When a small disturbance occurs in a hotel, the person in charge often appears armed with an almost regulatory word: “Gentleman, what’s going on?” Whatever his condition – wearing a sweatshirt or pin-striped suit – the dissatisfied male will receive such a vocative. There are those who temper their manners and lower their voices when they receive such treatment. Curiously, if the person riding the chicken is a woman, they will not encounter a “Lady, what’s going on?”, because, as women began to normalize the judge’s robe or the cardiologist’s stethoscope and societies became more egalitarian, The arrow of time erased the term with a stroke of a pen, because, like Miss, they referred you to Jane Austen’s novels.
In The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald puts in the mouth of the protagonist’s father a series of advice to be a true gentleman – by the way, in English it is not so uncomfortable as a gentleman -, and encourages him not to judge others, since he ignores what circumstances are there. A chivalry that lies in a certain delicacy of spirit and includes nobility, discretion, prudence and, of course, a love for detail.
A very different postcard from our contemporary scene inhabited by characters who shout and insult, impose their opinion, are emboldened by the most vulnerable and lose respect for everything that is not their color. A gentleman should not complain about minutiae but rather be high-minded, treating others as he would like to be treated, be it men or women. Chivalry should not have sex, there were also brave and just knights who today are credited in sisterhood: are we not brothers of the human condition?
Of course it is compatible to be a feminist and allow a door to be opened for you. We do it too, we have to read the moment. The Jesuit historian Miquel Batllori solved this dilemma for me: I was very young, he walked with a cane, and after interviewing him I gave way to him in the elevator. He refused and told me: “Look young man, men can lose faith, but never gallantry.”
From the process of dissolving the gender binary, one of the most controversial ontological events of this century, a new way of naming – and living – sexual identity emerged. The knights were relegated, as Google reports, associating the term with Arturo Fernández and Carlos Larrañaga. Western culture transformed that knight-errant into a kind of cloaked don Juan, eroding its original meaning, which the humanist Ramon Llull argued in his Book of the Order of Chivalry: “Well, just as the ax has been made to destroy trees, the “A gentleman has his job in destroying evil people.” Yes, those who today defame and spread crazy rumors to hurt their neighbors.
I read on an American blog the recommendations of a social sciences professor to be “a gentleman in the 21st century,” and in one of his pearls he states: “Offer to help any woman. Consider tasks she struggles to complete alone, such as lifting heavy furniture. Women who are independent may not ask for your help, but that doesn’t mean they won’t accept and appreciate it.” He also indicates that you have to open the door “not only to the attractive ones, otherwise you are not a gentleman but a player.” Chivalry no longer means an alliance between men so that they continue to see us as others, but rather a pact of honesty between those of us who choose the side of the sidewalk where the sun shines.
