Brash!

[imomus]

Getting on with a city is a bit like getting on with a person. Cities, of course, change from day to day and from district to district. Yesterday, for instance, New York filled up with Irish and pseudo-Irish celebrating St Patrick's Day, "the biggest collection of white trash I've ever seen in one place", as I heard a man telling his wife on the phone. But despite these variations, cities do have personalities. I'm a tender-minded, shy person. And New York is brash. Very brash.

New York hasn't really changed much since the days when the Irish clashed brashly with the blacks and the Italians in the notorious Five Points neighbourhood (now Columbus Park in Chinatown) recreated in Scorsese's "Gangs of New York". The other day I rode the subway into work as usual, ear-plugs screwed into my ears because the train squeals loudly as it rides the bend between Grand Street and Graham Avenue. The New York subway is twice or three times as loud as anything you'll encounter in Tokyo or Berlin. It clangs and squeals and roars. It also stinks; sometimes a homeless person who hasn't washed for months can make a whole carriage impossible to breathe in. So anyway, I stopped at Hunter College on 68th Street for lunch, because I like the canteen there. I tend to sit outside on the patio, next to the door. People come out here to puff on cigarettes. As well as clouds of smoke, I get clouds of "fucks" drifting across my lunch; the students swear like troopers. This particular day two women from the kitchen staff were there too, puffing cigarettes, complaining about a new chef who was making them cut onions. One was black, one hispanic. Every second word was "fuck" or "shit". I don't really mind hearing people swear, it just seemed unneccessarily vehement. A big effort. Brash just for the sake of being brash.

It isn't just poor, over-worked kitchen staff who swear. After lunch I was walking along East 74th Street between Park and Madison, a very tony and expensive street, and some rich lady who lived there was trying to park, and started shouting at a post office van for blocking her space. I felt sorry for the meek public employee who had to suffer her wrath, just as brash as the kitchen orderlies. Later, I passed a short, swarthy man on Lexington walking up and down, gesticulating into his cellphone shouting that he was going to "fucking crucify" someone, or get his lawyer to do it. Brash!

But maybe brash is hot and hot is warm. The old cliche is that in New York they say "Fuck you!" and mean "Have a nice day!" whereas in LA they say "Have a nice day!" and mean "Fuck you!" Sometimes I think there's some truth in that. This testy, brash head-on style is one I would never adopt, even if I lived here all my life. But I wonder if that isn't because I'm a bit of a cold fish, and would rather disengage politely than really get to grips with someone? Is brashness a form of engagement, even a form of "hard love"? The way a city educates itself about reality, even bonds?

The psychologist William James (1842-1910) distinguished between two basic temperaments, the tough- and the tender-minded. According to Hyperstructures, "the tough-minded individuals are those who are empirically oriented, those who 'go by facts'. By contrast, the tender-minded are rationalists who 'go by principles'. According to James, the history of philosophy is largely the story of the clash between these two temperaments: 'The tough think of the tender as sentimentalists and softheads. The tender feel the tough to be unrefined, callous, or brutal."

The Keirsey Temperament Testing website expands: "The Tough-minded are often accused of being "inhuman," "heartless," "stony-hearted," "remote," of having 'ice in their veins," and of living "without the milk of human kindness." In the same way, the Friendly are chided for being "too soft-hearted," "too emotional," "bleeding-hearts," "muddleheaded," "fuzzy-thinkers," and for "wearing their heart on their sleeve."

This breaks the brash and the brittle down to tough and tender, realistic and dreamer, is and ought, right and left, uncaring and friendly. But mightn't it be we tender, polite, principled ones who have "ice in our veins"? After all, we never lose our tempers. That's more icy than nicey, no?

I'm currently living with a bunch of Italian artists in Brooklyn, and when I get home after all these encounters with brash New Yorkers I hear the Italians through the wall, Skyping with their gallerists back in Italy. My Italian isn't great, so I have no idea what they're talking about, but what's interesting is that I can never quite tell whether they're arguing or agreeing. Their tone suggests they're veering weirdly between blasting and bonding, between anger and excitement. There are lots of rich Italian obscenities (culo this, culo that), and the tone sounds brash, but maybe it's a kind of macho bonding.

I think there's a real gulf between tough and tender-minded cultures. Something that always disturbed me about living in Paris, for instance, was that some people expected you to be brash. You'd often be expected to have some tug-of-love tussle with a taxi-driver, a landlady or a neighbour, a conversation full of violent expletives, which would then be resolved in some kind of semi-erotic reconciliation (if you didn't both die in a crime passionel). In Paris, a slap was never far from a kiss. Trouble is, these altercations were with people I neither wanted to slap nor kiss. I just wanted level-headed, cool, civilised neutrality. New York is more like France or Italy than the countries I spend most of my time in, Germany and Japan, where people maintain exactly the sort of cold-fishy, neutral distances I'm used to, and enjoy.

