Is applause Quakerly?
Robert Ilson suggests that clapping isn’t all that bad
A recent Hampstead Meeting I attended finished with a musical performance by a group of children and adults that elicited a ripple of applause, which was publicly reproved after the Meeting by the clerk who read out the week’s announcements. When I asked her why she had done so she referred me to a minute of the Hampstead Meeting, headed ‘A concern about equality’, that said in part: ‘We agree that applause is completely inappropriate in Meeting for Worship, since our practice is – or should be – to be open and responsive and to value the contributions of all equally. We ask our elders and clerks to explain this to individual Friends or to the Meeting as a whole.’
I am concerned about that minute because:
- children need praise and love in order to grow into adults capable of loving themselves and others (including their own children);
- the people rebuked for applauding may well not return.
A skilful solution would be to schedule after rather than during Meeting those events (such as concerts) likely to elicit applause.
But if applause is wrong during Meeting, and some people applaud anyway: What is to be done? How about doing nothing? Would catastrophe ensue if the applause that greeted the concert had not been rebuked; for instance if this Minute were rescinded or at least unenforced?
I suspect most of the enthusiasts were newcomers who will learn Quaker practices by observation and osmosis – if they are not put off attending Meetings by embarrassment. Consider a musical analogue. Some people at the Proms applaud between movements. They are new to classical music. No one at the Festival Hall applauds between movements. They are experienced concert-goers. People introduced to classical music at the Proms will soon discern that such applause is no longer the done thing. They may even graduate to the Festival Hall, by which time they will have learnt today’s conventions for ‘audiencemanship’. If, however, they had been made to seem foolish by being shushed for their Proms applause, they might have been lost to classical music for ever – and classical music, like Quakers, needs all the friends it can get!
But without explicit rules, how will we know how to behave? Let another, humbler, example suffice. A swarm of gnats flies irregularly but keeps roughly together. My friend Jack Schwartz, professor of mathematics at New York University, told me the swarm’s movement could be accounted for by the simultaneous application of two principles:
- every gnat can fly wherever it likes;
- no gnat wants to be too far from any other gnat.
I think that works for Quakers, too. It suggests considerable variation in matters of detail together with commitment to underlying values. Which values? Perhaps what theistic traditions call ‘Love of God’ and ‘Love of Neighbour’ and non-theistic traditions call ‘Wisdom’ and ‘Compassion’.
But what about the Quaker concern for equality? Well, all attempts to perform music may well be of equal value as efforts. However, wisdom suggests that some performances are worthier of applause than others. Regular attendance at Meeting will suggest the circumstances, if any, in which Quakers feel such applause is appropriate. Compassion suggests, though, that no performances should be booed, and regular attendance at Meeting will confirm that Quakers don’t do booing there.
I have not provided a pat answer to the question ‘Is applause Quakerly?’ But, for me, the prohibition or public reprobation of applause is not.
Robert is an honorary research fellow of University College London.
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