Sans Fig Leaf
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"Stand in the place…"
11 May, 2006
Many years ago a friend of mine was busy making dinner in the shared kitchen of the dormitory of the college she had just begun attending. A guy she didn't really know came to her, bubbling over with cheerful excitement. He told her they were going to get a keg of beer for an impromptu dorm party, and wanted to know how much she could chip in.
She tried to stab him with a fork. How dare he even suggest she was interested in sharing her living space with a bunch of drunk strangers, let alone assume she was willing to help defray the costs?
Even she agrees, now, that trying to stab him with a fork was an overreaction, but I have always found the story amusing because it illustrates a phenomenon I see all the time. The guy was operating under assumptions that were completely outside the worldview of the gal with the fork. Similarly, she was operating under assumptions that were completely outside the worldview of the guy.
He assumed that any person enrolled in that college--notoriously far more liberal than the typical college--would have at least a laid back, 'do what you want, dude' attitude about intoxicants. So clearly any person enrolled there would probably want to participate in the proposed kegger.
She assumed that people who drank alcohol were irresponsible losers who all turned into unpredictable lunatics who might attack you for no reason whatsoever once they had any measurable amount of alcohol in their system. So clearly this guy was one of these unpredictable lunatics, and worse yet, he was implying that she was, as well.
When I say "outside the worldview," I don't just mean that each person disapproved of the other's belief. It was more fundamental than that. From his viewpoint, there was no rational basis for even contemplating the possibility of her assumptions. And her viewpoint left no grounds for even a hypothetical consideration of his.
Not only were both sets of assumptions outside the worldview of the other, but both of them were equally false as generalizations. However, both sets of assumptions had been true often enough in the experience of each person that it was perfectly reasonable for each person to accept the belief as a fact.
This is why some conversation are very hard to have. We explain ourselves as best we can to the other person, and they seem to just dismiss us, as if we had said nothing. Whatever it is we said is so far outside of their experience, that it just seems like nonsense.
All of us have to share this world with a whole lot of people who don't understand things the same way we do. That means that we have to find at least enough common ground to agree to disagree. We have to question our own assumptions enough to recognize that perhaps the thing which seems patently absurd or impossible isn't.
Finding common ground with other people takes work. Sometimes that means cutting the other person a little slack. Sometimes it means accepting that, however unintentionally, we have offended the other person. Maybe we don't understand how we did it, but we did.
Once we know that bringing up a particular topic to a specific person is going to push their hot button, we become at least partially responsible for any subsequent re-occurences of the blow up. No matter how trivial we think the topic is, or how ridiculous we believe their reaction to be, we know that the person is prone to it. If we insist on poking them in the same place again, we have no right to act surprised or outraged, if they react as they have before.
That doesn't mean that just because we know someone will be offended by something we must never bring it up. But we should evaluate whether the particular subject is worth the trouble. Maybe it is.
For example, I used to work with a person who was obviously uncomfortable any time I talked about my boyfriend in any terms that indicated that our relationship was more than a casual friendship. There were never any angry words, certainly nothing that rose to the level of the gal stabbing at the guy with a fork. But it was obviously something that really troubled her.
I didn't stop talking about my boyfriend in casual conversations at work. What I did do, was take care that I only brought him up when other people were talking about their families, or the people they were dating, or what they did during the weekend.
Without ever getting into an argument, or anyone ever filing a complaint, we worked out an unspoken agreement. If she didn't bring up her family, I didn't bring up mine. If someone else talked about their families and she happened to be there, I would join in the conversation and talk about my husband.
I had decided where to make my stand.
Over time, as she got to know me better, and as other co-workers demonstrated their own comfort level with hearing about my man, she became less uptight about it. She even asked how he was, once and a while.
At no point did I change my behavior to accommodate her prejudices. All I did was not make it an issue when it wasn't applicable. When it was applicable, I simply treated it as casual and matter-of-fact. It was never a secret. It wasn't an issue. It simply was.
There were probably people who thought even that was too much. I wasn't standing my ground, they would say, I was stomping all over everyone else's. But there are others who would characterize me as being too complacent and accomodating.
To which I simply say, "I'm sure that's how it looks from where you're standing."
--Noah Porter
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