ON GENERALISATIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 September 1928, Page 3

ON GENERALISATIONS

■ A WHIMSICAL DISQUISITION. There are few things that make one feel so humble, when one is in one of one’s humble moods, as the generalisation of other people, (writes “Y.Y.” in the “New Statesman”). Generalisations, so long as we do not question them, have a most impressive air of wisdom. A man has but to say a sufficient number of things about human beings in general, or about women in general, or about. Englishmen in general, or about Americans in general, in order to establish himself as a considerable commentator on life. We have an extraordinary capacity for believing general remarks. They are so much ready-made wisdom and save us the trouble of thinking for ourselves. .They provide us with spectacles which enable us, we believe, to see life more clearly. Thus, when we go to France we do not see Frenchmen with our own unaided eyes, but through the spectacles provided for us by generations of generalises. There are, of course, frequently, two opposite generalisations in vogue about the same people. There is a generalisation which asserts that the French are the politest people in Europe; there is another generalisation which asserts that they are the impolitest. You can go to France with either generalisation and come back with plenty of evidence that it is true. Similarly, you can go to Ireland with the generalisation that represents the Irish as a nation of humorists, or with the opposite generalisation that makes ,them out to be a people almost, devoid of a sense of humour, and in neither case will you' return disillusioned. If you ignore a number of facts, there are usually enough facts left to prove almost any generalisation. .

In the' circumstances it is no wonder that most human beings cling to generalisations and see life almost entirely in terms of them. I myself was brought up to believe a certain generalisation about Catholics: it was not a flattering generalisation, and, if I met a Catholic who did not seem to fit into it, I thought, not that the generalisation was at fault, but that the Catholic was an exceptional kind of Catholic. Similarly, in a Puritan community, one grows up with the belief jn generalisations about men who drink and about gamblers, as though one man who drinks were like another man who drinks and every gambler were like every other gambler. There was a time at which, if I were told a man was a gambler, I regarded him with awe. I felt the same kind of awe bn seeing a freethinker pass in the street. As one grows older, on discovers that there are all kinds of freethinkers —freethinkers who are as unchristian as the most unchristian Christian, and freethinkers who are as Christian as the most Christian Christian. Gamblers, one also finds, are of an astonishing variety: the mean, the dishonest, the neurotic, the light-hearted, and the generous. Still, we are probably the slaves of generalisations to-day to as great an extent as men have ever been. We still continue to make generalisations about infinitely varied half of the human race known as women. It is, z of course, impossible to think without making use of generalisations. Even a false generalisation—such as, say, that all men wish to murder their fathers —is a starting-point for thought. Hence, we can scarcely observe two I or three facts without attempting to I cook them into a generalisation, and we have an insatiable appetite for the generalisations of writers, speakers, and our friends. How enviable the man seems who, returning from a week’s visit to Czecho-Slovakia, can sum up the men, the women, the food, and the peasants of the country, each in a general remark! I know a man who can do the same kind of thing for every county of England. He has visited all the counties, and he can tell you what a generalised inhabitant of Huntingdonshire is like, and can differentiate between a generalised Sussex man and a generalised Kent man. Not only this, bpt he can take any part of any county, and tell you how the people of Brighton differ from the people of Hove, and how the population of Hastings differs from the population of St. Leonards. Mention a village in the south, of Devonshire, arid he will say: “Yes, I was there last summer. A very interesting people, dolichocephalic, with dark hair and blue eyes. There’s a strong Celtic infusion in the population that makes the people dreamy and melancholy.” I confess I have not the kind of observation that notices such things, and I am all the more filled with wonder at the genius of the people who do notice them. If Igoto a strange town, I am more likely to notice the differences between one inhabitant and another than the points of resemblance. I have never seen a typical Dorsetshire man or a typical Newton Abbot man. Yet I suppose the type must be there to be observed as well as the individual. There is certainly a more or less typical accent in very county; why not typical manners, typical shape of head, typical eyes and hair? But, outside Cornwall, I scarcely notice such differences, and I doubt if, were it not for their accents, I could tell the difference between a Yorkshireman and a Wiltshireman. And even then I should probably think that the Wiltshireman came from Dorsetshire.

I have seen typical Chinamen, but never a typical Englishman. I have ri- clear enough vision of what a typical Japanese is like, but no notion at all of what a typical Irishman is like. I can generalise about the inhabitants of America more easily than about the inhabitants of Sussex because I know a great deal less about America. Happy is the man who can generalise about thinks he knows something about! I can generalise easily only about the things I know nothing about.