"SHOCKABILITY"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 59, 11 March 1939, Page 27

"SHOCKABILITY"

A PASSING FASHION

THE QUALMS OF YESTER-

YEAR

(Written for "The Post" by A. B.

Cochran.)

It is curious to reflect that the university student of today, in New Zealand as elsewhere, is expected to make «n intensive study of books which on i&eir initia| appearance raised a storm 2>£ protest.* Flaubert's "Madame BoyVry" is a case in point, and so 4 Swinburne's "Poems and Ballads." reception given to the latter is well known. "Punch" referred to the author as Mr. "Swineborn," others sprite with horror and disgust;of this "unclean fiery imp from the pit." "the libidinous laureate of a pack of satyrs," and much else to the same effect.

; Now I am far from thinking thafbepause something has happened it ought to have happened; that a change in any direction is necessarily a change for the better. The thesis that Victorian reticence was inferior to modern realism (the "new, strong, .virile, manly, up-to-date treatment of smelly mud," as Lord Dunsany calls it) is still to be proved, and will take some proving. Nevertheless a great mass of evidence can be gathered against the Vie: torians. When a compiler of quotations .boggles at the word "nakedness," and records Wordsworth's famous line as "Not in utter, darkness do we come"; when a woman writer, Miss Mitford, is. rebuked in public for calling a certain type of pudding a "rolypoly"; when a man's trousers are "unmentionables," and "a woman's means j of locomotion an awful mystery to which no reference can be made without gross indelicacy"—then there cer-1 tainly seems to ber something wrong with "the- state of Denmark." Some artist friends of Whistler shock their heads over one of his pictures, saying that the Academy would never accept it, as the dress of the girl depicted in it was cut too low. . (The Victorians of course could paint nudes, but this girl was part of a street scene.) Whistler retorted with characteristic spirit, threatening to increase, rather than tone down, his enormity. But the joke of the thing to the modern critic is that the dress in question is quite unexceptionable, not a whit more revealing, indeed a great deal less revealing, than a hundred to be seen any day at the present time on Lambton Quay. MODESTY V. PRUDERY. What is at the back of this extreme sensitiveness on the part of a former age? I am not at all certain that I know, but I have the feeling that, it can be explained as a historical accident, a fashion, a cloak to cover some moral deficiency, an outbreak of something—prudery—which is quite different, in content from the feeling of true modesty to be.illustrated.in the quotation that follows. The author is Etsu Iriagaki Sugimoto, whose autobiography-, "A Daughter of the Samurai," is a-book.of singular charm. Brought up in the good old fashion of Japanese aristocracy, as a young woman Miss Sugimoto travels to America for her wedding. Her first impressions are naturally vivid. • "Of course I watched the dresses o$ these foreign ladies With the greatest interest. . . . The thin waists (Lfi. t blouses) made of lawn and dainty lace were to me most indelicate, more so, I think, unreasonable though it seemed, than .even the bare neck. I have seen a Japanese servant in the midst of heavy work in a hot kitchen, with her kimono slipped down, displaying an entire- shoulder; and I have seen a woman nursing her baby in the street, or a: naked woman in a hotel bath, but until that evening on the steamer I had never seen a woman publicly displaying bare skin just for the purpose of having it seen. For a while I tried hard to pretend to myselfl, that I was not embarrassed, but finally, with my cheeks flaming with shame, I slipped away and crept into my cabin berth wondering., greatly over the strange civilisation of which I was so soon to be a part." Now the feeling of delicacy expressed in these words seems to me to be genuine, something ingrained and not merely adopted, bearing as little resemblance to Victorian squeamishness as chalk does to cheese; nor is this conclusion invalidated by the fact that the little Japanese lady recovered from her early embarrassment and came to like what had at first so greatly distressed her. "Now I can go to a dinner or a dance and watch the ladies in evening dress with pleasure. To me the scene is frequently as artistic and beautiful as N a lovely painting, and I know those happy-faced women walking with the courteous gentlemen or swinging to the tune of gay music are just as innocent and sweet of heart as are. the gentle and hushed women of my own country over the sea"— which .is very graciously and prettily expressed. BOMBSHELLS. In a different category is the type of shock from which the, world has reeled in more recent years, the shock produced by some exhibition of "man's inhumanity to man"—some act of wanton crAelty or callous hatred. When Mussolini marched into Abyssinia, when Franco began operations in Spain, and Japan invaded China, when the Jewish pogroms started, then the world received the news with a mix- j ture of emotions in which indignation outweighed grief and surprise, although both of, these were also present. The disturbing thing about this type of shock is that, unless folk are actually in contact with the victims of suffering, and unfess they do something about it, the first flush of emotion dies away, newspaper headlines lose their potency, and the final state of mind tends to be one of insensibility. Now, although this type of shock may be differentiated from the other, it seems to me that both kinds are to be covered by the same attitude. My theory is that a Christian (and I use the title advisedly) is never shocked by anything. «If a man believes in the essential goodness of the human race, then it will naturally amaze him to find men bombing and shelling, robbing and proscribing; but the Christian has no such illusions. Believing as he must in human corruption (though, of course, also in the possibility of human redemption) he can never be surprised, though he may be hurt by tangible evidence of man's sin. In the same way, the recognition of the human body and its functions as part of the Creator's intention, and as good and proper in themselves, precludes a sense, of shocked surprise when one is confronted with such things, in however stark a form. THE BETTER WAY. But, quite apart from such a theory, it must be apparent that for an enlightened person to adopt a shocked atti-

