ARE AMERICANS VULGAR?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 279, 27 October 1944, Page 10

ARE AMERICANS VULGAR?

It Depends On What You Mean By The Word= Says SYDNEY GREENBIE

SYDNEY GREENBIE, Special Assistant to the American Minister in New Zealand, and representative here of the American Office é6f War Information, was invited recently to give a series of tour lectures to the Wellington branch of the Workers’ Educational Association. For his subject Mr. Greenbie (right) chose "We Americans,’ and divided it into four talks answering these questions: "Are we a vulgar people? Do we worship the dollar? Who are our politicians? Are we imperialistic?"

By the courtesy of Mr.-Greenbie the notes of these talks have been passed on to "The Listener" for publication. Here are the main points of the first address:

I have heard and read discussions of the question of American character and manners. In Parliament, in the press, and at social. gatherings the statements are flung about that New Zealand is being demoralised by American speech, American radio, and American movies. Recently a notable and cosmopolitan Briton came into the room where we were gathered and said that he had just made a most delightful discovery. He was over at’ our United States Library of Information at Woodward Street, Wellington, and there he found a copy of Emily Post’s Book of Etiquette. The Briton was charmed. It seems he had not realised that such a book could have come from America. Whereupon I said, "You see, sir, we have evidently improved our manners since Dickens came to America!" In view of these disturbances in New Zealand by the so-called bad manners of America, I have decided to answer in my first discussion here the question "Are We a Vulgar People?" and my answer is "Yes! naturally." We are a democracy. Our culture emanates from the masses, and since the word "vulgar" means "of and for the masses," ours must be a vulgar culture. S INCE coming to New Zealand, This struggle between the upper classes’ culture and the culture of the people is not new. It has gone on through the ages. The early Christians took over the cause of the people and were not only willing, but proud and determined, to be of and for the common people. The Bible was translated by the great St. Jerome, who, with the help of a highbred Roman lady, turned it out in the ordinary language of the people. Snobs of the day called it "bastard" Latin. When this Latin came to be translated into English, again a struggle arose as to whether it should be turned out in the tongue of the aristocracy or of the common man. Again the common man won out. To-day it is declared that no one not steeped in the learning and the

language of the Bible can really write good English verse or prose. "We Invented Mass Production" So to the extent that "vulgar" means "of the masses" America is by far the most vulgar nation on earth. For everything in America has its origin and its reasons for being in the great mass of humanity. Take again the Bible of American manners, The Book of Etiquette, by Emily Post. Why was that written? Mrs. Post was asked by a publisher to edit a book of manners. She read the volume over; she thought it out. Why, she thought, this does not represent the manners of the American. This book represents what certain ladies of alleged aristocracy and their géntlemen thought good manners. But why not write a book of American usage? So she began to jot down the social habits of Americans-how they behave, what they thought was good ahd what not, and she wrote a book out of the customs and habits of the great mass of Americans.

In the same way everything else in America originated. All our arts, our literature, our crafts, our music, come from the necessity of supplying the great mass of Americans with what they need. We were the people who invented, mass production. We are not ashamed to call it just,that. We do not pretend to be a’ people of handicrafts, but a people of mass production. Our advertising, our radio} our movies, our five-and-ten-cent stores and our motorcars are the symbols of that great American vulgarity, the service of the common man. It is part of that great determination of Americans to spread the good things of the earth to as many people as possible. America has set the pace for the world in mass production. We were challenged with an accusation of standardisation. But it is our conception of art and loveliness that if it cannot be made available for all, it cannot be wholly beautiful and good. This is challenged as common and vulgar. If by vulgar you (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) mean inexpensive and available to all, we agree. But if by vulgar you mean indecent, it is up to the world to prove it, The Way Americans Talk Now let us examine some of the voluminous expressions of American culture to see whether or not we are confusing vulgar-that is; common, or of the people — with cheap and indecent. Since the use of "vulgar" was most vociferously applied to our radio, we might start with a consideration of speech. Is our American speech vulgar? The other evening, one of your eminent statesmen in an excellent speech on America, wherein he did us more than adequate justice, threw in a little jibe about our English-or American. Well, though it is not.necessary for us to resort to literal translation in communicating with each other, still there is no denying that we do not speak the same language. So we are not exactly ashamed or hurt when we are told that English and American are not identical. One of our -greatest books recently written was called The. American Language, by H. L. Mencken. We have a hunch, in fact, that perhaps after all American is a new language, spoken by 133 million people from end to end of our Continent with less diffi+ culty than obtains between some of the segments of the British Empire. In fact, there is less difference of dialect in America than there is between Cockney and Oxford. No Aristocratic Speech Still, American speech is pungent and pointed, to say the least. We are a lusty and vigorous people — unafraid. We speak as we feel, and have fought down for ‘many years a tendency to be secretive and muffled. Here I find myself somewhat baffled. There is in every people’s, make-up its own peculiar mental landscape. Against this landscape, each man uses words which have no meaning except to himself and those with a similar mental landscape. American speech is not an accident of our country. It is a speech shaped by the effort of a great many different peoples over a vast continent, determined to make themselves easily understood. However, it is hardly worth while to argue. Who is to say what is correct-‘"bisin" or "basin’’? But what is worth talking about is whether the differences between elements of society are so great that they put one down as menial and the other up as aristocratic. In that sense I can assure you that again we are a vulgar people. Our speech is so standardised that we cannot tell whether a man is an executive (aristocrat) or a hod-carrier. An executive has no hesitancy in speaking loosely and freely, even if it does put him down to a labourer’s level. We have differences of speech, but they carry no implications of class. Writing for the Millions In the matter of our literature, we admit that we are a‘ vulgar people because our literature rings with the lust of life’... The mass production technique in literature has come to supplant the old notion of writing for the select few. To be successful in America, you have to write for the masses..We publish every year 225 million books. Of these, at least 80 million volumes are fiction, and 15 million are religious books. The Bible is still the best-seller in America. This idea of literature as a commodity to be