It may be that the brash, like chronic alcoholics, attack people only because they love them, and turn their pathetic fights with strangers into love-huddles at the first opportunity. Perhaps if I lived in New York, Dublin, Paris or Rome (perhaps even more so in Hong Kong or Sao Paolo), and drank heavily, I would learn to scream at people that way, scream with a warm heart, scream only to back down later and give a big hug and a big tip. But that's not my way, and it's not the way of the cool, cold, tender-minded cities I frequent.

What do they say about Aquarians again? "Do you only care about the bleeding crowd, how about a needy friend?" We're both tender-minded and somewhat aloof, somewhat abstracted. Maybe the cities I love and choose to live in -- Berlin and Tokyo -- are somewhat Aquarian cities, chilly and tender like me. Brash is something I can't do, and fuck you if you even make me try!

Comments

[triestine.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these, they make one think. My stand is very simple - I find "brash" more honest. If somebody is always cool and civil, I am never certain whether they are genuine, afraid, or bored; with people who are direct, no matter how brash, I know where I stand and to me it makes relations better.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I actually think it's also a matter of physique. If you're brash, you must have muscle to back it up, because there's always the possibility that your shouting will turn into fighting. For someone built like me, fights must at all costs be avoided. No cerebrotonic would risk damaging his brain in a tussle with some hot-tempered mesomorphic baboon.

[socialcarwreck.livejournal.com]

i wondering what you like so much about hunter's eating facilities? i go there, between classes, but have never found the food to be very remarkable.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

Would you label Britain "Brash" or "tender-minded"?

Americans are usually labeled "brash" by the English, but I find that the hard-drinking hooligan culture over there competes handily with any "brashness" we produce.

There's also a difference between New York and everywhere else in America. It has its own culture of obscenity and directness. You'd find the South and the Midwest to be quite different, I think.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

In a word, impersonality. I can go there alone and be completely ignored. And I've always liked institutional canteens because I'm an emotional communist (http://imomus.livejournal.com/94162.html). Also, I like seeing "Protest the Iraq war" posters outside the canteen, they make me digest better.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

Best wishes. I hope you are not entirely tired out by your brash surroundings. They sound vigorous.

In my experience, Los Angeles is pretty brash as well. The down-side of the not brash is avoidant behavior, sliding even into passive-aggressive. For example, Minnesota Nice (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Minnesota+Nice%22&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official). Strangely, if one is brought up with that as a greater part of the culture, it's quite comfortable; folks who move here from brasher climes tend to feel frozen out and underappreciated.

[sonjaaa.livejournal.com]

I wrote my own MBTI test here: www.kisa.ca/personality

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

(And I deliberately focused on "English" vs. "British" here, because I have no experience of Scotland or Wales.)

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

If you're brash, you must have muscle to back it up

Like George Bush who has the military to back him up. He likes to "talk tough". He pretends to be a "straight talker". Brash is seen as agood quality for a "leader". I don't know what is in his mind but I'm pretty sure when he says fuck you he means fuck you.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I actually think Britain has swung in the last few decades from a tender-minded culture to a brash one.

Britain is weird that way. In the 18th century, for instance, it was the British who kissed and the French who shook hands. Then in the 19th century it was the other way around.

Of course, there have always been hooligans in Britain, and especially when alcohol is involved. But if you look at punk rock, it was made mostly by cerebrotonics who didn't like physical contact very much. Pessimists and sociopaths. Sometimes Lydon sounded like a dalek. Sex was "two and a half minutes of squelching noises" etc. Pretty vacant, pretty schizoid.

Maybe "schizoid" explains why the British can be all Alan Bennett "have a cup of tea" one minute and all kissy-kissy punchy-punchy the next.

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

This ties in well with your whole "mavericks" thang.

NYC sounds very scary. People are pretty passive over here in SF. Usually.

Aquarian Cities...(or rather countries)

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

While Sweden is an Aquarian country, Stockholm is a Cancerian city... funny thing about New York and the US is that although they are technically classified as "Cancerian"- they both have a Mars/Uranus conjunction on the ASC (in Gemini I think) with the Sun (signifying the "Ego" of the City or Country) in the Second house.. so its Cancerian Ego.. if you want to put it, loves to be put on desplay as what it's movable resources are, its, money for example and what it can get exchange for...

