POLITICS AND THE UNCOMMON MAN

I came across a somewhat lengthy quotation - allegedly by Shaw - the other day, as I was perusing an article about Greenwood Village's local election. Don't ask me why. 

The quotation reads as follows: 

“It is a curious fact that when we get sick, we want an uncommon doctor. If we have a construction job, we want an uncommon engineer. When we get into war, we want and uncommon admiral and an uncommon general. Only when we get into politics are we content with the common man.”

As usual, no source is provided. So I seached my database and... nothing! 

Well, it's no wonder. It turns out that none other than President Herbert Hoover pronounced these words as part of a telephone address from New York City to Wilmington College, Wilmington, Ohio on the occasion of the conference "Building For A Better Tomorrow." If you read the links below you'll see just how fitting the title was.  

The full text of the speech can be read at the Hoover Association's page, and you can see that it was later published as a booklet - a copy of which is available at the National Archives's site. 

Well, another misattribution, another dollar. We know of many witticisms and other quotations that have been erroneously ascribed to Shaw. 

However, this blog has no interest in the words of American Presidents - except for the occasional Shavianism. In fact, political speeches - or, rather, the speeches of politicians - are practically anathema for Shaw. See, for instance, what he had to say about the way the politicians of his time delivered their speeches through the wireless: 

"Most of the politicians are awful. Lloyd George was bad enough, and Churchill is no better. Someone ought to tell them that their House of Commons style, with long pauses between every word to think out what they are going to say next, is pitiful through the mike, especially when they pronounce their prepositions and conjunctions as if they were speaking oracles."

The quotation is from Hesketh Pearson's Bernard Shaw: A Biography (p. 469), and many of my dear friends from the ISS should re-read at least that page because another thing Shaw is quoted as saying is "Do you know anything about these infernal Shaw Societies?"  

At any rate, since Shaw was actually referring to style rather than to content, I'll spare President Hoover, Winston Churcill and all other politicians, and publish the post all the same. 

99% OF THESE STORIES ARE FLAT FALSEHOODS

Because of that funny thing we sometimes call "coincidence," one of my latest posts triggered a message by Bernard F. Dukore. In it, he remembers having asked Dan H. Laurence about the proposal Isadora Duncan allegedly (most likely, apocryphally) made to Shaw. Laurence, instead of providing a straight answer, used another Shaw quotation regarding how few of the quotations attributed to him were actually true. Bernard (Dukore) wants to know if (and where) Shaw said such a thing - he laughed at the witty response, but forgot to ask for the source. The answer is - should we say synergically - linked to the rumours about whether Isadora Duncan was the mystery lady who had approached Shaw with breeding intentions. 

Apparently, two different European newspapers (Corriere della Sera and Sächsisches Volksblatt) had described slightly different versions of the same conversation between Shaw and an unknown lady (Sächsisches Volksblatt) or Isadora Duncan (Corriere della Sera). Given that the Italian newspaper had published the earlier article, Max Hayek had been accused of plagiarism in his German version of the anecdote. Shaw was asked to clear the case, and this is the letter he wrote, reproduced in Dan H. Laurence's Bernard Shaw Collected Letters: 1926-1950 (pages 16-17): 

Dear Sir

        You ask me to clear up the case of Herr Max's story Das Kind and the paragraph in the Corriere della Sera [...] Clearly the Bernard Shaw story is the plagiarism, and Das Kind the original. [...]

      But Herr Max must not blame me. No beautiful American dancer has ever proposed marriage to me, on eugenic or any other grounds. The Italian journalist invented the dancer and her proposal; stole the witty reply from Herr Max; and chose me for the hero of his tale because newspapers always buy stories about me. 99% of these stories are flat falsehoods. 1/2% are half true. The remaining 1/2% are true, but spoilt in the telling.

As we all know, it is difficult to believe everything people say Shaw said and wrote. We did not know Shaw would agree with us. 

In this case in particular, although Shaw denies either version of the story, it is worth reminding readers that Hesketh Pearson quotes a generic version of this story as having occurred (Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, pages 310-311). In addition, Shaw admitted to having "made that reply" - though not to Isadora Duncan - in an interview included in Sewell Stokes's Hear the Lions Roar (p. 37).

As Chico Marx would put it - in the famous scene in Duck Soup when he impersonates Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho): "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

A CHILD WITH YOUR BRAINS AND MY LOOKS: SHAVIAN REVERSALS

It is not difficult to come across the phrase "Shavian reversal" among the countless pages that critics and scholars have devoted to the plays of Bernard Shaw. Generally, the phrase refers to the many instances of Shaw subverting a particular dramatic convention. For example, Steve Vineberg  (High Comedy in American Movies: Class and Humor from the 1920s to the Present, p. 43) describes Cluny's attitude in Cluny Brown (1938) thus: 

"Cluny (Jennifer Jones) embodies the trademark Shavian reversal when she gets excited about the challenges of unclogging a sink - a verboten subject for the well brought up."

