Few truths are true in every respect. - The Marquis de Vauvenargues

Years ago, perhaps in a fit of intellectual self-righteousness, I vowed to avoid generalizations as I would certain smug and boisterous acquaintances. I have managed to succeed in avoiding most of the people who bore or otherwise irritate me, but I find myself constantly running into generalizations. It may be a sign of maturity or it may be recognition of the inevitable, but I actually find that many generalizations give me an enormous amount of pleasure.

It is inconvenient, for example, never to generalize about minor practical matters, like Charles Dickens complaining that "there is not a door or a window in all of Paris that closes" or even about larger matters, such as Nietzsche's belief that "convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies". Generalizations are unavoidable. And, so long as they avoid being malicious, racist or sexist, they can have great charm.

In 1590, Michel de Montaigne observed that the greatest charm of generalizations is that they show what is uncommon about common things and in this make life itself seem more interesting. "The art of making generalizations", he wrote, "lies in the ability to transform the everyday into the special, the ordinary into the exceptional." As Montaigne, William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, George Orwell and Oscar Wilde demonstrated, masters at generalization have a special view of the world, one that is made up of roughly equal parts of comedy, skepticism and deadly earnestness.

At the risk of generalizing, masters of the art should possess an unerring gift for going straight to the point. They should be keenly aware of the absurd, have a strong distaste for sham and be endowed with strong feelings for the simple joys of life. They must excel at the revealing anecdote, the smart phrase and the art of happy extravagance. Whether generalizing about the improbability of immortality, the joys of dining on roast pig, the absurdity of English manners or the diverse charms of the public toilets of Paris, their generalizations should be lively and always touched with a unique form of imaginative suggestiveness.

Good generalizations should be neither maxims nor proverbs. Maxims suggest a label, a stock response, something waiting to be trotted out at the appropriate moment. Proverbs are cut and dried and, unlike generalizations, have no authors ... like Topsy, they `just grewed'. Generalizations tend to be more rewarding and more subversive than proverbs or maxims. Indeed, it is often a maxim or a proverb that a generalization sets out to subvert. And, as an added charm, generalizations are less cut and dried, more speculative and glancing.

There is no reason, however, why good generalizations cannot take on the form of aphorisms, for the most obvious characteristic of an aphorism, apart from its brevity is a generalization offering a comment on some recurrent aspect of life, couched in terms which are meant to be permanently and universally applicable. A generalization, whether it is an aphorism or not, is a form of literature, often highly idiosyncratic, and always bears the stamp and style of the mind that created it. The message of generalizations should be universal but not impersonal and their power depends on their verbal artistry, on a subtle or concentrated perfection of phrasing.

A good generalization has to be able to stand by itself. As Dr. Johnson said, generalizations are "unconnected propositions ... that tease and prod lazy assumptions." They should warn us how insidiously our vices can pass themselves off as virtues and they should harp shamelessly on the imperfections and contradictions which we would rather ignore. Sacha Guitry reminded us that "most minor practitioners of the art of generalization remain of this world and the decadent generalization degenerates into a mere wisecrack". But the masters, the Emersons, Nietzches, Wildes, Andre Gides, and Samuel Butlers become like their religious precursors - striking an oracular or metaphysical note, probing into the mysterious depths of experience.

Good generalizations are not platitudes. In fact, the best generalizations, like Albert Camus' "to be happy, we must not be too concerned with others", are somewhat discouraging. Others, like James Russell Lowell's "Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people", are out and out devastating. Some, like Balzac's "The tears of old people are as terrible as those of children are natural" or the Talmudic saying that "A sigh can break a man in two" are merely heartbreaking.

Essayist Joseph Epstein speculated that generalizations fall into two distinct categories. In the first group are those that are commonplace but false and others that are commonplace and true. The second category contains some that are original and false and others that are original and true. Generalizations in the first group are reflections of intellectual laziness. Tedious at best, they can be dangerous at worst. Those in the second group, regardless of their "truth level" at least have the good grace to be interesting. An original and false generalization might be E.M. Cioran's observation that "people who are in love agree to overestimate each other". One that is original and true might be George Orwell's "the aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being but to remind him that he is already degraded".

Essayists, aphorists and thinkers in general have come to no consensus about whether eneralizations have to be true to be effective. In 1746 Vauvenargues argued that "there should thus be no special requirement for generalizations to be more true than any other form of written or spoken knowledge". In the 19th century, Viennese essayist Karl Kraus went further when he wrote that "a generalization need not be true. It should surpass the truth. It must go beyond it with one leap". In our own century, Gertrude Stein observed that "whether a generalization is true or not is unimportant. All that is important is that it have the ring of truth."

There are generalizations that we want to be true. I have found comfort in Schopenhaur's "After your death you will be what you were before your birth". And there are those who hope not to be true, such as John Rostand's "Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife; she has thought much worse things about you".

© Daniel Rogov