To be or not to be...nice

In Stephen Sondheim's musical, Into the Woods, Little Red Riding Hood, upon being eaten by the Wolf and then rescued by the Baker, sings a charming song called "I know things now."  She enumerates all the wonderful things her experiences have taught her, such as, she should have heeded her mother's advice, and to be wary of strangers.  My favorite bit of Little Red's hard-won wisdom is the line "Nice is different than good."  People use the word nice so blithely, so easily.  "Oh, she's so nice," we say, as if bestowing a boon.

I had a close friend who said to me recently, "Nobody really likes you.  You aren't very nice."  (You may be wondering, justifiably, why a close friend would say such a thing, but that's a topic for another day.  Notice this friend is past tense.)  How could I not be nice?  I'm well-mannered, I bathe regularly, and chew my food with my mouth closed.  Surely these things are nice.  A perusal of Mr. Webster's tome reveals that nice can mean many things, including, "pleasing, agreeable, polite, socially acceptable."  Admirable qualities all, and apparently I am lacking in some of them, but how do they compare to good?

Krzysztof Penderecki is a Polish composer whose music I unabashedly admire.  He was born in Debica, Poland in 1933.  Influenced by such luminaries as Webern and Boulez, he began to experiment with large tone clusters and extended instrumental techniques.  In 1960 he composed Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, a massive, gut-wrenching work for 52 string instruments.  To listen to the Threnody is to be assaulted by plagues, ill winds, weeping, wailing, the gnashing of teeth, sackcloth and ashes, bones popping, bodies disintegrating, and every other apocalyptic image your brain can conjure forth.  Even air raid sirens seem to make an appearance.  It is not a nice piece, not in the slightest.  But it is precisely the lack of "niceness" that makes it so very, very good.

Nice is such a slippery word.  We talk about the nice weather, a nice party, a nice song, nice people.  In each instance we mean something different.  There's even, "Nice job, buddy" which of course is not nice at all, but quite the opposite.  There is a thread that ties it all together, however.  In each instance nice refers to something ephemeral, a superficial quality that does not necessarily reveal what lies beneath.

Good, on the other hand, is a core value.  Mr. Webster lists "true, honorable, virtuous, just, commendable."  Good is something real, not a facade or a public image we must adopt on occasion in order to be "socially acceptable."  And perhaps at times it is good to be disagreeable, when the things we are expected to agree with are morally reprehensible to us.  Little Red learned her lesson well.  The Wolf was nice.  So nice.  He lured her off the path with his blandishments and suave manners.  Then he ate her.  I must thank my old friend for his left-handed compliment.  I'd rather be good.

Krzysztof Penderecki