Books: Fear Not the Platitude

THE PETER PRESCRIPTION

by DR. LAURENCE J. PETER

224 pages. Morrow. $5.95.

Why are so many high-ranking people incompetent? Dr. Laurence J. Peter, a professor of education at the University of California, provided an answer of admirable simplicity. In The Peter Principle, he stated and demonstrated the thesis that competent people get promoted until they reach a job they can not do, and then they stay there, victims of "the final placement syndrome." Or, as Dr. Peter formally phrased his principle, "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Bravo, Dr. Peter.

There is a sad tradition, however, of successful humorists writing sequels. Ring Lardner took the hero of You Know Me, Al to the battlefields of France, and Stephen Potter, the creator of Gamesmanship, descended to writing gamesman's rules as advertisements for soft drinks. True to the tradition, Dr. Peter has now written The Peter Prescription, subtitled How to Make Things Go Right, and sub-subtitled Sixty-Six Formulas for Improving the Quality of Your Life.

It is a dismal performance. But in the course of elaborating his one prescription into 224 pages. Dr. Peter provides a kind of model for anyone who might be interested in making a living by writing "humor."

> Turn all your observations into "laws," and try to make a joke by attaching your own name to them. Thus: "The Peter Panorama: List your most satisfying activities."

> Tell anecdotes featuring people with comic names. Thus: "Tim Iddly was a conformist... He agreed with his boss, Ty Kune."

> Above all, fear not the platitude. Thus: "We live in a world of uncertainty where the most difficult puzzle is man himself." But be sure to have your work illustrated with old drawings from Punch so everyone will see that the platitudes are meant to be humorous.

Can one finally resist the temptation to say it? No, one cannot. Dr. Peter's sequel has proved the Peter Principle.