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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
For his birthday just over a week ago, the oldest person ever to have been inaugurated as US president wanted a super-duper, extra special party. Not to be outdone by a real-life king’s own birthday celebrations some 3,600 miles away, the newly 79-year-old Dear Leader of the People’s Democratic Republic of America watched as almost 7,000 soldiers and 128 tanks paraded by him, the first military parade in the US capital since 1991.
Many mocked him (I would not dare be so insolent); some celebrated him; millions protested against him. But whatever your opinion of Donald Trump, it cannot be denied that he understands the importance of throwing a party. Even as president, he hosts a whole series of annual events and celebrations at Mar-a-Lago and his various golf clubs; sometimes he even plays “DJ” on his iPad. He might still believe it’s the early 90s — with a playlist, a suit and opinions to reflect that — but at least the man has some sense of occasion.
And while I don’t wish to suggest that Trump’s parties (I have attended a couple) are the kind I consider good parties, being in possession of a sense of occasion is a rare thing in our lonely and socially impoverished culture. When we do come together, it is often in a formulaic and uninspired way — weddings that all follow the same bland template, corporate “summer drinks” parties where not a single decent conversation is to be found, get-togethers whose raison d’être seems to be content for Instagram, and the twin curses that women everywhere must suffer through: the baby shower and the hen party.
Many of us, it seems, have forgotten the art of throwing a good party. Indeed, some of us are forgetting to party at all: a recent Opinium survey found that Gen Z’s preferred way of socialising is “staying in with friends”, while more than a third of Britain’s nightclubs — over 400 in total — have closed down over the past five years. A 2023 YouGov poll found just 59 per cent of Americans had even attended a birthday party during the previous year, despite 84 per cent saying they either liked or loved doing so.
This is a sorry state of affairs. Somewhere along the road we seem to have collectively decided that parties are somehow unimportant. We’re quite happy to cram ourselves into stuffy conference centres with 5,000 other people and sit scrolling through social media as mind-numbing panel follows mind-numbing panel — that, apparently, is a serious activity. But coming together to celebrate the very fact that we are alive; the fact that we have people we love in our lives; the fact that we (for now at least) have the freedom to gather and to be merry and to laugh and to dance; the fact that we (for now at least) are not at war or in the grips of a pandemic? Frivolous.
My conviction that on the contrary, coming together is something that we should take quite seriously was strengthened recently, during the run-up to the biggest party I have ever thrown, at a house in the country for 25 friends. As part of my preparations, I decided to read a book on the subject: The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker, where I came across the slightly nervous-making and somewhat counter-intuitive directive: “Don’t be a chill host.”
“A ubiquitous strain of twenty-first-century culture is infecting our gatherings: being chill,” Parker writes, describing “chill” as “the idea that it’s better to be relaxed and low-key, better not to care, better not to make a big deal”. As Parker argues, though, being “chill” when you are the host is an abdication of your responsibilities and, further, constitutes an act of selfishness masquerading as kindness.
It is not that you ought to become some kind of dictator-host, and neither should you become inflexible. As the leader of the gathering, you should have an idea of how you want things to go, you should set the tone, and you might even have some rules in place. But you should also work with the energy and the feel of the group, and adjust your agenda accordingly. In other words, you should practise “generous authority”, as Parker calls it. “Once your guests have chosen to come into your kingdom, they want to be governed — gently, respectfully, and well”.
The funny thing about reading a book about how to gather is that you quickly realise that you are reading a book about how to live. And when you are hosting a gathering, you are in some ways trying to show your guests that too. You might not need a $40mn parade and nor do you have to pretend to be royalty. But what you do need is to be brave enough to go against the grain and be just a bit unchill — in life as in parties.
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