Social prestige

“ The brilliancy of the spectacle would have dazzled him, and he would unhesitatingly have pronounced those titled men and women to be the most fortunate, the most favored, and perhaps the most happy of all people on the face of the globe, since, added to the distinctions of rank and the pride of power, they had the means of purchasing all the pleasures known to civilization, and--more than all--held a secure social position, which no slander could reach and no hatred could affect. ”

“ A fourth collective goal of civilization has been the establishment and maintenance of social structure, including classes and/or caste lines based partly upon tradition, partly on function and partly upon proximity to the honey-pot, the wellspring of wealth, income, prestige and power. ”

“ Imagine a society composed of a leisure class with more or less intellectual tastes; men eminent in science and letters; men less eminent, whose success depended largely upon their social gifts, and clever women supremely versed in the art of pleasing, who were the intelligent complements of these men; add a universal talent for conversation, a genius for the amenities of social life, habits of daily intercourse, and manners formed upon an ideal of generosity, amiability, loyalty, and urbanity ”

“ The general good nature, the social equality, deprive them of triumphs on the one hand, and of grievances on the other. There is extremely little impertinence; there is almost none. You will say I am describing a terrible society,—a society without great figures or great social prizes. You have hit it, my dear; there are no great figures. (The great prize, of course, in Europe, is the opportunity to be a great figure.) ”

“ Thus Best Society is not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth; but it is an association of gentle-folk, of which good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of others, are the credentials by which society the world over recognizes its chosen members. ”

“ And then again, because of their hesitancy in expressing their recognition, even, of the attempt on the part of those possessed of greater wealth, to assume social superiority of those less fortunate. ”

“ In this country, they not only add to the wealth of the nation, but they become useful members of the social fabric, with few exceptions, enjoying happiness themselves and bringing up children, whom they teach to admire, honor and revere the institutions of this country in contrast with the land of their own nativity. ”

“ There is the way of social ambition. Those who walk in it have their eyes fixed on various prizes, such as titles of honour, public office, large acquaintance with prosperous people, the reputation of leading the fashion. ”

“ Who are the “quality,”—said the Model, etc., in a community like ours?
I confess I find this question a little difficult to answer,—I said. —Nothing is better known than the distinction of social ranks which exists in every community, and nothing is harder to define. The great gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords and masters and mistresses; they are the quality, whether in a monarchy or a republic; mayors and governors and generals and senators and ex-presidents are nothing to them. ”

“ In speaking of social success I allude to their success in private life as distinguished from that which they have achieved in public life;—to their successes in commerce, in mechanics, in the comforts and luxuries of life, in medicine and all that leads to the solace of affliction, in literature, and I may add also, considering the youth of the nation, in the arts. ”

“ But it is not therefore necessary that society should provide a set of persons with large fortunes, to fulfil the social duty of standing to be looked at, with envy and admiration, by the aspiring poor. ”

“ Conditions have a large influence on character, and the hardships of life may be as prejudicial to the growth of character as the luxuries. They, therefore, who work to get good houses and good schools, who provide means of intercourse and high teaching, who increase the comforts of the poor, may also claim to be strengthening character. ”

“ The fumes of society mount to the head. You lavish the wealth of your soul and spirit, the treasures of your time, the noblest efforts of your will, upon a crowd of people who repay you in smiles and jealousy. The false coin of their pretty speeches, compliments, and flattery is the only return they give for the solid gold of your courage and sacrifices, and all the thought that must go to keep up without flagging the standard of beauty, dress, sparkling talk, and general affability. ”

“ And when you see people with a fine title or great riches commanding no prestige, you may know it is because in themselves they have failed to come up to the standard of what the best society requires. It is also the fashion to say wealth is necessary to a position in society. ”

“ This society, in short, says, “Be you what you may, be you actor or actress, be your path in your profession never so high, or never so low, never so haughty, or never so humble, we offer you the means of doing good to yourselves, and of doing good to your brethren.”
This society is essentially a provident institution, appealing to a class of men to take care of their own interests, and giving a continuous security only in return for a continuous sacrifice and effort. ”

“ But if they, during a short successful period, exhibit that which social humanity may become when all shall be influenced by a noble and beneficent spirit, and when possessed of all those material advantages which associated life affords,—then they will not have flourished, will not have lived in vain. ”

“ It insists on a moral regeneration of society of the most complete and searching kind in order to make a lasting foundation for the political and social changes we many of us long to see." [1211] "Convey it in what spirit we may, an appeal to class interest is an appeal to personal interest. ”

“ Instead of their improvements, and their success and prosperity altogether, producing admiration, if not envy, they have a social discipline, the thought of which reduces these feelings to ridicule and contempt: that is to say, with regard to the mass; with respect to their leaders one's feelings are apt to be stronger. ”

“ He compares him as a type with the abstract ideal of human excellence, and notes wherein his powers “fall short or exceed.” He indicates the reaction upon the social and political life of the nation of these various defects and excesses, their inevitable influence in producing social misadjustment and friction. Finally, he urges that the one remedy that will correct these errant social types and bring them nearer to the perfect human type is culture, increase in vital knowledge. ”

“ It’s we who are the social superiors—because we’ve got more money than the bank clerks and the civil servants. Our modern flattery must be manly, straightforward, sincere, the admiration of equal for equal—all the more flattering as we aren’t equals. ”

