Did you ever have that terrific feeling when you pick up an article that makes brilliantly, the case you have been making poorly for years? I just had that feeling. How I missed “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt (in The Atlantic, September 2015) I have no idea.
But I did. And as a result I have been struggling, mostly unsuccessfully, to make the case that our “sensitivity jihad”—I’m trying not to overuse “crusade”—is costing us more than we know.
I see now that I have been picking the issue up by the wrong handle. I have been focusing on intentional abuses of the process. We start having a conversation and it isn’t going well for you for some reason, so you choose a word I have used as “offensive.” It’s an easy claim to make. I have no way of knowing whether you are offended. It seems a simple calculation that if you are offended, then the word I used must have been “offensive.” But now the subject has been changed and I am now engaged in protecting my own character instead of talking about the issue.
Then I ran across the article by Lukianoff and Haidt. Besides offering a real buffet of horrific examples (microaggressions, trigger warnings) they pay some attention to what this new fetish is costing us. Of course, the cost is general; that means it is costing the abusers of the system just as it is costing the rest of us.
And once I got that far, I saw that it was the old familiar Tragedy of the Commons and the rest of this essay is an attempt to play our the metaphor. As first formulated, it is about cows. There is a common grazing area which is big enough to sustain grazing by so many cows; not more. But the arithmetic underlying this arrangement is seductive. If Farmer A adds just one more cow to the commons, he uses only a small fraction of the grazing area and he keeps all the profit that extra cow brings for himself. Pretty good deal.
It presupposes, however, that Farmer A is the only cheater, which is not a likely prospect for the long term, especially since Farmer A has set such an enticing example. So other farmers begin to slip an extra cow onto the commons. They overgraze the commons until the grass is gone—it is gone for the cows of the cheaters and also for the cows of the righteous farmers who are grazing only their allotted number of cows—and everyone goes through a period of very hard times.
Once I saw that “civil discourse” was our commons and the encouragement of “microaggressions” was the extra grazing, I experienced a moment of clarity. I might have said, “Woohoo!” in the manner of Walter Matthau playing Albert Einstein in Fred Schepisi’s movie, I. Q.
So what does that analogy help us to see more clearly? If the free and frank exchange of views is what is valuable in the commons, then the more constraints there are on that exchange, the less free and the less frank it will be. “Sensitivity challenges” are a tax on every exchange. They not only make exchanges more onerous, but also keep people away from topics that really need to be addressed. This is, without question, the case for the “conversation about race” that President Obama keeps saying we ought to have.
It is easy, I think, for anyone with a sensitivity or a favorite grievance to claim to be offended. [1] “It’s just this one issue,” she thinks, “They can handle it.” It’s just racism or sexism or ageism or size-ism. Just that one thing. But that is what every farmer thinks who grazes an extra cow on the commons and says, “Hey, it’s only one cow.”
And the amount of additional grazing really is just one cow. But that one cow is a challenge to the agreement among all the farmers not to add just one cow. It might be worth extending the metaphor so that it is the common trust that is being grazed on and when it is overgrazed too badly, it is destroyed. When the trust is destroyed, it is only a matter of time until the grass is destroyed as well. Maybe “grazing on (abusing) the trust” and “grazing on the grass” is one too many kinds of grazing.
This point tends to be lost on an oversensitive member of the discussion because he thinks that racism is a really important issue. Crossing the line in talking about race is a serious offense. And this guy probably thinks that when someone else shows the sensitivity about sexism that he himself shows about racism, that he is being “oversensitive” or maybe even pretending to be offended to regain the initiative. I know that makes this “oversensitive to race issues” guy look stupid, but he isn’t using all his intelligence if he thinks that only one issue makes people angry.
What is lost on this guy is that as explosive as racist words are to him, they are not so explosive to everyone else. To someone else, sexist words may be the source of personal outrage. That is certainly the way you will feel if you think that “racism” is a real issue and “sexism” is a secondary and artificial issue. Let alone “ageism.” But the truth is, hard as it is to remember when you are in a discussion, that the words that I find offensive are different from the words that you find offensive. If we could get far enough away from it, we could all see the truth, which is that a cow is a cow. If it eats grass, it’s “a cow.”
So the argument that my extra cow is justified, but yours is not, meets a swift and justified end.
