Howard Becker is a major figure in American sociology (and also a star jazz player) He is the subject of an article in the New Yorker (January 12) by Adam Gopnik. What particularly drew my attention was his contention that “any social group, insider or outsider, ends up by divorcing itself from the group it supposed to be serving”. Everyone has an ideal student or audience in mind and never gets them. Thus, teachers end up disliking their pupils, jazz players despise their audiences, and doctors and nurses hate their patients.
I had to go to a hospital Emergency Department the other day, and was attended by a very personable young nurse. I had been reading this article about Becker while I waited. I told her about it and asked her whether she thought it was true that doctors and nurses end up hating their patients. She thought a bit and replied, “You know, I never thought about it, but I think it’s absolutely right. I went into nursing because I wanted to help sick people, but now I only feel good about the job when someone charming, cheerful and grateful comes in, which isn’t very often (her smile allowed me to assume she was feeling good about her job at that moment!).
Then I recalled how, when I ran my company, most of the staff would decamp on a Friday evening to the pub and drink beer, recalling the events of the day, and yes, laughing at the stupid customers. It was a very effective way to bond and produced a happy atmosphere, but I remember ending up feeling very impatient with customers myself, and dreading having to go out and chat them up. Towards the end I didn’t, probably to the company’s detriment.
So there you are. We Epicureans must beware of looking down on and despising those who
disagree with us, or those we serve. You can now be sure that they dislike and despise us. Conservatives hate liberals and liberals loathe conservatives and so on. But we have to be more tolerant and understanding than they are. Cue the debate about Moslems!
Gopnik’s unstated assumption is that the “groups” which teachers, doctors, nurses, businessmen, musicians are serving are made up strangers. In that case, yes, the drift away from any organization’s purpose is inevitable.
The reality, though, is that throughout history, humans were socialized in communities of various sorts (villages or kinship groups or both) so that teachers, doctors, artists etc. KNEW the people whom they served.
The point is, it seems to me, that for the past 300 years, Western Civilization has destroyed most communities either through corporate economic power or political and military power or a combination of the two. This social atomization has reduced us to isolated individuals, struggling even for cohesion in the nuclear family. Thus every group made up of deracinated individuals coalesce in temporary “us” vs. “them” associations.
Totally agree. But it must be acknowledged that some groups are more tolerant and understanding than others. In my experience, atheists and other sceptics are more tolerant of the religious than vice versa. Its no use telling everyone off equally when some are more guilty than others.
Good observations!