“ Note, again, that under the discipline of social life—under a comparative abstinence from aggressive actions, and a performance of those mutually-serviceable actions implied by the division of labour—there has been a development of those gentle emotions of which inferior races exhibit but the rudiments. Savages delight in giving pain rather than pleasure—are almost devoid of sympathy. While among ourselves philanthropy organizes itself in laws, establishes numerous institutions, and dictates countless private benefactions. ”

“ The immense gains that have come to society through philanthropy and social organization, as well as through the channels of industry, would have been impossible without the sympathetic activity of the so-called upper class. ”

“ I have known men and women whose endeavors and successes have all been modelled upon the plane of social ambition. Starting with a good common-school education, which is a very good thing to start with, they have improved opportunities of culture and of desirable association until they stand conspicuous, far away from the sphere of their village or homemates, having money to spend, able to boast of wealthy acquaintances, familiar guests at fashionable entertainments. ”

“ The social heritage is, of course, all that a man or woman gets from the accumulated wisdom of society. All that the ages have handed down—the literature, the art, the habits of social conformity, the experience of social ills, the treatment of crime, the relief of distress, the education of the young, the provision for the old—all, in fact, however described, that we men owe to the ancestors whom we reverence, and to the parents whose presence with us perhaps we cherish still. ”

“ In a country destitute of an hereditary aristocracy, and where the poorest emigrant, by industry and prudence, may rise to wealth and political importance, the appearance which individuals make, and the style in which they live, determine their claims to superiority with the public, chiefly composed of the same elements with themselves. ”

“ Over against those who laud the present state of Society, with its unjustly rich and its unjustly poor, with its palaces and its slums, its millionaires and its paupers, be it ours to proclaim that there is a higher ideal in life than that of being first in the race for wealth, most successful in the scramble for gold. ”

“ But in a society whose habits are still forming — or reforming as the case may be — and whose tendencies are not firmly fixed, there are usually different elements contending to gain a sort of social mastery, to establish themselves as a kind of an aristocracy that is to set the example for imitation to the rest. It may be by pretensions on account of birth, or by the influence of wealth, or that of superior intelligence and education. The issue of this contest is of great consequence to the whole development of social life. ”

“ What is requisite is, that the class should be not only capable of refined enjoyment, but of discharging its functions relatively to the nation at large, and spreading a higher standard of enjoyment through the whole community. So far as the richer class maintains certain traditions, moral and intellectual—traditions of personal honour and public spirit, of artistic and literary cultivation—it may be discharging an invaluable function, and its existence may be a necessary means of diffusing a higher civilisation through the masses who have not the same advantage. ”

“ If, therefore, the ancient conception of the social relations was less humane and less generous than ours, it was not wanting in a certain moral grandeur that is wanting to ours, inasmuch as in estimating a man, it subordinated his wealth to ideal qualities, such as free108 birth, or good birth, or citizenship. So it maintained in society certain moral values which were not to be bought with money. ”

“ The happy result of this may be found in the absence of social envy between the classes. You may see signs of comparative luxury, but the whole community has its share in it. There are no "idle rich." ”

“ Since pride of birth, pride of wealth and habits of domination and luxury are all unfavourable to the growth of a moral sentiment of social justice, it is not in the upper ranks of society we need look 338for the public spirit that will devise methods of gradually equalizing the labour of life and its rewards and undermining present class distinctions. ”

“ By this wise conduct, and by her frequent public discourses on the glory resulting from an active life, she excited many of the young nobility, and gentlemen of easy fortunes, to hazard their persons and estates in the public service, exciting a desire of fame even among the wealthy, and by this means uniting the rich, who desired to purchase honour, and the indigent, who sought to procure the means of living, in the same pursuits. ”

“ From this low and stagnant condition of affairs, which demagogues and dreamers in later times have lauded as the ideal state, the Golden Age, of humanity, everything that helps to raise society by opening a career to talent and proportioning the degrees of authority to men's natural abilities, deserves to be welcomed by all who have the real good of their fellows at heart. ”

“ Most of them are seen turning toward administrative careers, entering the service of the state as members of the councils of justice or finance and aspiring to the noblesse de robe, which, with the aid of fortunate marriages, will land their sons in the circle of the true nobility. As for the new rich of the period, they almost all appear to us like parvenus. ”

“ We see then how, when social character and evolved type are the prize to be grasped, the facts of observation and certification, unrestingly social and historic too, that form and fondle and retouch it, never relaxing their action, are so easily and blessedly absolute to him that this is what we mean by their virtue. ”

“ In a still higher strain he sings (Odes, III. 1) the ultimate equality of all human souls, and the vanity of encumbering life with the anxieties of ambition or wealth:—
"Whate'er our rank may be, We all partake one common destiny! In fair expanse of soil, Teeming with rich returns of wine and oil, His neighbour one outvies; Another claims to rise To civic dignities, Because of ancestry and noble birth, Or fame, or proved pre-eminence of worth, Or troops of clients, clamorous in his cause ”

“ But although the virtues of a poor and struggling community necessarily disappear before increasing luxury, they are in a normal condition of society replaced by virtues of a different stamp. Gentler manners and enlarged benevolence follow in the train of civilisation, greater intellectual activity and more extended industrial enterprise give a new importance to the moral qualities which each of these require, the circle of political interests expands, and if the virtues that spring from privilege diminish, the virtues that spring from equality increase. ”