Furthermore, what I find very hard to remember when I am the one being insulted or demeaned is that we are all beneficiaries of the commons. If the commons represent a style of discussion, not a topic to be discussed, then every kind of discussion is taxed by oversensitivity. We don’t talk about supporting and sustaining families the way we might if the commons had not been so shrunk from overuse. We don’t talk about poverty and homelessness the way we might. We don’t talk about American imperialism the way we might, or the frightening over-expansion of executive power under President Obama.
And when we lose that commons, everyone loses. The people who would like only their particular sensitivities honored lose. The people who think that everyone’s sensitivities should be honored, lose. And, of course, we lose as well.
The War of the Roses
Here’s an example. Suppose we are having a discussion about movies and someone refers to The War of the Roses as “a black comedy.” The two black members of the discussion look at each other and try to decide whether to treat that term as racial taunt and the user of the term as a racist. I’d like to ask them not to. Here are several reasons.
1. The War of the Roses, Danny DeVito’s movie from 1989, is a daring and difficult movie. It needs to be discussed for any number of reasons. [2] But when the topic is changed to whether I am colluding in racism by referring to the movie as “a black comedy,” none of those things is going to be debated. It’s just me and my racism.
2. The discussion of this movie could very well lead to the discussion of other movies or of domestic discord or of the fragility of marriage. When the topic is changed to me and my racism, none of those things is going to happen.
3. I’m pretty sure that, as the conversation continues, I am going to find “insensitivities” in some area that means a lot to me. I look across the group to see whether another friend and I are going to choose to be frightfully offended about the dominance of straight actors in parts where gay actors would be every bit as good.
In short, I see the extra cow (the racism charge) you tried to graze on the commons and I can’t think why I shouldn’t add my cow (sexual preference). And do you have any idea how many extra cows there are available, should the other farmers see us grazing our extra cows on the commons?
Redemption
How do we get the commons back? Well, remembering that trust is what sustains our common dialogue, we need a chance for the trust to be reestablished. On the original commons, all you have to do is stop grazing it for awhile and the grass grows back; that doesn’t work for trust. Regaining enough trust to sustain public discussion is more like climbing a ladder, rung by laborious rung, than it is like just letting the discussion lie fallow for a season.
My solution is taking one for the team. [3] We’re having our discussion about The War of the Roses and someone makes a remark that bears on the race, religion, national origin, or sexual preference of someone else. The potential victim notes it (no problem there) decides it is not the opening gun of a bombardment, and lets it pass without comment.
At the second reference, the potential victim says something like, “but laying aside the question of race, this scene is really about anger” In saying only that much, he has said that he noticed the possibility of race as a new topic and is choosing not to pursue it; he is offering a new, nonracial, interpretation.
This is a very good thing to do because it does not accuse anyone of anything. We need to stay away from that because “who are you calling a racist?!” is just as much a diversion as the original racist (possibly racist) remark. Both preclude continuing the discussion. It is also good because it serves notice to the other members who are waiting for an opportunity to pursue their own favorite grievances—an opportunity to graze their cows on the commons as well—that you did not take the opportunity when it was offered to you. So maybe they ought to hold back as well.
At the third reference—or the fifth or whatever [4]—the potential victim says something like, “We keep drifting into a racial (not racist) interpretation of this scene and all the assessments seem to be negative. I’m sure no one intends to turn the discussion in a racist direction, so let’s go back to the question of what this scene is for.” [5] Now it is true that the language “I’m sure no one intends….” is more honorary than descriptive. It usually means, “I am going to pretend that no one intends…” Still, it gives everyone the chance to back away slowly with their hands in plain sight and no charges have been made and the topic is still on track.
How does this re-grow the grass? People with other grievances either a) experience no break in the discussion and benefit from that or b) notice that the potential victim has handled his own grievance with restraint. He has taken one for the team and it may make them feel that they can afford to take one for the team as well when their turn comes.
Here’s what Lukianoff and Haidt say.
“Teaching students to avoid giving unintentional offense is a worthy goal, especially when the students come from many different cultural backgrounds. But students should also be taught how to live in a world full of potential offenses.”
What I’ve called “redemption” is about “how to live in a world full of potential offenses.”
Before I end this, however, I think I should say that sometimes there are statements made that are so destructive that they are worth challenging, no matter what the cost to the commons. What I have been calling “the reestablishment of trust” is crucially important, but that doesn’t mean that the most vicious racism (or sexism, etc.) needs to be tolerated. That doesn’t regrow trust. It just segregates the group as people leave rather than submit to the assault.
