Tact

I came across this article on tact the other day and it encouraged me to think again about some of the ideas that keep repeating themselves in my posts: Murdoch's concept of paying attention, the need to engage, the in-between, interrelatedness, Buber's 'thou' and my trust*.

The writer, Corina Stan, links to an article written by David Heyd of The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Now, I've been reading a lot of papers recently, so the prospect of ploughing through yet another was not initially very appealing. This one, though, was an absolute pleasure and inspired me to wonder whether the virtue of tact might not be rather more, even, than Heyd takes it to be.

He considers the etymology of the word - which first appeared in the late 1700s. It comes from the Latin tangere - to touch. This leads Heyd to consider a kind of hierarchy of the senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching. They move progressively closer to the subject (we can even feel internal states, like a sore throat) and with that comes a lessening of objectivity. This is made apparent in the metaphorical usage of sense terms. When we 'see' the sense of an argument, it suggests rationality, for example, while a gut feeling is irrational. As for the arts, the high arts - painting and music - relate to the first two senses; whereas perfumery and gastronomy are 'lower' arts. And what about an art of feeling? There is no such thing.

Here, perhaps, I might disagree: sculpture as well as painting and even music - indeed all the arts - might also inspire a tactile response. Consider a Henry Moore sculpture or the fabric in a portrait; the staccato rhythms of some sections of symphonies; the piquant scent of lemongrass as opposed to the smooth fragrance of sandalwood and in food, texture certainly plays a part as well as taste. It seems, in a sense (!), somehow foundational. Maybe we have an instinctual tendency to relate everything to touch?

But this is to veer off the point.

What does intrigue me about tact is related to Heyd’s claim that it sits between ethics and etiquette. While you would not condemn someone as immoral for being tactless, neither would you insist that tact is a moral obligation. However, unlike etiquette, which is purely performative, tact suggests a character or dispositional virtue. Like love, it is other regarding – the focus is on sparing the other person’s shame or awkwardness. It is not, like pure manners, about fitting in or looking good; no, it expresses care and compassion.

The use of the word ‘virtue’ is apt: as it is a developed attitude or trait that grows with practice and is only truly effective among those who have experience and insight. Yet at the same time it demands a certain sensitivity - of touch! Indeed, it demands feeling as much as knowing. Heyd points out that there is a connection to the Aristotelian concept of phronesis: practical wisdom, the sense that one can adjust one’s behaviour to fit the context, an understanding that demands wisdom and experience. Just as children are tactless, so they too will lack the feel for phronesis. But whereas phronesis is about doing the right thing in a moral sense, to be a virtuous person as well as to create the most good in a general sense, tact is specifically relational.

This is where Murdoch’s need for attention comes in, where Buber’s ‘thou’ comes in, where love and trust* play their part. For to be tactful means putting oneself in the place of the other and sensing, through insight, empathy, understanding and wisdom, what they need in order to feel at ease. It seems to me to be closely bound to the ideas of harmony and intimacy that we have explored on these pages.

And this is where I feel that it maybe does strain toward the ethical, because by putting this focus, this importance, on the needs of the other we can be fostering an inclination to smooth social relations through an attitude of altruistic concern which facilitates group interactions. This could allow those who can easily feel marginalised to instead feel accepted; it could encourage those who feel unheard to speak and those who feel overlooked or looked down upon to feel that their perspective does truly count. Imagine: it could, in localised ways, lessen social and status anxiety thus creating genuine opportunities for communication and collaboration. I guess I am thinking of something maybe more ambitious than the usual consideration of tact. I’m maybe calling for something more proactive. Oh no, looks like I’ve just come up with ‘tact*’.

When I wrote before about listening, it seemed to me that this was a sine qua non. We have to listen! And we do, but there’s little point if not all the stake holders are talking. Somehow a culture has to be created that makes everyone feel welcome at the multi-perspective party. Tact* could perhaps help with that.

Back to the Aeon article, though, and there is a lovely passage in which Stan considers Roland Barthes' preference for a kind of neutrality. Stan writes:

[I]t was not an absence of concern or lack of care; rather, it came from a desire to preserve the integrity of life itself, in its endless human differentiation. The neutral is, for Barthes, a refusal to participate in oppressive social systems; an anticipation of utopia.

This reminds me too of what I was getting at when I promoted uncertainty, complexity and the refusal to claim that this or that is the only option. It also recalls too Martha Nussbaum's thinking about love.

I was prompted to consider all this again, not just because of the piece on tact, but also because I came across the word, a coined word, 'interstanding'. So that will be the subject of tomorrow's post.