Likewise, Christopher Innes (The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw, p. 172) comments on the archetypal characters who engage in "discussion" in Getting Married that "in a typical Shavian reversal," as individuals they contradict the stereotypes they represent. 

To quote another example, John Louis DiGaetani (Stages of Struggle: Modern Playwrights and Their Psychological Inspirations, p. 15) acknowledges that "Shaw's presentation of Valentine is another Shavian reversal of a comic stereotype."

The list goes on, including such eminent Shavians as Michael Holroyd (Bernard Shaw: The One-Volume Definitive Edition, p. 407) "Bobby then marries a prostitute and Margaret a footman who (in characteristic Shavian reversal) reveals himself as the younger brother to a Duke."

Another example of the use of the phrase "Shavian reversal" has been brought to my attention recently, albeit with a rather unexpected meaning. Janna Jackson, in a chapter devoted to "How Principles of Video Games Can Transform Teaching" (Learning to Play: Exploring the Future of Education with Video Games, p. 116), speaks of a "Shavian reversal" as "someone who inherits the worst characteristics of both parents."

This definition, of course, must have borrowed from the anecdote alluded to in Hesketh Pearson’s Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality (p. 310-311) when “a strange lady giving an address in Zürich wrote him a proposal, thus: “You have the greatest brain in the world, and I have the most beautiful body; so we ought to produce the most perfect child.” Shaw asked: “What if the child inherits my body and your brains?”

Although the lady in question has often been identified with Isadora Duncan, the truth is that this is likely another spurious association. Regardless of this apocryphal ascription, Shaw's encounters with Isadora must have been memorable - no wonder they even inspired a play. 

At any rate, the anecdote (whoever the other interlocutor may have been) must have caught on in the collective imagination, because this novel use of "Shavian reversal" can be found in yet another publication. Curiously enough, although the two authors are different, both papers deal with educational video games. I guess it takes all Shaws. 

THE WORST SIN TOWARDS OUR FELLOW CREATURES IS NOT TO HATE THEM, BUT TO BE INDIFFERENT TO THEM.

The environmental website One Green Planet recently published a list of quotations on animal rights and against animal cruelty. Unsurprisinly, the list includes a quotation by Bernard Shaw. 

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them."

This quotation, taken from act II of The Devil's Disciple is not, however, directly related to animals, but rather to fellow human beings at large. Below is the larger context, a conversation between Judith and Anderson:  

 JUDITH. But Richard said— 
ANDERSON (goodhumoredly cutting her short). Pooh! Richard said! He said what he thought would frighten you and frighten me, my dear. He said what perhaps (God forgive him!) he would like to believe. It's a terrible thing to think of what death must mean for a man like that. I felt that I must warn him. I left a message for him.
JUDITH (querulously). What message?
ANDERSON. Only that I should be glad to see him for a moment on a matter of importance to himself; and that if he would look in here when he was passing he would be welcome.
JUDITH (aghast). You asked that man to come here!
ANDERSON. I did.
JUDITH (sinking on the seat and clasping her hands). I hope he won't come! Oh, I pray that he may not come!
ANDERSON. Why? Don't you want him to be warned?
JUDITH. He must know his danger. Oh, Tony, is it wrong to hate a blasphemer and a villain? I do hate him! I can't get him out of my mind: I know he will bring harm with him. He insulted you: he insulted me: he insulted his mother.
ANDERSON (quaintly). Well, dear, let's forgive him; and then it won't matter.
JUDITH. Oh, I know it's wrong to hate anybody; but—
ANDERSON (going over to her with humorous tenderness). Come, dear, you're not so wicked as you think. The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. After all, my dear, if you watch people carefully, you'll be surprised to find how like hate is to love. 

This quotation, of course, brings to mind two of the most popular topics of discussion among Shavians. The first, Shaw's concern for animal rights - including his vegetarianism - is often summarized in his famous words, reproduced in Hesketh Pearson's Bernard Shaw: A Biography: 

"My will con­tains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine, flocks of poultry, and a small travelling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarves in honour of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow-creatures. It will be, with the excep­tion of the procession into Noah's Ark, the most remarkable thing of the kind ever seen." 

The second idea, that of indifference being one of the worst feelings we can hold for others, even worse than hatred, is frequently found in Shaw's writings. For example, the preface to Heartbreak House reads: 

"It is difficult to say whether indifference and neglect are worse than false doctrine."

As usual, then, Shaw's words are multifaceted and hardly ever a straightforward message, but we must not be indifferent to them - lest we become indifferent to our fellow inhabitants of this planet we call Earth.