Sometimes, you just have to say NO. It’s a kind of perimeter defense. It doesn’t regrow the grass. It doesn’t move you up the ladder by so much as a single rung. But it does stop new damage and that is worth doing.
[1] I’m not implying that they are not really offended, nor even that they should not be offended. I am saying only that when the bar of “offending others” or for being “insensitive” is set so low that many statements meet it, the space for free and frank discussions will have shrunk nearly to disappearing.
[2] One of them is Kathleen Turner’s destruction of Michael Douglas’s car with her monster truck. Is it reasonable to call that act “rape?”
[3] That’s my solution for a lot of things, actually, but being part of a team has to matter a lot to you for that to work and teams that good are in short supply.
[4] Some groups have a specific procedure for noting a possible impediment to the discussion and setting it aside for the moment, with the promise that they will return to it later should the participants still wish to. For a group like that, the explicit naming of the racial issue could be done in almost any round.
[5] red, orange, yellow, blue, and green according to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. And what’s more important to the security of our homeland than maintaining a commons for public discourse?
Bette, her daughter Melisa, and her granddaughters Liliana and Lara [it’s Lara in the picture]—took the view, initially, that the best way to go about reading a novel was to start at the beginning and move through to the end. They granted that sometimes a book starts slowly and you have to exercise some discipline to keep reading until it starts getting interesting, but you will be rewarded for your efforts. Besides, it’s the right thing to do.
and the time of day.
see these characters and developments slide “into place,” I have to know where they are going. That means I have to know what happens and to do that, I have to read the ending. People who like the mystery suddenly resolved should read a murder mystery A and then B and then C, just as it is written. People, like me, who want to enjoy seeing the plot assembled should read it A and then C and then B. And that is the way I most often—not always—read a murder mystery. Jodi Picoult’s hopes to the contrary notwithstanding.
Eastman says that two things are necessary for something to be funny. There must be a discrepancy of some kind and there must be a setting which encourages or allows you to take it lightly. Jokes that turn on ethnic or gender or professional stereotypes are a good example. You can describe a situation that could be understood either of two ways, the classic discrepancy. But in an audience that disapproves of…oh…Polish jokes, let’s say…the permission to regard it as funny is missing. So it isn’t funny. Or at least you try not to laugh at the time.
It’s sad, really. The old agreement was that I tell jokes that make fun of your ethnicity and you respond by telling jokes that make fun of mine. The rule was that “equally offensive” was about the same as “inoffensive.” Under current conditions, the fact that someone was offended by it is the defining trait and we can see nearly anything as offensive.
Why did it take me so long? It wasn’t the Latin quotation. I didn’t know it, but it was easy to look up. The whole quotation is “Vita brevis est, ars longa.” My previous contact with ars with on the Metro-Goldyn-Mayer logo, which says “Ars gratia artis.” That’s how I knew it meant “art”—the motto means “Art for art’s sake.” And, in the same way, I knew that it was pronounced “arz.”
I think I was floating in that current when I hit au revoir because something divided the expression into “Goodbye to what?” and having gotten that far, I noticed that Au is the symbol for the element, gold. That means that one way of sensing the discrepancy is that Au revoir (notice the capital A) is a way of saying “goodbye to gold,” which is a pretty good way of categorizing the meeting where we write the check for our apartment.
Ferdinand Magellan sailed out of the very nasty seas around Cape Horn and found a relatively quiet body of water. He was thankful for how peaceful it was for the same reason that the Pilgrims were thankful for food after having lost half their number the previous winter. We could say that the seas Magellan found were “relatively” calm. So in the general sense, “pacific” means “peaceful.” Everyone who has ever given a baby a pacifier ought to understand that. [1]
But I don’t have any direct interest in Pacific Retirement Services where “Pacific” refers to the ocean. Bette and I are going to be living at Holladay Park Plaza—in a few weeks—and HPP is one of the retirement centers belonging to (affiliated with) Pacific Retirement Services. [3] So right away, as I begin to wonder whether PRS is good for HPP, my mind drifts over to a pacific retirement, the kind I want very much. And that raises the questions of what “services” will help me achieve that. [4]
But before we get to Rover Joe, let’s go back and pick up Kermit. Leroy’s bumbling master, Mordecai Sledge, managed to throw a Sousaphone up in a tree and it came down around Leroy’s neck. Leroy takes off, hauling a whole wagon of musical instruments behind him. He doesn’t know what this thing around his neck is and, having escaped “from”—with no thought yet given to the “to” part—he doesn’t really know who he is either. Kermit solves both of those problems.
