment to high culture that O'Hare also points to as an element of noblesse oblige: the notion that the rich have a special duty to foster challenging, unpopular, complex creative expression that the broader market won't support. One example: Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen founded the Experience Music Project to showcase the history of rock music. Recent exhibitions have been dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, disco music, Bruce Springsteen, and Disney. Not that I have anything against pop culture, but why is a billionaire subsidizing exhibitions about pop-culture phenomena/people/organizations that are accessible to everyone and have already been rewarded with billions in profits by the mainstream consumer market? What's next: an exhibition devoted to a mediocre science-fiction TV series? Why, yes! And after you take it in, don't forget to stop by the Revolution Cafe, for a $6.95 stick-it-to-the-man muffin.

Meanwhile, the Seattle Symphony is beset by financial problems (as are many other regional orchestras) and its music director has to spend tons of time fund-raising. You may not see anything wrong with this picture, but I do (feel free to call me an elitist, I wear the title with pride). My idea of what to do with large amounts of money is to subsidize orchestras, collect art, or to build beautiful, quirky museums like this one (g) or this one. Giving every member of the public who's interested the chance to experience works of human creativity that are well off the beaten path: That's class.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Under YouTube: Beckmann Gast Thilo Sarrazin Teil 4 7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8-W9s6Ak8&NR=1

[Anonymous]

True, my friend, we've heard this sort of talk before.

By the way, take a look at the Beckmann talk show episode that featured Sarrazin and several others, including the very likeable and capable Ranga Yogeshwar, which is on YouTube. It's worth it just to hear Yogeshwar criticize Sarrazin's book as "feuchter grüner Filz und nasse Dackelhaare" (a phrase I dare you to translate into idiomatic English).

[Andrew]

@anonymous: A comment on Sarrazin? How's this: The general rule is that everything happens in Germany 10 years after the
U.S. Six years behind schedule, Germany now has its own Bell Curve.

That's about all I have to say on Sarrazin, since my informal rule for this blog is if all Germany's talking about it, German Joys isn't. If you're really really interested in my views, though, I supposed I could post them at some point.

[Anonymous]

This is off topic, sorry, but....

Would like you, Andrew, to please comment on Sarrazin. Wondering why you haven't.

[M. Möhling]

> it can only vanish in those papers and
> magazines, where it once was present:
> ZEIT, FAZ and Süddeutsche, mainly
Akkordmusik, suspect or not, I wholeheartedly concur, though we might not agree on what class should be. Case in point would be the SZ, that has one prof Henningsen rant against Western Meinungsfreiheits-Fundamentalismus (original article). That should strike a sympathetic chord with our lord who feels that those who engage in such antics are, I quote, "assholes".

[Alex (the other one)]

Have to agree with Thomas and Jerry here.

[Jerry]

Basic rule nr.1 - Raise your image above the plebs, no matter, if that's still you?
If you're raised that way, you might feel like it, sure, but if you reached the higher class some other way, you're nothing but living a lie, while squeezing into uncomfortable suits and visiting higher arts only for being seen.

"Lots of people are on museum or opera boards who have no clue, but they at least know a sane society respects artistic sophistication and they try to manifest it"

Really? Is that something to pursue? Just to come through hours of Wagner and Co, cause "all the cool kids/nobles do so"?
If some guy with money likes Hendrix and Springsteen, what's wrong with displaying it, instead of doing the same to projects, he may not like?

This is not the 18th century anymore. We don't have to yearn for the sympathy of an absolutistic monarch by pretending oversophistication, we don't posess.
I'm fine with anyone, who likes dodecacophony, as well as with those, who like Britney Spears. But not with someone, who pretends to like something, just to be liked.

Besides, as one comment before me mentioned, if cultural, educational, environmental or whatever projects shall be securely funded, the only reasonable way would be states benefits financed by taxes, instead of hoping on a rich guy with a favor for it.

All in all, the text, quoted in this article, badly hurts my sense for honesty.

Sorry for this rant from a low-class-guy, who will certainly never experience the "pleasure" of wearing disguises and costumes, just not to show, who one is.

[Akkordmusik]

@Andrew:
Predictable barking from usual suspects encouraged me to add my voice, congratulating you to this thoughtful post.

It's that very valuable idea of class that you described in the last sentence of your post, that's also vanishing fast in the realms of the print media. And, of course, it can only vanish in those papers and magazines, where it once was present: ZEIT, FAZ and Süddeutsche, mainly.

[M. Möhling]

It figures why our host is delighted by Don Alphonso's musings: essentially, being one, um, classy social democrat,[1] and as such a pillar of society, means batting for the people who aren’t as rich or smart or lucky as we because that's how we show how rich and smart and lucky we are. And we don't do that with yachts and jets as does Larry E., the prole. So, being full of, um, good things, let's regale ourselves with a gentlemen's club for working sophisticated stiffs; as the USPD is taken--and defunct--, what about the PSPD, BS section? (what? no, that's BS, not what you thought) Sophistication is ...die Zärtlichkeit der Völker! Let's hug ourselves while we kiss the sky.

Earnestly now, no snark, is it the ongoing feminisation of society that makes stout law profs aspire to be Mrs Vanderbilts of sorts? Philanthropic ladies in waiting, as it were, as riches to bestow upon the needful artsy peers still need to be acquired? (btw: how would that look, I wonder?) Here's another blog I recommend.

1. we do care about old aunty, don't we?

[joanna]

John Lennon was a (working) classy guy. And not from Yorkshire either!!!

[Thomas]

I'd say the real problem is that, apparently, we're relying on the whims of a few rich people to support the arts/build railroads/have decent legislation. Whether our wealthy overlords have "class", is a tertiary concern...