|
In The Virtues of Our Vices: A Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits 
|
Are there times when it’s right to be rude? Can we distinguish between good and bad gossip? Am I a snob if I think that BBC listeners are likely to be better informed than devotees of Fox News? Does sick humour do anyone any good? Can I think your beliefs are absurd but still respect you? Philosopher Emrys Westacott, author of In The Virtues of Our Vices: A Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits, takes a fresh look at important everyday ethical questions – and comes up with surprising answers. He makes a compelling argument that some of our most common vices – rudeness, gossip, snobbery, tasteless humour, and disrespect for others’ beliefs – often have hidden virtues or serve unappreciated but valuable purposes. He is in discussion with philosophy writer Julian Baggini.
This Festival of Ideas event is part of a regular series of live discussions with Julian Baggini recorded at Foyles for the microphilosophy podcast series.
Emrys Westacott is professor of philosophy at Alfred University in Alfred, New York. His work has been featured in the New York Times and has appeared in the Philosopher’s Magazine, Philosophy Now, the Humanist, the Philosophical Forum, and many other publications. He is the author of In The Virtues of Our Vices: A Modest Defense of Gossip, Rudeness, and Other Bad Habits and the co-author of Thinking Through Philosophy: An Introduction.
Responses
Comments
If you would like to subscribe to our RSS Comments feed, please click on the orange XML logo below (click here to read more about our RSS feeds).
** Should you wish to retract a comment, or if you experience technical difficulties, please email us at: ideas@gwebusinesswest.co.uk. We reserve the right to delete posts containing offensive language or content.
March 20th, 2012 at 1:27 pm
[...] will be visiting the UK in March. On 28 March he will be in discussion with Julian Baggini at a Festival of Ideas Event at Foyles in Bristol and will be appearing at the Oxford Literary Festival on 31 [...]
March 29th, 2012 at 1:49 pm
As Julian Baggini pointed out, there is no sharp dividing line between moral or ethical issues and questions of etiquette or manners.
However, tonight’s discussion led me to suspect that any attempt to create a credible theoretical framework at the “lower” end of this sliding scale – flow charts for assessing rudeness notwithstanding – was likely to be thwarted by the white noise of an infinity of specific circumstances and individual personalities.
On the other hand, Emrys Westacott himself cautioned us that his definitions were not absolute, and this proved to be a genuinely entertaining and thought-provoking session.
Westacott and Baggini examined occasions where what we consider to be vices may have a positive impact. Gossip, Westacott told us, can be a vital informal channel of communication in the workplace, “oiling the machinery” on a daily basis. And apparently even rudeness can have its uses – sometimes it can be the only way to impress upon someone that enough is enough, or to shock a close friend into the real world.
Whereas I think that the observation about gossip has much validity, I am less convinced about the usefulness of rudeness. Although bluntness may be called for in the circumstances outlined by Westacott, rudeness may well result in a smack in the eye, the loss of a friend, or both.
Indeed, to me this example highlights the inherent difficulty in Westacott’s deliberations. Not only does the cut-off point between the definitions of bluntness and rudeness vary widely between individuals, so does our tolerance of such behaviour.
I did however strongly agree with Westacott when he stated that the one thing that is so vicious that it can never be a virtue is cruelty.
At one point, immediately following a digression about people not switching off their mobile phones, a mobile phone rang. Cue general hilarity.
Finally, Westacott furnished us with a positive take-home message. We live in an era where almost every behavioural convention can be both fluid and, when it comes to our mosaic of overlapping groups and identities, controversial.
Rather than see this as a source of anxiety, we should seize the day. We can decide where we stand and create our own codes of behaviour. In our own small way, we can be part of the reshaping of not only convention but morality itself.
Inspired, I strode into the night looking for someone to be spectacularly rude to – in a totally constructive way, naturally. Hey, anything to help….