OCR Text |
Show Honesty and Conventionality. The root meaning of conventionality is a bringing together of the best forces of the head and heart to devise methods by which we may meet subject to com-!' com-!' mon laws; our social status is maintained main-tained among our kind by our knowledge knowl-edge and interpretation of these laws. He who sees a conflict between conventionality conven-tionality and honesty bears the same relation to the social world that the Anarchist does to the political; he objects ob-jects to obeying laws that trammel his will. There is no greater evidence of 'crudity 'crudi-ty than a belief that a declaration of an honest opinion is always in order and that silence is deceit. Tact is regarded as a sixth sense by some, and if we stop to analyze it we would say that it was a perfect balance of honesty and conventionality, for the tactful person is of too high an order to be untruthful, and of too kindly a nature to be unconventional. It is this balance that endows him with that attitude that lifts him above the mass of men. The woman who thinks it necessary to tell another that she has "gone off five years in one" is certainly honest, but she is not conventional, even though she can quote the written laws of every book on etiquette, and accepts all new acquaintances acquaint-ances on the basis of the "rules for the use of cards." We endure her when forced to meet her, but we do not make opportunities for that privilege, nor value her the higher because she is perfectly per-fectly honest. Conventionality ' is to society what the criminal law is to the world at large, and should be so applied that the person who, robs society of the possibility of pleasant intercourse, of graceful act and speech, of the power to meet impersonally, imperson-ally, should be kept out by the combined efforts of those who believe that kindliness kindli-ness is the foundation of social intercourse. inter-course. Christian Union. |