The Art of Lifemanship

MANNERS & MORALS

Many a man has been cornered at bar rail or cocktail table by an expert, and felt his eyes glazing and his mind wandering desperately like a white mouse in an empty cakebox. In the current Atlantic Monthly, Stephen Potter, a BBC director and father of Gamesmanship ("The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating"--TIME, Sept. 6), offered such defensive citizens the art of Lifemanship.

"There is no finer spectacle," wrote Potter, "than the sight of the good Lifeman, so ignorant that he can scarcely spell the simplest word, making an expert look a fool in his own subject, or at any rate interrupting him in that stupefying flow, breaking that deadly one upness of the man who, say, has really been to Russia, has genuinely taken a course in psychiatry, or has written a book on something."

Break the Flow. Potter outlines several ploys. There is the Canterbury Block:

Expert: There can be no relationship based on a mutual dependency of neutral markets. Otto Husch would not have allowed that. He was in Vienna at the time--

Lifeman (as if explaining to the rest of the audience): It was Husch who prevented the Archbishop from taking office in Sofia.

Potter notes: "No matter how wild Lifeman's quiet insertion may be, it is enough to create a pause, even a tiny sensation . . . To break the winning vein, break the flow."

For more advanced students of Lifemanship, Potter offers the Question Gambit and the "What a Pity" Probe, but for all-round utility, he recommends "plonking." Writes Potter: "If you have nothing to say--or, rather, something extremely stupid and obvious--say it, but in a plonking tone of voice--that is, roundly, wisely, and dogmatically; or take up and repeat with slight variation, in this tone of voice, the last phrase of the speaker." Thus:--

Typography Expert: . . . and roman lower-case letters of Scotch and Baskerville have two or three thou. more breadth, which gives a more generous tone, an easier and more spacious color, to the full page--

Yourself: The letters "have width."

Expert: Exactly, exactly, exactly--and then if--Yourself: It is a widening.

Expert: What?--Oh, yes, yes.

"This," notes Potter, "is the lightest of trips; yet if properly managed the tone of voice can suggest that you can afford to say the obvious thing because you have approached your conclusion the hard way, through a long apprenticeship of study."

The People Speak. The Travel Expert requires a more complex ploy. Just as the expert is getting into full stride on his visit to Vladivostok, the Lifeman clears his throat.

Yourself:! was going to say--I'm sorry.

Travel Expert: I'm sorry?

Yourself: I was only going to say that though I was never in Vladivostok, I did spend some months in Munster Lager, not a million miles away ... Of course, I was working as a stevedore among the dockers and porters--I didn't see much of the higher-ups I'm afraid. But Lord, I feel I understood the people--the cutters and the quay cleaners, the dossmen . . .

Potter notes: "The clever Lifeman can continue in this vein indefinitely, without ever having to say that he has been in Asia--or that, in fact, he has not."

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