On Being Nice

This book, from the School of Life (of Alain de Botton's work), is a really nice little turquoise hardback filled with short readable chapters about the various aspects of how to conduct oneself nicely* - a quality that is, apparently, lacking in modern society. Humans are social creatures, geared towards friendship and cooperation within communities - a trait that all genuine clear thinking supports the endeavour of and which even alien visitors feel compelled to partake in.**

   However, 'niceness' is only partly derived from this intrinsic bio-psychological drive in people to seek belonging and reciprocity with other people, and partly derived from a string of complex historical normative legacies. Our current western model of niceness has, according to this book's first section, been shaped considerably by Christianity (which emphasised other-centred action but also dampens vividness of character and ambition), romanticism (which emphasised spontaneous individuality as more valuable than predictable boring normal niceness), capitalism (which depends on people more or less getting along so they can operate as amoral cogs in its ever-growing empire of profit) and eroticism (which sort of built on the romantic spontaneity to characterise niceness as unsexy). The second section of the book deals with kindness - the importance of charitability in how we react to things, the importance of being reasonably open about our shortcomings and vulnerabilities (neither be a strong man or a tragic hero), taking motivation in consideration, responding gracefully to suffering, and cracking the delicate and multifaceted art of politeness. The third section launches into how we can use niceness to improve our own social lives and enrich the lives of others in it: being clear about the value of friendship, not being weirdly over-friendly, overcoming our own and others' shyness, teasing appropriately and affectionately, telling white lies, flirting to boost self-esteem, being warm and open-minded, being able to talk about yourself honestly and endearingly (without burying weaknesses, or ranting, or being needlessly boring), and listening properly to others when talking to them. The final chapter presents us with a challenge - the ultimate test of one's social skills: maintaining an interaction with a young (old enough to speak, and walk off if you bore or annoy it) child whom you haven't met before.

   There are parts of this book that I feel don't adequately map out the actualities of how to be properly adaptably nice,*** but the groundwork definitely seems to be present, and it's laid out in a friendly readable manner which makes the whole a rewarding and life-affirming reminder of the importance of being nice.

* I would like to offer a disclaimer that I didn't really learn much from this book that I wasn't already more or less putting into practice; as a friendly but still fairly culturally-typical Englishperson I'm quite good at being nice - though this stems more from my aim to live in a constant mindset of Christlike love and empathy than from the abstract wishy-washy humanism of the School of Life and such. Whatever. The reason for my reading this then is 'research' - one of the main characters in a big writing project I'm working on the plans for at the moment is just very nice, and what I wanted from this book was a systematic well-phrased exposition of the contours and nuances of Being Nice with which to pepper some of her deeds and comments. To this end, the book served me very well. However I imagine it would also be quite effective as a rough manual to the practice for people who are much better at deriving practical information from books than they are at empathetically and genuinely engaging in interpersonal relations. Probably don't give it as a present to people who need it though. Ironically, that would be quite rude.

** Four links in one sentence! I'm on a mad'un!

*** I mean, as a radically inclusive left-wing Christian with little respect for the charades of the bourgois echelons of British culture that the liberal humanists who wrote this probably inhabit, this should be no surprise, but still, this is a decent overview. It's not like I'm going to bother to dissect all the small nuances where I thought it should have said more than it did or where it made assertions that actually seem questionable under scrutiny in different contextual light - mainly because I can't be arsed, but also because it would be a petty pedantic scrabbling against a book which overall I think laid out a good picture of what modern secular niceness is.