Politics & Power Quote by Louis Kronenberger

Kronenberger is needling two national self-myths by treating them as competing social currencies: status versus likability. The Englishman, in his sketch, is chasing a label with pedigree, "gentleman" as a kind of moral-and-class passport. It is less about inner virtue than about being legible to the room: manners as proof of belonging, restraint as a badge, "species" as a sly reminder that class can function like taxonomy. You are not simply good; you are the right kind of person.

The American, by contrast, wants the warmer verdict: "good guy". That phrase is deliberately casual, a democratic halo that doesn’t require ancestry or polish. It’s also a little slippery. "Good guy" can mean decent, sure, but it also means easy to be around, not a snob, not a threat. Kronenberger’s subtext is that American morality often performs as friendliness, a preference for being approved of over being assessed. In a culture built on salesmanship, mobility, and first-name informality, character becomes something you project and get confirmed by others.

The barb lands because he refuses to flatter either side. The English ideal risks turning ethics into etiquette; the American ideal risks turning ethics into charm. Written by a mid-century critic who watched Anglo-American manners collide in literature, theater, and public life, the line catches a transatlantic shift: old-world hierarchies versus new-world relatability, each with its own evasions. Kronenberger isn’t diagnosing virtue; he’s diagnosing what each society teaches people to want from strangers.