Knock, knock; who's there?; Eamonn; Eamonn who?; Eamonn Old Etonian, who are you.
It's the way I tell them, isn't it? And, guess what, that's not even the worst joke I know. However, it is the most relevant to my current preoccupation with the state of youthful behaviour and the problems of education, as revealed by a BBC documentary series about young teachers.
In this context, I came across an interesting insight from a Hungarian who became a refugee in Britain in 1949. It is included in Comrade Baron by Jaap Scholten, an intriguing book that seems to be very difficult to obtain outside of Hungary. Scholten asks the man what it is that allows Eton to, as he puts it, "calmly go on producing adventurers and eccentrics in this egalitarian age". This is the reply he receives:
"'It's very simple,' he said. 'At the average school you don't learn manners. You're put into a mould and taught how to think. At public schools like Eton you learn how to behave ... you learn how to greet someone and how to get along with all kinds of different people, those formalities that seem so pointless. In short, although you learn manners, you're left completely free in your thinking. That's why those schools produce students with true freedom of mind, whereas the state schools turn out people who think in the obligatory cliches: perfect bureaucrats.'"
I couldn't agree more. My wife's cousin went to Eton and although he's reasonably bright, there's nothing exceptional about him. The one thing that really sets him apart is an impermeable bedrock of self-belief, which informs everything he says and does. As a result, he has made the most of his talents and managed to get a book published by HarperCollins.
ReplyDeleteThose sherry parties at Eton set people up for life, partly because they teach boys how to behave in the outside world, but also because they give an introduction to the art of networking.
I met someone once who sent his sons to Eton. He told me he did it because he was giving them membership of the best and biggest club in the world. I've always been intrigued by that comment. I wonder if the place has changed now that it doesn't take slightly thick boys, unless they are Windsors.
Deleteit's true I think, (although not so much of Eton) that public school does teach you a certain ability to talk to people from all walks of life, mostly because your broader education allows you enough superficial knowledge to be able to ask people pertinent questions about themselves
ReplyDeleteIf it simply teaches you to ask questions, in order to keep a conversation going, that's something. The world seems to be divided into those who ask questions and those who don't, and all too often at the dinner table I find myself stuck next to those who don't. Of course, they may simply be struck dumb by my beauty.
DeleteAn ingenious explanation, but one that omits an obvious economic factor. It a lot more acceptable to eccentric with a sound bank account at one's back, and perhaps connections to keep one out of trouble.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have you down as a closet Marxist, George. One could argue the total reverse, of course - that only those freed from ties and money are liberated enough to be able to be truly eccentric.
DeleteI am no Marxist. But I take it for truth that sufficient money blesses what otherwise be considered at worst bizarre, at best crotchety, and raises it to "eccentric". It seems to me that this is known to concierges, headwaiters, and salesmen the world over; and whatever may be on their bookshelves, and however they may vote, they are anything but socialist in their working lives. Anyway, more at http://dc20011.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-word-on-eccentricity.html
DeleteI remain unconvinced. A) I think it is possible to be eccentric and be a good concierge, headwaiter or salesman, provided your eccentricity is endearing rather than confronting B) (leaving aside the decision by Belloc to use the word 'parasite', which already suggests a bias on his part), my experience makes me disagree with his remark that "Of all the corrupting effects of wealth there is none worse than this, that it makes the wealthy (and their parasites) think in some way divine, or at least a lovely character of the mind, what is in truth nothing but their power of luxurious living". To enlarge further though would get us into what many would regard as snobberies about old wealth and new wealth and unproveable anecdotes about what I've experienced and who I've seen in adversity and how they've behaved. Suffice to say, Belloc's words do seem to me to be words of resentment. The rich, like the poor, will always be with us, but some of the rich are brought up well.
DeleteOne last word: I am not offering concierges etc. as eccentrics, but as arbiters of eccentricity or its poorer kin.
DeleteI thought you were offering them as examples of people who cannot afford to be eccentric, because fettered by the need to earn a living - and their eccentricity might lose them their jobs.
DeleteI'm very glad I just read this. The man's response really does say something I have been trying to say for a long time, unsuccessfully. I find myself repeatedly disappointed when listening to scholars who can't speak well or present themselves well in formal situations: the MIT physicist whose grammar and diction and elocution are awful, for instance. There is no standard mode of behavior for the educated person anymore. We have run away from formality, barking that it is a kind of mind control, but in a way formality is freeing to the mind. I teach in a Catholic school and not only is our freedom as teachers well beyond that of our public schools (state-run schools, on my side of the water, of course) but I find that our students, being made to wear uniforms, are presented with a challenge as developing young people: they must distinguish themselves by being, not by seeming. They have to be individuals and, for them, making a statement is not as simple as coloring their hair purple (not allowed) or by wearing an offensive shirt. The formality forces them, ironically, to be more individual. When I teach classes on the university level, I am often struck by how dull the public school kids seem.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Auden embraced the constraints of different kinds of formal verse structures for the same reason. There is often something tremendously stimulating about placing different limits upon what you're allowed to do when writing (even the Twitter 140 character thing). The limits perhaps distract one from anxiety about failure to provide decent content; one is too busy wondering if it is possible to create anything at all within the structure's limitations.
DeleteI think that is true. I often find my creative writing students are "liberated" (I hate that word for some reason) by form. A microcosm for social formality, I think.
DeleteI agree. Re liberated, I wonder if it's the slight sense of overstatement when used in relation to small things rather than entire nations being freed from totalitarian surveillance or whatever
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