Michael Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards --

Robert Greenberg in one of his lectures about Tchaikovsky argues that what characterizes that composer's art is the way it blends the hyperemotionalism of Russian art with a Germanic love of intellectual construction. Yet a commenter a while back scolded me for making casual reference to the way people of Southern Euro descent often seem to be more "expressive" than peopel of northern-Euro descent.

Poynter Online columnist (and Columbia prof) Sree Sreenivasan kicks off one of his columns this way: "As perhaps the only Asian in the world who can't do math, I appreciate sites that critique the math and statistics in media stories." Gadzooks -- a racial joke!

Dave Singleton -- an amusing gayguy who writes pop-advice books -- has just published a new one: "Behind Every Great Woman There's a Fabulous Gay Man: Advice from a Guy Who Gives It To You Straight." (Go ahead and laugh: gay humor often makes me crack up.) Almost every page of the book makes bunches of generalizations: reference to what gayguys are like, what women are like, and what straight men are like. Quick example: "One thing you can say about gay men. We know how to vary our wardrobe and style based on the situation, setting and goal ... Straight men seem perfectly comfortable wearing the same suit they wear to work out for a night on the town. Not so for many gay men ...If you are a woman who dresses to impress other women, you feel the same way. We both know that we're faced with meeting impossibly high standards all the time."

Good grief -- observations about gayguys, straight women and straight men.

All of which has me wondering ...

What are the rules for indulging in generalizations about groups of people? Not official, formal, or scientific rules. As far as I can tell, the self-proclaimed rule-makers have it in for generalizations. (And didn't I enjoy just making that genralization about the anti-generalizer crowd.)

In daily life, we use generalizations all the time. How could we get through life otherwise? , but general, getting-through-life rules. I don't nkow how we can not. We also observe tendencies and trends. Comparing notes with other people is part of the fun of life. The political/scientific crowd can go on and on about wehther there are any essential diffs between men and women. The rest of us have friends, partners, and mates, and need to be able to talk about what we encounter.

(Which reminds me. Note to self: write posting about "What is it with women and stretch clothes?")

In my pre-marriage days I did some dating. It was an intersting way to explore life and the city. I went into it pretty much blind to group charateristics -- the vanilla-blando small-town/suburuban life I came from, we were blind to them. Characteristics certainly leaped out at me as I dated around. Blando-Vanilla girls were different than Jewish girls. Catholic girls were different than both. Subsets of Catholic girls seemed very different: Irish girls and Italian girls, for instance.

Officially, I suppose, I'm not meant to notice any of this, let alone discuss it. Yet privately and informally I found it very striking.

My friends of Italian descent, for instance, are very different than my friends of WASP descent, and in many respects: their taste in food, their taste in music, in clothes. Their sense of personal space; people of Italian descent seem much more "expressive" physically than people of WASP descent do, and they seem happier and more casual about moving in close physically, and touching physically.

What makes it difficult.
We all want to be trated like individuals, yet we're also part of groups, yet we perceive people as parts of groups and individuals both ... Fear of being insulting.

Contempo conviction that group generalziations are to be loved and announced loudly -0- but only by members of the group making the gneeralization. The Irish, for instnace, often seem to love nothing more than making generalizations and jokes about bieng Irish -- oops, ther I go, making a group observation about the Irish (a group, in my ggenraionzation, who seem to enjoy making genrealizations about htemselves). I saw an evening of Jackie Mason's standup comedy, much of which consists of a Jewish guy making jokes about what Jews are like. Put those same jokes in the mouth of someone not of Jewish background, and many of them would -- by today's standards -- seem anti-Semitic. Yet it's OK for Jackie Mason to crack these jokes -- and not just among other Jews, but in a large Broadway theater. Incidetnally, many of the jokes were very funny, and the peopel in the theater were lovin' the evening.

And of course those who object to genrealizations about groups always seem to feel freer than most to discuss some groups abusively -- the Boy Scouts, for instance, or heartland Chrsitians. Or righties. Or the grou pf those people who don't mind indulging in generalizations about groups from time to time.

Yet those who ban geranlziations seem to keep the rest of us in terror.

So how do we manage to discuss these things? We keep it semi-private. We agree that publically we aren't going to go to far with any such observations. Perhaps we use a lot of weasel words -- "more or less," "often," "exceptions allowed for," etc.

Notes towards a preliminary theory ...

Small theory: the more official and public the venue for conversation, the less you're entitled to make casual reference to group charateristics. (Did anyone else notice Mexican President Vicente Fox's characterization of American blakcs?) The more private and informal the venue, the more you're entitled to indulge in such references.

It seems safer to make geranzliations about groups that have no ethnic identity. Safer to refer to charcteristics of Germans, for instance, than of Native Americans. Safer to generalize about voluntary groups -- economists, for instance, rather than Arabs.

But there seem to be other things to be kept in mind. Some groups are dicier than others to characterize.

We seem to shuffle and manage most of these things pretty well. Yet it also absorbs a fair amoutn of energy and attention.

What am I missing?

Note: I often love, enjoy and have learned from group genreazliations. I also feel we all ought to loosen up a bit about them; we're all individuals, but we're all part of groups too. Many groups, in fact. I couldn't be more unique on the face of the planet, of course. But I'm also a member of many different groups: a bland-vanilla small-towner, for instance. I'm also an artsguy, a semi-Vedantist, a New Yorker, a former movie buff ... And semi-legit-enough generalizations can probably be made about all those groups.

But I'm also very aware of the potential for hurt and annoyance group generazilations can cause. So if any comments show up that I (autocratically, admittedly) find obnoxious, the comments will be deleted pronto.

Thomas Sowell's book about Immigrant America.

See Jean-Pierre and Scruton wonder whether prejudice can ever serve a positive role.

Best,

Michael

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