Alan S. Oser

As I bowed, the audience cheered. I could hear a “Bravo!” from the back of the hall. I was only 10 years old, and not easily pleased, as I am not even now, though eight times older. However, I was sufficiently pleased after that performance on my half-sized violin to continue to bow – and bow, and bow, and bow.

The applause turned to chuckles until my father, who had accompanied me on the piano, hastened from backstage, to which he had retired after the performance, and tugged my collar. I got the point, and left the stage with the sound of chuckling from the audience in my ears.

I understand now better than I did then how to react when flattery descends upon me like a cooling rain in summer. Flattery may be insincere, but coming from the right source, it still soothes.

I have become an astute practitioner of the flattering art. I flatter liberally. I flatter whether there is good reason or there isn’t. I flatter in order to raise my standing with the flatteree. To the flatteree the flatterer is likely to become a more admired person than he or she was pre-flatter. This may not work well in the immediate aftermath of a stage performance, when the room is likely to be filled with flatterers. But it can work very well when only one flatterer is on hand.

For that reason I have learned to master the art of the handwritten Note. The Note, nowadays usually transmitted by e-mail although the old-fashioned handwritten method is much to be preferred, is sent within two or three days after the event that is its cause. This may be a performance, a graduation, an honor, a marriage engagement, an appointment, a promotion, even a birthday. Here is an example of the written flatter:

“Dear Marc: Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of Commerce. I know that your incredible talent for persuasion, when loosed upon foreign dignitaries, will soon ease the balance of payments problem. Best of luck.”

Notice the following: The note is short; it emphasizes a talent that the recipient no doubt already believes he has; it makes a single point in terse language; it ends with a future-oriented, if trite, phrase.

Compare that with the notes that I might receive if I were honored for my violin-playing. I have considered generating these notes with a one-time-only recital for friends at an ego-driven birthday party for myself in a hired hall. The generous applause that would follow it would not fool me. I may be egotistical but I am not self-deluded. I knew all along that the performance would be mediocre. Nevertheless, I expected to relish the subsequent flattery.

I know my friend Ernie well. Here is what he would say: “Congratulations on your violin recital. I knew you could do it!”

What does that imply? That he knew I was fool enough to perform in public? I admire Ernie’s ambiguity, but Helen would do better:

“My bonnet if off to you for that gutsy performance yesterday. Its quality justified your audacity.”

I like those words: gutsy, audacious. I have always known that I possessed those qualities. Congratulations on discerning them, Helen.

Here is Patrick:

“Thanks for having me at your recital yesterday. It was an imaginative idea for a birthday party, and unforgettable.”

“Unforgettable” is subject to unfavorable interpretation, but “imaginative” is a well-chosen word. Thank you, Patrick, for confirming that quality in me. I always suspected it. I notice you are silent on the quality of the violin playing. Except for Leo, so was everyone else.

Here is the effusive Leo:

“I was delighted to be invited to your recital yesterday. I had no idea that you were such a fine violinist. Your performance of Zigeunerweisen was spellbinding. The Handel was lovely and the lush sounds you brought to the Dvorak piece still linger in my memory. I hope you will give another concert on your next birthday. Fondly . . .”

Now, Leo lays it on too thick. If he was spellbound by the Zigeunerweisen, the difficult Pablo Sarasate showpiece that I had the guts and audacity to attempt, then there must be something wrong with his ears. The Handel was all right but there was nothing lush about my sound in the Dvorak. “Whiney” would have been the honest description. Not that I am looking for honesty. Quite the opposite. But over-praise causes me to suspect insincerity, and has the curious effect of leading me to face the true impetus for my birthday display – a quest for flattery. Down with over-praise.

It is worthwhile here to draw a distinction between flattery and praise. The motives differ. With no reason to suspect otherwise, we take the praise-giver to be sincere. If the giver lays it on too thick, we suspect flattery – praise with an ulterior motive. Both praise and flattery can please the ego, but obviously honest praise is to be preferred.

I am not in danger of experiencing praise, over-praise or flattery. The last time I did anything that I considered worthy of high praise was in 1973. I wrote an article for the real estate news section of the New York Times describing disastrous housing conditions in the South Bronx. Since I was the first to report on this in the Times, I was quite proud of my article. It drew much attention but little praise. The Times subsequently gave greater coverage to housing and other conditions in the South Bronx, leading eventually to Jimmy Carter’s appearance there as President in 1977, and much more Federal money lavished on the South Bronx. By then my unpraised contribution was also forgotten.

It is just as well. Ego, late in life, is less in need of fortification, and maturity gives rise to instantaneous suspicion that praise is flattery. For younger people, both praise and flattery may be welcomed by a shaky ego. In the courting phase of life, a young man should know how to apply both.

“You look gorgeous tonight!" the fellow will declare to the young woman he is meeting for a night on the town. He considers himself to be sincere. “Thank you," she will say, while thinking, “He’s right, but what does he want?" Sincere he may be, but he also wants her admiration. Is he praising her or flattering her? Perhaps both. Not knowing him or seeing her, I cannot say.

In many years as a newspaper editor, I learned the judicious use of both praise and flattery. I employed both in the cause of the greater good – clear, well-written articles. Nothing is more antithetical to that goal than blunt criticism, delivered in the absence of softening praise or even flattery, which works with younger writers provided subsequent suction shrinks the swelled head.

“Good job, Littlejohn!” I might exclaim as an opener. This makes Littlejohn more receptive to what will follow, which will not be the praise he is hoping for. “You covered all the bases. And it’s extremely readable. Let me make a couple of suggestions . . . ." This is followed by a 20-minute monologue, which is full of modestly phrased suggestions rather than negative comments about what is on the page. The suggestions are liberally interspersed with approving comments about what the poor sap has already written. Stunned and speechless, he will return to the keyboard. He will polish his article, following my suggestions to the best of his modest ability.

I have been on both ends of this process. I have been the flatteree and the flatterer. With age I’ve grown more immune to the flatterer’s wiles, but no less sensitive to the critic’s barbs. Judicious praise is what is called for. Ideally it will come from a respected source. It will praise the very elements that I myself recognize as most worthy of praise. It will express a desire to read, see, or hear more of the product or performance that it is judiciously praising. It will come close to the flattery boundary but will not cross it. It will provide a few – a very few – minor suggestions that will deftly improve my stellar opus.

Flatterer that I am, I flatter myself that I am up to this task.