turned out on a mass production basis flies in the face of .the old aristocratic notion that one does not make money out of writing. We have in America 20 thousand free public libraries. In these libraries, over 114 million books have been taken out at least four times each in the course of the year. The New York Library has over two million. volumes, and the Libtary of Congress has six million books, with 1,450 librarians and others in attendance, and over 18 million documents, manuscripts, films, records and musical scores. I have worked in the Congressional Library for years. Its beautiful rotunda and galleries will impress anyone. There you will see working men and politicians, school-boys and great scholars, all reading and working in a library provided by their Government to implement our democracy. Over three thousand people pass through it every day. Yes, we are a vulgar people. We make everything we touch vulgar-that is, common, available, as far as possible, to the common man. And when, in the depression, the Government offered funds from 15 to 20 dollars a week to unempbyed, they turned to the writers’ project and produced a series of Guides’ to the several States that would pass for good literature in any country. Not Afraid of Music "Now let us take the question of music. At a concert in Wellington the other day, a New Zealander came out to play a great Concerto. He introduced this number with a slighting reference to the effect that some people danced "boogey-woogey" to this Concerto. Everybody in the audience tittered. Now, what was the fact? The fact is that in America people suddenly discovered this "Concerto for Two" and liked it so well that they began to play it for dancing. Now this far from proved that American taste in music is vulgar-it did the opposite. It showed that American taste has risen to such an extent that we now like to dance to a classical piece and give that piece of music a slight increase in tempo. But as I listened to that concert, I was astonished to note that in New Zealand the opposite took place. New Zealanders would take some light

tune to which we dance in America, and would slow it down. As somebody observed, they play "Pistol Packin’ Mam‘ma" as if it were'a hymn. Now we in America do like jazz and jitter-bugging. It is, I suppose, the instinct for the Highland fling coming out* in us. We love music, and we are not afraid of what it does to us, We have 15 ni&jor symphony orchestras conducted by some of the finest musicians alive. We have over: 200 smaller orchestras playing in other American cities. Every summer there ara outdoor concerts in almost all of our major centres, attended by anywhere from 25 to 30 thousand people, listening to the best music. The Water Gate concerts on the Potomac in Washington, attended by 5000 or more people regularly, are a sight to delight the eyes and ears of any man. The Working Man In Art Let us take the question of art. We have in America over 1,400 museums of art, housing some of the world’s finest masterpieces. At least 50 million people visit these museums every year. We have a great vernacular art, represented by such great painters as Grant Wood and Thomas Benton. When in the depression the Government established an art project, it offered people in America 15 to 20 dollars a week to paint. Hundreds of people turned to the brush and oils and canvas. To-day, our public buildings are lined with by no means inconsequential paintings. These paintings depict the life of the working man-in steel mill, in factory, on the farms, at recreation and at toil. The instinctive love of beauty came out; creating, however, what would be called a vulgar dart -that is, the art of the people. In Wichita, Kansas, the workers in an air-plant factory have formed an 80piece band, which plays in the symphony concerts. In large factories there are choral clubs. The factory workers like to show that they have souls above nuts and bolts, too. Of-course, this will be challenged as being done for profit-mak-ing, for advertising. But advertising in, America his, done an excellent piece of work in education long neglected by the schools and colleges. These schools and colleges tend to concern themselves with the classical and the aristocratic, They (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) think themselves above such matters as dress and how to run a home. So along came the advertisers.. They saw in the betterment of mass culture a chance to sell more things. Well, what is wrong with that? It tends to lift the masses culturally. It does not say to the man coming in from the barn smelling of the stable, "You boor, you pleb, get out! You stink!" which was, of course, the attitude toward the peasant in Europe. But it says to everyone, "If you have B.O., you offend. Take a bath, clean yourself, and come in." It does more. It makes those things available to the great masses. Our five-afd-ten-cent stores are to me as interesting as any of the bazaars I have ever visited\in Cairo or in Japan or India... But what it has done even more is that it has tended to lift the women in the home out of the class of drudge. By concerning ourselves with the everyday things of the home, with gadgets and devices that simplify yet improve the techniques of living, we have lifted the modern woman from the level of a peasant in the fields. If you take a few vulgar movies, and jitter-bugging, and overlook the tendency to lift the housewife and her children above the drudgeries and isolation of the home, then you are talking about something we do not understand.