All men are created unequal; every human organisation is a hierarchy. According to Alphons Silbermann, a German sociologist and international university lecturer, almost everybody strives to achieve enhanced status by what he calls "Arshkriecherei, literally `arsehole-crawling', which is best translated into English as `arselicking'. "
Perhaps this expression of vernacular daring enlivened students dulled by his generally soporific pedagogic style. His translator, Ladislaus Lob, Professor of German at the University of Sussex, only following orders, transcribes the phrase at least once on almost every page of this laborious monograph, however, and the shock of incongruity in the academic context soon wears off.
To grovel originally meant simply to lie face down. Its present usual meaning is to act obsequiously to gain favour. Silbermann used "grovelling" in the title of his book but decided he needed a broader, more picturesque term. He adopted "a coarse word which comprises may different forms of grovelling". "Oh dear," he writes, "people will say, such a vulgar word in the mouth of an educated man!"
O dear! But what courage! A sociologist who inflates a vulgarism to comprehend all his theories on interpersonal relationships! No more exclamation marks. Let us calmly consider whether the term "arse-licking" is as versatile as the author believes. I do not think it is. He writes of "opportunistic arselicking", "decent arse-licking" (to save a marriage), arse-licking in advertising ("creating the image of the well-groomed woman of good taste"), subliminal arse-licking (see advertising), "a permissive society" that "licks the arse of youth", and even "pleasant arse-licking".
Arse-licking, Silbermann writes is employed in attempts to attain success - "prestige, profit, social standing, popularity, or integration into a group, organisation or whole section of society".
In Silbermann's opinion, "arse-licking as a purposeful method of education plays its part in drilling respect and politeness into the young." He gives an example of a mother's social instruction to her child: " `Uncle Toby is coming. Shake hands and give him a kiss.' `But I don't like him. He has a revolting beard, and he smells of garlic.' `Do it for my sake. You now he is Daddy's boss.' "
"Observing, or merely sensing, that the parents are humiliating themselves by their polite arse-licking," Silbermann comments, "impairs the children's idea of the parents' obvious, in fact natural, position of power, and the result is a loss of respect."
Silbermann, a Jew, writes that "Just as each Jew carries the history of suffering on his shoulders, so does the spirit of proving his worth by survival mark the concrete reality of each Jew. Let no-one blame him for practising adaptation through the art of arse-licking." The wording of that adjuration, Jews and Gentiles may agree, is simplistically offensive.
Thought the book is not without glimmers of common sense, much of it is obscurely foggy. Abstract metaphors: "I will therefore sift through the thicket of arselicking", "We must protect ourselves fromt those who try to pull the wool over our eyes by crude arse-licking", "the incoherent elements of intuition, on whose shoulders arselicking all too often falls, cannot lead to true understanding". There are illustrations, depicting various lickspittles, toadies and creeps. George Bickham's 1740 engraving, "Idol-Worship or The Way to Preferment", typically shows a little man in court dress reaching up to adore the king's enormous bum. This picture seems especially apt. The whole book's a bummer.
Patrick Skene Catling is a writer and critic