Paul Thomas: Speaking one's mind is an overrated virtue

The magazine Vanity Fair, that indispensable guide to contemporary culture - where else would you find a full-page colour photo of the rap artist P. Diddy promenading in sunny St Tropez beneath a protective umbrella wielded by his valet? - has a regular feature called the Proust Questionnaire.

It is a set of questions designed to elicit the interviewee's hopes and fears, life-shaping experiences, vanities, values and tastes. Theoretically the answers add up to a self-portrait which, as self-portraits should, conveys more about the subject than they intended or perhaps realise.

The questions range from the playful (If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what do you think it would be? Which words and phrases do you most overuse?) to the personal (What do you dislike most about your appearance? What is your greatest regret?) and the quasi-philosophical (What is your idea of perfect happiness? Which living person do you most despise?)

Incidentally, the French novelist Marcel Proust didn't devise the questionnaire. His name is attached to it because he completed it at the age of 13 and again at 20, revealing himself as a youth of unbearable preciousness and dazzling precocity. (At 13 he regarded the lowest depths of misery as being separated from his "Mama". He should have been packed off to boarding school; that would have made a man of him.)

The results aren't quite as much fun as you'd expect. Vanity Fair being Vanity Fair, those who take part are often ancient if not ghostly showbiz figures who appear to have given it as much thought as they'd devote to a breakfast menu, or fashion industry exquisites who seize the opportunity to flaunt their glamorous, self-indulgent existences.

And many interviewees have taken to heart the dictum that brevity is the soul of wit and provide answers which, while undeniably terse, aren't especially interesting, let alone witty.

There are notable exceptions. Asked how he'd like to die, the American comedian Mort Sahl replied, "While trying to file a medical claim". Hunter S. Thompson wanted to explode. He obviously tired of waiting for it to happen spontaneously and decided to bring matters to a head.

Bohemian singer-songwriter Tom Waits regards his most marked characteristic as "my ability to discuss, in depth, a book I've never read" - an engaging answer in its own right, doubly so in a questionnaire named after one of the most referenced but least-read writers to ever take pride of place on a poser's bookshelves.

Some subjects live down to our expectations. Guess who, when asked to nominate his favourite writers, blustered: "There are so many great ones I can't mention them all. But one of the best is one of the biggest sellers: myself"?

Who else but Donald Trump, who nominates his hair as the thing he'd most like to change about himself.

Soul diva Aretha Franklin enjoys reading about people like Quincy Jones and, of course, "my own autobiography". Imagine, if you can, the galactic self-esteem of someone who regards her autobiography as the height of reading pleasure.

Consider also that casual "of course" which takes for granted that anybody who has published an autobiography would say the same.

It brings to mind supermodel Elle McPherson's boast - at least that's what I think it was - that she only reads books written by herself.

Maybe, though, Franklin has a point. By definition autobiography isn't the province of the shrinking violet.

By contrast, American writer Joan Didion delivers a rewarding read. She considers speaking one's mind to be the most overrated virtue: "It usually turns out to be a way of aggrandising the speaker at the expense of the helpless listener."

It is to be hoped in this push-button age that not many of those who listen to talkback radio are so helpless that they can't master the on-off switch. That aside, this seems a pretty good summary of the vast gusts of so-called forthright opinion that blast out of every second transistor.

Ms Didion could have added that the benefit to others of speaking one's mind is closely related to the quality of the mind in question and the knowledge therein. The defining characteristic of sports talkback is the condemnatory harangue based on a false or fatuous premise.

All Black halfback Justin Marshall has become a poster boy for the speak-your-mind brigade. Biting the hand that feeds you can be admirable, but perhaps not when you're about to take up a lavish offshore contract and the ultimate target of your tantrums are the sponsors, broadcasters and commercial partners who have paid your extravagant salary for the past decade and whose investment enables New Zealand rugby to keep pace with better-endowed rivals.

For some reason, getting stuck into large organisations that tend to grin and bear it - the New Zealand Rugby Union, for example - is often hailed as courageous and a breath of fresh air. Given that the NZRFU is one of the nation's favourite whipping boys, it's more likely to be stale populism.

* Paul Thomas is a Wellington writer.