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incandescensI am in a slight mood to rant, or at least expostulate, over a subject which annoys me for various reasons.
Last night, a friend was looking for an adjective for a "nice guy". We went through a lot of classics -- virtuous, honest, sincere, kind, decent, honourable, straight, great-hearted (okay, that last was mine), and others. None of them fitted.
What precisely does it say about modern society or linguistics that we no longer have a convenient adjective for a good person? We can describe various shades of "goodness" in a person, but even then, a lot of them are either perceived as outdated, or are so vague and woolly ("nice", anybody?) as to be remarkably imprecise and rather useless. This irks me. Modern society would far rather find fault than praise virtue. (Some interesting comments on this topic, with relevance to heroes, in Silver Age Sentinels.)
I'm not sure what to do about it, which also irks me, as I dislike complaining about things without having some sort of solution or course of action.
Unreasonably irked. Urusai.
Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor. -- Ovid. "I see the better way, and approve it; I follow the worse." [quoted by GK Chesterton]
Last night, a friend was looking for an adjective for a "nice guy". We went through a lot of classics -- virtuous, honest, sincere, kind, decent, honourable, straight, great-hearted (okay, that last was mine), and others. None of them fitted.
What precisely does it say about modern society or linguistics that we no longer have a convenient adjective for a good person? We can describe various shades of "goodness" in a person, but even then, a lot of them are either perceived as outdated, or are so vague and woolly ("nice", anybody?) as to be remarkably imprecise and rather useless. This irks me. Modern society would far rather find fault than praise virtue. (Some interesting comments on this topic, with relevance to heroes, in Silver Age Sentinels.)
I'm not sure what to do about it, which also irks me, as I dislike complaining about things without having some sort of solution or course of action.
Unreasonably irked. Urusai.
Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor. -- Ovid. "I see the better way, and approve it; I follow the worse." [quoted by GK Chesterton]
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Date: 2002-08-05 11:49 pm (UTC)It struck me, as I was en route to bed, that I know exactly what we call someone whose character is somewhat admirable and has done more then the bare minimum to get by. You will see this word thrown about with great enthusiasm by newspapers, magazines, and the culture at large.
That word, of course, is "Hero".
You have no idea how much I wish this was in jest.