Monday, June 20, 2011
What Will Other People Think?
So let’s have a look at these seemingly reflective words (which are anything but) and judge (because that’s what it comes down to) their power to stop ourselves and others from doing or saying the ‘wrong’ thing. To begin with, we really have no idea what people are thinking or will think as a result of our mindless rush to shame and censure. It’s not about those ‘people’ anyway but, rather, that little Miss Manners who sits knitting in the back of our heads. We may not know what the ‘people’ think, but we know very well what they WOULD think if they all had the same little upright sweater knitting pixie in the back of THEIR heads.
What is our motivation for giving so much power to our sense of propriety? Well, we do live as social animals and, as such, have to be able to co-exist with other members of the community. From the time we are small, ‘other people’ in restaurants and movie theaters have to be acknowledged as having a right to their anonymity as we have to ours. Making a fuss or obtruding on the privacy of others is something we are taught to avoid as a primary social sin punishable by censure, dirty looks, exile, and all manner of parental reproach. Other people’s children may act like animals but WE come from a long line of well behaved good citizens and are quick to turn from judged to judging in order to retain decorum and propriety.
Am I opposed to this? No. I am opposed to extremes in this and any other human endeavour but, for the aforementioned reasons of social co-operation, an awareness of others and their rights is absolutely paramount if we are to live in ‘civil’ society. Like any childhood learning, however, it is incumbent on us to examine our motivation in this area and adjust the what-will-other-people-think maxim to suit our adult realities and sensibilities. In the same way that a mistrust of strangers is a great survival tool for tots and younger children, continuing the same paradigm into adulthood is not the healthiest way to go about life. And yet entire cultures pride themselves on the inflexibility of their social code, on their propriety and on their willingness to endure the unendurable and forego the fullness of being an adult.
Anything that closes down reason is, from my point of view, a transgression that limits the evolution of an individual’s paradigms. If an individual participates in a shunning ritual, for example, they are participating in an act of extreme censure that is an outgrowth of ‘what-will-other-people-think’. Mormons, Anabaptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses come to mind as cults which place the cohesion of the group above any consideration for the individual. I see such groups as an incarnation of the aforementioned little Miss Manners and a victory for the metaphysical amalgam that is social intimidation over human reason. After all, the only construct that trumps what-will-other-people-think is what-will-God-think.
If we refrain from doing something because we think it is damaging to ourselves or nature, we are acting rationally (if somewhat judgmentally); if we refrain from doing something because of how we will be judged by others or some amorphous, pervasive deity, we are in danger of placing the welfare of a concept before the welfare of a living, breathing, feeling human being. That being said, keeping a balance between social imperatives and the interests of the self is essential if societies are to be sustainable. In the end, society will only evolve to the degree that individuals within that society are able to evolve. An abdication of self to the society may seem beneficial to the society in the short run but, in the long term, the stability and growth of the society will be jeopardized by the sublimation of the individual. In preserving our rationality as individuals, we are actually helping society to evolve and ensuring its future functionality.
It seems self evident that in order to balance the often conflicting needs of individuals and the society of which they are a part, there must be a balance between what-will-other-people-think and what-do-I-think. The trouble is, often, that we can not know what other people think and we don’t bother to think ourselves. In social situations, we rarely stop to reflect but are more likely to react on the basis of our social upbringing. We tolerate bullies because we don’t want to upset the apple cart; we tolerate injustice because our social imperatives have taught us not to get involved or ‘make a scene’. Let me illustrate with two anecdotes from my own experience.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were out for dinner. Seated directly behind us was a young couple and their daughter. After some minutes, the child of about three began to scream – not in agony or even in tantrum – just because she liked the acoustics. The people in the restaurant shot disapproving glances at the scene and were obviously put off by the ten thousand decibel disruption of their meal. I waited to see whether the child would move on to some other form of entertainment and, when she didn’t, I decided to act. I walked over to the budding mezzo soprano’s table, looked at the tattoo covered father and calmly told him that his daughter’s screaming was disturbing our evening out and that I would appreciate it if they would intercede with their little siren. The mother became defensive, insisting that I was rude, etc., etc. but I kept my focus on the father and refused to engage her. I smiled and went back to my dinner. The screaming stopped and the couple left soon afterward.
The other patrons smiled their appreciation and some even stopped at our table on the way out to thank me. None of them got up at the time because they were content in being ‘the other people’ and letting the young couple know what they ‘thought’ with their disapproving glances. We hardly ever think ‘what will people do?’ because doing is not how it works. If people actually ‘did’ things, then the whole what-will-other-people-think construct couldn’t make hostages of the population to the imagined consequences of impropriety. In this case the bullying of the child (with the complicity of her mother) was allowed to proceed by people who didn’t want ‘to get involved’.
The other illustrative story is from my late teens. I was at a dance with my first love when a fellow ran by us on the dance floor and intentionally popped the balloon that my date was holding. Rather than react to this transgression by confronting the miscreant, I let him get away unscathed because I didn’t want ‘to make a scene’. In this case, ‘what- will-other-people-think’ took the form of what-did-my-date-think and I have been haunted by the feeling that she viewed it as an act of cowardice. It was a seminal event for me because it began a resolve never to shrink from doing ‘the right thing’ because of appearances and the desire to preserve anonymity.
In the end, our actions should be mitigated by our judgment of a situation on its merits, rather than on the basis of social approval. In automatically sublimating our will to the dictates of society, we are cheating ourselves of the opportunity to be active participants in our environment - in our own lives! Civilized mobs are not that different from uncivilized mobs. They each take on a character of their own and the individuals within them act in accordance with the dictates of unspoken mores which take over the responsibility for reflective thought and rational decision making. The same directive causes a soldier to jump out of a trench to certain death that causes a national water polo player to set fire to a police car. Given the circumstances, it’s what other people expect and, as a result, what you expect of yourself.
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