Saturday, October 26, 2013
Friday, July 5, 2013
Proust Questionnaire #2
Seeing gender as a continuum rather than polarities all my life, I hesitated to address the second topic in the Proust Questionnaire: "my favourite qualities in a man." But Proust's own playful response - "womanly charms" - gave me courage to proceed. My favourite qualities in a man are confidence, fairness, and sincerity, in order of increasing importance.
We seek out qualities that we lack. I have trouble accomplishing some things without another's courage; and since courageous women disdain one another's cowardice, I seek out the help of courageous men when I need it. Therefore, I value courage in a man because I lack it.
I suspect, mostly from clips of movies starring John Wayne (a notorious real-life coward), that courageous men disdain cowards of their own gender as much as brave women abhor cowardice within ours. Therefore, a wise man might be more capable of fairness in the concerns of women than the affairs of men, as a wise woman (like Shakespeare's Portia) may be superior at settling scores among men but overly-involved in or indifferent to her own. At this specific moment in history, a classically cultivated Western gentleman considers others' conflicts thoughtfully and humanely, tempering "strict justice" with the tacit empathy of noblesse oblige (there I go again). In this, his final, brief incarnation, the modern gentleman's "quality of mercy is not strained", at least not in his treatment of women, as a nod to our otherness if nothing else. And since ever fewer men and women entertain the dream of becoming "gentle" in the traditional sense of land ownership, inherited wealth, and leisurely time to cultivate oneself, the concept of a gentleman must adapt or die. But regardless of economic fluctuations, as long as men and women eschew the competition that comes most naturally of similarity but instead grow in our mutual otherness, we will deal each other justly.
Finally, and most importantly, I value sincerity in a man. I recoil from the word honesty, having experienced this excellent quality in the service of cruelty on numerous occasions. I appreciate genuine intentions. Similarly, I like to know that a person's expectation of reward does not outweigh his desire to give of himself. Since such exchanges are inherent in human relations, I prefer tacit acknowledgement of mutual debt to blatant accounting. When I give to a friend, I expect no compensation, certainly not in kind. Only in the spirit of giving - that is, a generosity of spirit - do I crave mutual rather than complementary values. And generosity happens to be the topic that I chose in response to Proust's previous question: What is your favourite virtue? But alas, that entry is so specific and vitriolic that it will remain in the private realm until I figure out what to do with it.
We seek out qualities that we lack. I have trouble accomplishing some things without another's courage; and since courageous women disdain one another's cowardice, I seek out the help of courageous men when I need it. Therefore, I value courage in a man because I lack it.
I suspect, mostly from clips of movies starring John Wayne (a notorious real-life coward), that courageous men disdain cowards of their own gender as much as brave women abhor cowardice within ours. Therefore, a wise man might be more capable of fairness in the concerns of women than the affairs of men, as a wise woman (like Shakespeare's Portia) may be superior at settling scores among men but overly-involved in or indifferent to her own. At this specific moment in history, a classically cultivated Western gentleman considers others' conflicts thoughtfully and humanely, tempering "strict justice" with the tacit empathy of noblesse oblige (there I go again). In this, his final, brief incarnation, the modern gentleman's "quality of mercy is not strained", at least not in his treatment of women, as a nod to our otherness if nothing else. And since ever fewer men and women entertain the dream of becoming "gentle" in the traditional sense of land ownership, inherited wealth, and leisurely time to cultivate oneself, the concept of a gentleman must adapt or die. But regardless of economic fluctuations, as long as men and women eschew the competition that comes most naturally of similarity but instead grow in our mutual otherness, we will deal each other justly.
Finally, and most importantly, I value sincerity in a man. I recoil from the word honesty, having experienced this excellent quality in the service of cruelty on numerous occasions. I appreciate genuine intentions. Similarly, I like to know that a person's expectation of reward does not outweigh his desire to give of himself. Since such exchanges are inherent in human relations, I prefer tacit acknowledgement of mutual debt to blatant accounting. When I give to a friend, I expect no compensation, certainly not in kind. Only in the spirit of giving - that is, a generosity of spirit - do I crave mutual rather than complementary values. And generosity happens to be the topic that I chose in response to Proust's previous question: What is your favourite virtue? But alas, that entry is so specific and vitriolic that it will remain in the private realm until I figure out what to do with it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