tude is sheer folly. The case of parents is apposite. When the small son, carefully trained in pure and manly principles and in the elegant use of English, comes home from school with some strange piece of information or language, with the boast (to illustrate from life) that he has taken some mortal enemy and "socked him in the guts"—it is a wise mother who, whatever her private misgivings may be, takes the matter calmly and without a show of emotion. There is no aurer way to lose the confidence of a child than to lift up "hands of holy horror" (dreadful expression) at his unexpected behaviour. Such hands constitute an impassable barrier.

Actually the principle is as applicable to adults as to children, as the story told by Dr. O'Grady, in "The Silence of Colonel Bramble," will serve to indicate.

"A man had committed a murder. was not suspected, but remorse made him restless and miserable. One day, as he was passing an Anglican church, it seemed to him that the secret would be easier to bear if he could share it with someone else, so he entered and asked the vicar to. hear his confession.

"The vicar was a very well broughtup young man, and had been at Eton and Oxford. Enchanted with this rare piece of luck, he said eagerly, 'Most certainly, open your heart to me; you can talk to me as if I were your father!' The other began: 'I have killed a man.' The vicar sprang to his feet. 'And you come here to tell- me that. Horrible murderer! I am not sure that it is not my duty as a citizen to take you to the v nearest police station. In any case it is my duty as a gentleman not to keep you'a moment longer under my roof.'

"And the man went away. A few miles further on he saw a Roman Catholic Church. A last hope made him enter, and he knelt down behind some old women who were waiting by the confessional. When his turn came he could just distinguish the priest praying in the shadows,. his head in his hands. 'Father,',he said, .'I am not a Catholic, but I should like to confess to you.' 'I am listening, my son.' 'Father, I have committed -murder.'

"He awaited the effect of this terrible revelation. In the austere silence of the church the voice of the priest said simply, 'How many times, my son?'"

This story is told by an Irish doctor io explain "why the Catholic chaplains have more influence than the Anglicans," but its point goes far beyond questions of denomination. It may quite well be that the solution of international problems, as well as individual ones, will be found, not along the line of self-righteous superiority, of criticism, and reproach, but along that ef humble sympathy and understanding. Condemnation of others is often merely an unworthy form of self-defence, a "defence mechanism," as the psychologists call it; while on the other hand a willingness to admit (if only by implication) that in similar circumstances one might have acted just as badly may well lead to true fellowship, the only basis of mutual help. The whole trouble with "shockability" is that it renders fellowship impossible.