Mossback is 'a nice guy – but he's wack-a-doodle-doo'
Seattle puts on a Happy Face, but don't be fooled. There's often a subtext, or a "but," to go with that nice remark.
Seattle is a city of postcard appearances: beautiful, fresh and friendly. But it often succeeds in driving newcomers crazy. It's as if the city lives in two dimensions, but hides a third that is a little darker and often elusive.
Why do your smiling neighbors never actually talk to you? Why do people look uncomfortable if you try to debate a topic? Why does everyone appear laid-back, yet you often find that "Uptight Seattleite," a Seattle Weekly column, is so aptly named?
OK, we're not exactly a Stephen King town where the locals are hiding a creepy secret. More often Seattle suffers from civic self-deception. As a fourth-generation native, I thought I would use this space, from time to time, to debunk some of the lies we tell ourselves.
The first lie I'd like to tackle is the myth of Seattle nice.
Back in the 1990s, a former adman named David Stern ran for mayor. He had one major accomplishment to his name: He was credited with creating the Happy Face. It was such a great story and we liked to believe it. What other city – cheery, friendly, home of the kindergarten wisdom of Robert Fulghum – would be more fitting as the originator of the international symbol of niceness?
Only it turned out Stern's story wasn't true. Someone else had invented the Happy Face years before, and Stern had been milking the myth. Ironically, the man who defeated Stern was Norm Rice, whose last name and personality gave rise to his nickname, Mayor Nice.
Seattle may not have originated the Happy Face, but it often puts one on. "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" has long been the city's unofficial motto. It is not a plea for civil discussion, but rather a recipe for no discussion at all. This suits Seattle's dominant political styles: consensus (no arguments), back-room dealing (no public arguments), and endless process (no conclusions). Those styles avoid the nonniceties of ever having to decide anything, which is so "noninclusive."
Pitch a proposal in this town – ask for an investment or try selling something – and people will be very reluctant to say "no" or "no thanks." The word "no" is not nice. It's so negative. If a person in Seattle wants to say no, they'll say, "I'll think about it," or "I'll get back to you," or pretend they never heard you in the first place.
Mayor Greg Nickels embodies this style: He cannot say no to any project. Instead, he has a full-time assistant, Deputy Mayor Tim "The Shark" Ceis, whose job is to say no for the mayor. The Shark usually does this very privately so no one will think the mayor isn't nice.
The voters don't like to say no either. We voted on the monorail expansion four times before finally saying no. Last March, we held an advisory ballot on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement, after which every faction declared victory. The vote was specifically designed not to decide anything. In Seattle politics everyone's a winner, just like the Special Olympics.
I have noticed a subtle change in what people mean when they say a person is nice. Nice used to be a judgment that meant you were OK, like wallpaper that doesn't catch the eye.
Back in the '90s, I read David Maraniss' book on Bill Clinton, The Clinton Enigma, wherein Maraniss learns that when the president complimented a man by saying "Nice tie," it was really code for – I'll be polite here – "screw off."
The same thing is now happening here in Seattle. Saying someone is nice is often a leadoff into an attack, like saying "no offense, but ..." An online critic recently took me to task for my article defending Seattle Center's world's fair legacy. My critic began his tirade using my nickname, saying, "Skip's a nice guy, but he's wack-a-doodle-doo. ..."
The nice-guy preamble was so Seattle. But it wasn't really nice, which gets to my point. Seattle operates under the guise of nice, it tips its hat to nice. But much of the time, we're something the postcard doesn't show: a passive-aggressive, often dysfunctional, conflict-averse town where the sharpest knives often leave their mark in the form of a Happy Face.
Comments:
Posted Sat, Jun 30, 1:46 a.m. inappropriate
Nice Guys, Backstabbing and Napoleon: Good essay.
Napolean was supposed to have once explained to an inquirer, "There are four types of soldiers. The first are the dumb and lazy. These I make my infantrymen. The second are the smart and energetic. These I make my field commanders. The third type are the smart and lazy. These I make my generals."
The inquirer, then replied, "That's just three types. What of the dumb and energetic?"
Napoleon, without skipping a beat replied, "I have them shot."
If alive today in Seattle, Napoleon might have said "There are four types of public adversaries. The first are the dumb and lazy. These insult each other and swear at each other. The second are the smart and energetic. They debate each other. The third type are the smart and lazy. These don't argue, they just decide.
An inquiring mind might then have asked, "That's just three types. What of the dumb and energetic?"
Napoleon might have replied, "They stab the others in the back."
Posted Sat, Jun 30, 7:35 a.m. inappropriate
Crosscut Doesn't Cut the Edge: I Crosscut is going t try to be a real newsmesium, it eeds to cover what is happening. It needs to do NEWS.
Mike Webb is dead.
Xcut is vapid.
Sad.
Posted Sat, Jun 30, 7:56 a.m. inappropriate
Clearly marked "ESSAY": Before we conclude "xcut is vapid", we probably need to differentiate between "news" and "essays". Mossback's work here is an "essay."
Interesting socio-political observation, though ... especially the passive-aggressive characterization of the area's decision-making style.
Posted Sat, Jun 30, 8:19 a.m. inappropriate
The Piper
Posted Sun, Jul 1, 8:12 a.m. inappropriate
Breaking News: Tim Eyman is a hero.
Port Commissioner Pat Davis is no better than the Madam of a brothel that rips off its clients, even if they do give the 'whores' a cut of the takings.
Is that ethical, or not?
:-)
-Douglas Tooley
Tacoma, WA
Posted Sun, Jul 1, 11:12 a.m. inappropriate
Desicion Making Style: What decision-making style ? You must mean the one that so smoothly and fairly desegrated our schools, fairly parsed out urban zoming rules and dealt in a forward-looking manner with both road-planning and bublic transit issues. Yup, that one.
Seattle is like a prima-donna celebutante that long ago started believing her own PR. With nobody in ultimate authority to say "No!", she just keeps drinkin' and drivin' !
Posted Sun, Jul 1, 12:59 p.m. inappropriate
The Piper
Posted Sun, Jul 1, 7:19 p.m. inappropriate
What was so passive aggressive about my comment?: But Skip, you are a nice guy. And when it comes to your views of what the city used to be, what it has become, what caused those changes and what they mean, you are wack-a-doodle-doo. Truth is the best defense.
Besides, I don't think my comment(s) responding to one of your earlier posts -- the first line of which forms the basis of your headline -- can reasonably be characterized as passive aggressive. Let's see: I called you a reactionary, compared you to George Bush, implied you were projecting your own bitterness about getting old and fat (Lord, I'm certainly sympathetic on that score) onto the urban landscape around you, and so on. Aggressive? Sure. Passive? Not so much.
Actually, one of the first things I noticed about this latest post is that you quoted me in your headline, using that quote as (apparently) the quintessential exemplar of the fatal collective character flaw of the New Seattle you seemingly can't abide, and yet never even mentioned my name. Now that strikes me as truly passive aggressive. So, I ask: by your own yardstick, which of us is the better representative of present-day Seattle?
Posted Sun, Jul 1, 8:10 p.m. inappropriate
RE: What was so passive aggressive about my comment?: Sandeep: I didn't write the headline, but in answer to your question, between the two of us, the exemplar of Seattle nice-but-not-so-nice is definitely me, not you, I readily admit it. But I did think the "nice guy" comment was a pure Seattleism. Please don't catch this local affliction! And have a nice day.--Skip