Mars/Uranus conjunct ASC in Gemini and could explain the tendancy to be "brash and outspoken" though.

(I don't really know that much about Stockholm's ASC.) I suspect Sweden's Aquarian style overides most of the possessive, family oriented way of Cancerian cities..but still there is a cool exterior people on the "outside" don't seem to like.. where as I feel Stockholmers are "aloof" because they ARE senstive.. but unlike people from NYC.. don't have huge "chips on their shoulders" as a general rule.


I've been interested in asking you for your time of birth Momus, if you don't wish to post it, could you e-post me via the address I have on my LJ (when you are logged in); as I have drawn up your solar chart and would love to see where the ASC is as well as the house placements..(especially for that Venus/Mars conjunction in Capricorn you have ;))

Thank you in advance,

Dorian

[dickon-edwards.livejournal.com]

Hey, Brash and Un-brash can get on. Shane MacGowan is actually a very gentle, well-read and tolerant man. And of course, he took me to Tangier with him. ME! It's a sector of his fans I often clash with, though, who'd rather get drunk and destructive and sod the Joyce / Yeats musings.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

Maybe the schizoid thing is down to the Victorians and their over-the-top suppression of "animal" impulses (e.g. covering table legs out of modesty). The British adhere to a rigorous system of etiquette (well, some do), but let loose when they drink/in private.

It's probably too pat an explanation...

[dickon-edwards.livejournal.com]

Also, I myself am incapable of shouting, violence or saying "f--- you" sincerely. Utterly. I wouldn't how. Sometimes I think this is a noble trait and could save the world if Essence of Dickon was put in the water of the globe's troublespots. Other times I feel it's a disability and disadvantage. The meek will not inherit the world, though they've annexed much of LiveJournal, heh.

Re: Aquarian Cities...(or rather countries)

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the city, and country you were born in, as well.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Honesty being another word for 'authenticity". So if we're not being "honest," it follows we're not being "real." What if we just want to be genuinely polite by not acting like petulant adolescents? Honesty may be good policy between family or close friends, but it's not always good public policy. Should we all make a habit of imposing our inner turmoil on total strangers? It's a form of selfishness, this brashness. It coarsens everyone it touches, and makes public life something to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Going into the city today, I know I'm going to have to contend with some nasty displays of "honesty," but that's all right—I have the muscle to back up my politeness.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm completely fascinated by your relationship with Shane, Dickon, because it's totally "the odd couple". Anymore insights welcomed; how do the brash and the brittle co-exist? Or is he really secretly super-brittle?

Re: Aquarian Cities...(or rather countries)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

3.55pm on February 11th, 1960, in Paisley, Scotland.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I felt like this yesterday. The brashness in my class is growing. Something I have found, being that silent background analysist guy, is that most times the brashness in a class rises as summer gets closer. Usually culminating during the last two weeks before summer vacation. But this week my class was unbarable. Bad sex jokes, loud rockists, loud laughter, loudness here and loudness there, I couldn't stand it and I wonder if I can stand staying in school for another year. It really sucks. It made me ill and I feel hurt since I fucking hoped that I wouldn't get into another brash class AGAIN. Top on that the majority of my class wants to go to Paris. But is Paris really that brash? I hoped it wouldn't.

[triestine.livejournal.com]

Honesty being another word for 'authenticity". So if we're not being "honest," it follows we're not being "real."

No, pretense is very real too. I'd be immensely happy if the genuine politeness you mention were everywhere, but experience so far showed me that politeness without emotion is often masking something else, which turns out to be emotional as well, but negatively so.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I have the muscle to back up my politeness.

Ha, that sounds very Gregory Peck!

[(Anonymous)]

Bit of both methinks.

Bit of both

[jimmyandfriend.livejournal.com]

Whoops, meant to link:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SirutCHZ-QI

-Jimmy

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I know what you're saying, but I'm not really talking about etiquette, which is intended to keep others in their place. I'm talking about manners, which is a basic consideration and civility.

The reason why politeness is not prevalent is that people place their own need to express their displeasure and act out their personal little dramas before any other consideration, including public harmony. It takes pressure from the person sitting to the left and right of us to maintain a certain baseline of behavior, and if they behave badly, well it all falls apart, because the social "infrastructure"--the pressure from the sides--is not there. And here we are, behaving and dressing like toddlers.

So do we simply give up the struggle to make public life humane? Believe me, every time I get some little hoodie-rat on the street commenting on my suits, I want to knock their teeth in—and I could, but I always refrain. Civility requires restraint and a thick hide, because ultimately, it's not about "you"; it's about "us".