throwed out.” That can be usefully abbreviated as OBUWATO. It is why, in response to the first question, he is sad. It is why, in response to the second question, the reason that his master, Mean Floyd, threw him out the window. They invite him to join them as a travelling musician. Rover Joe declines. What to know what the reason was? OBUWATO. He says it so often that T.R. begins beak-synching with him.
private if you know what I mean.” That seems clear enough. T. R. hears her with respect. “Come on Rover Joe, the lady’s got her rights.” But again, that is not what she wants and the second verse of the song begins “Well now no one care about this story…”
In the first scene after Leroy escapes, he is just a donkey running away. But he runs into Kermit, who says, in effect, “You are not a runaway donkey, you are a traveling musician!” I have never seen, in real life, the instantaneous transformation Leroy goes through because Kermit gave him an identity, but I have very often seen a new name given and I have seen a person grow into that name. I have been that person.
moments ago, you were lying here in solitary misery. Catgut was waiting to die and Rover Joe had been OBUWATO. But someone said, “Why don’t you join us?” The choice is really clear. Yes awful things have happened to you. Yes you are lying here because you had no alternative. But now you do. We are asking you to join us.
I’ve been there a lot in the last few weeks on one errand or another and I have used the restroom on the first floor just north of the lobby. There is good hot water there and a soap dispenser and a tray of rolled up cloth towels. Very classy. Because people wash their hands at the sink, there accumulates on the counter little pools of water and soap suds. So after I have wiped my hands on the towel, I mop up all the water and soap and throw the towel into the basket under the sink.
That way of understanding the story has not helped me. It has brought a consistent and principled demand down on my behavior. It has not caused me to intervene when otherwise I would not have. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone intervene because of the “do likewise” instruction. That formulation is really good for blaming yourself, of course, and it is even better for blaming other people, but without compassion, it doesn’t actually work and I think we know that.
I think that’s a really good idea. The bully’s aggression works by isolating some vulnerable person. If the bystanders refuse to fall away, to expose this boy or girl to abuse, then he or she is not isolated and the bully will have to reconsider. He may very well reconsider by going after you, but that is one of the things you might have to risk. You might be willing to risk it because you feel compassion for the bully-bait, especially if you have seen it before. You feel compassion and you are impelled to follow those feeling with actions.
Cute.
I know there will be other sortings as well; I’m just not sure what they will be. Will there be a group—a real group, not just a category—of “people who used to be teachers?” Will there be “people who used to run businesses?” Will there be a group who used to be important and miss it dreadfully? Will there be a group of movers and shakers who serve on retirement center or on neighborhood committees and who want to tell you what is going on? I have no idea.
I know this happens all the time in new settings. I know I am going to walk into the dining room and look around. I am going to see some people dressed as “we used to be teachers” or “we used to run businesses” or “we were stay-at-home moms.” And they are going to look at us, at “the new guys,” and make the same kinds of early decisions. Where is the Sorting Hat when you really need it?
As I tried to find a way to say what it was about the two conventions that bothered me, I made my way back to 1895 again. That’s when H. G. Wells’ well-known science fiction work, The Time Machine was published. As nearly everyone knows—I’m sure there is a Classic Comic version of this famous story—the Time Traveler goes far into our future, to a time when there are only two species: the Eloi and the Morlocks. Here’s a piece about their relationship from the Wikipedia article on Morlocks, but you can see it all in the picture.
The production and distribution of goods and services are being globalized. American manufacturers want to find customers for their products and as a global middle class continues to develop and grow, they are finding them. Not the American middle class, but still, a customer is a customer. A global labor market is also taking shape. This pool of “laborers” includes blue color and white collar; it includes jobs in production, sales, and services—including some very demanding services, like architecture and engineering. The need for workers—reduced as it is by robotics—is still quite large, but there is no need for these to be American workers.
What would help? OK, I’m not going to call it socialism. I’m not going to call it anything at all. But here’s what needs to happen. If American businesses are going to go to the least expensive labor markets and if they are going to sell their products to a rapidly emerging global middle class, then we might as well admit that the cost to our own middle class—the late great American middle class—is going to be catastrophic. [5] The pain these policies cause makes they angry. The pain needs to be mitigated. That is something governments actually can do and they should. They can’t fix the problem, but they can make it hurt less.
