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Dear Bolu,
I recall a debate that happened in the Twittersphere a good while back. A lady had given an account of her experience with a cab driver and pre-Musk tweeps were divided into two camps as a result—one half, saying she was in the right and the other arguing that she wasn't. The details of her narrative are somewhat fuzzy but with your blessing, we shall place an ill-advised bet on the credibility of my sober mind. I will say the main gist as I remember it and you will forgive any error in my account of her account. Also, it's a rather boring tale so don't be too eager to grab a juice box or a sundae. Do so if you must, but it'll end as soon as it starts.
Arriving at her destination, Sophei exited the cab and proceeded to pay the driver. Her name isn't Sophei, of course. I don't remember the lady's name and as such, I've settled for a name I'm reasonably confident doesn't exist unless perhaps as a username on social media or a typographical error on a hastily filled form. Sophei reached across the passenger side window, cash in hand, to give the driver his compensation and he refused it. He wanted to get paid, of course, but he didn't appreciate the manner in which the money was handed out. According to him, the custom of his people demanded that things be given to and received from others with the right hand. Violating this sacred rule in a giving ritual amounted to disrespect, and Sophei, perhaps ignorantly, had disrespected him by paying him out of her left hand. He'd asked her to give him the money with her right hand instead, and she refused. She didn't feel obligated to obey his customs, and they got into a spat.
I'm not sure how the story ended. Did he eventually take the money from Sophei's right hand? Did she have to drop the cash on the passenger seat and walk away? I don't remember. Sophei believed she'd done nothing wrong by disregarding the driver's right-hand rule (sorry, Fleming) and it was interesting to see the arguments for and against her. "What if she's left-handed?" "She's simply disrespectful?" "It costs nothing to give the driver the cash with her right hand." "It costs nothing to receive the cash from her left hand, after all, she's not bound to conform to the dictates of his culture". As you'd expect, there were folks who argued that the driver's insistence on the right-hand rule was due, in part, to Sophei's status and the value of the cab fare. "If she were a princess and instead of a paltry hundred bucks, she gave him a plus size cheque, he'd have accepted it and kissed her feet even if she kicked it to him. There were also those who saw this as yet another telltale evidence of the erosion of traditional values and it prompted for others, a counterstrike against anachronistic norms and practices.
I didn't give much thought to the rightness of either camp and their arguments because they all raised interesting points. Nevertheless, I think the situation could've been handled better. I knew what I'd have done if I were in Spohei or the driver's shoes, slides, stilettos or whatever footwear they had on. It wouldn't have ended in a spat. As a general rule, we should honour people's traditions if it comes at a manageable inconvenience to us. If I found myself on the Lost Continent, for example, and the Losties (inhabitants of the Lost Continent) say that it's customary to greet elders with a bow as a show of respect, I don't think I would have a problem with that. It should be emphasized that inconvenience is relative, and this begs the need for nuance. If bowing to greet is in direct contrast to what I'm used to, I'd still be inclined to bow because I'm on Lostie soil. If, however, a Lostie and I find each other in one of those melting pot societies, I may be less inclined to bow and the Lostie shouldn't hold it against me. I find that we're happy to put on badges that portray us as champions of and advocates for cultural diversity but we rip them off at the inconvenience of the slightest culture clash.
Sophei's story also made me think of the conditions that need to be met for a practice to be declared obsolete and out of fashion. One of the easily assessable conditions is whether or not the practice in question is harmful. How one defines harm may vary, but I use the word in a very general sense. Our ancestors may have instituted these harmful practices to solve a problem they believed existed the best way they could and according to their understanding of the world. Today, we may know enough to ascertain that the problem is not, in fact, a problem at all. We may also have found better and less harmful alternative solutions to the problem as it were. If the harm check fails, then it stands to reason that the practice should be binned. Besides the harm check, however, I can hardly think of any clear-cut condition that's safe enough to motivate condemning a practice. As a result, should all harmless practices continue in perpetuity? I'm not sure.
Chesterton's Fence is a principle that says that change shouldn't be made until the reasoning behind the current state of affairs is understood. Say you find yourself on a livestock farm that has tall fences on all sides, you could choose to break down the fence because you don't see the purpose it serves and you'd like an unobstructed view of the surrounding area. Chesterton advises that before embarking on such an action, we should find out why the fence was built as such in the first place as it very likely was built for a reason. That reason may be a non-issue today but we should be certain of it before getting destructive. Perhaps the builder intended the high fence to discourage thieves and bears from coming in, the cows and chickens from wandering out, or they simply had too much brick and mortar on their hands. We should ask the builder what his intent was, and if we cannot find them, then perhaps we shouldn't tear down the fence in a single swing. We could lower the height of the fence on the west side and observe what happens. No bear attacks? All good. Perhaps we can do the same on the south side and wait a bit. No missing chickens? Great. We could replace the entire north side with barbed wire, stay a moment, completely tear down the fence on the west side, and so forth till we're at a place where we're satisfied.
Chesterton's Fence helps us make better decisions by encouraging us to heed the lessons of those who came before us. It finds usefulness in engineering, governance, reforms and in our struggle to choose the traditions to keep and discard. If we don't know why a practice was instituted, then perhaps we shouldn't be too quick to trash it. One might be inclined to argue that practices such as the right-hand rule are obsolete if their purpose was simply to symbolize respect. The argument may proceed as such, "you say that the right-hand rule is a sign of respect, but I can observe that rule and still be disrespectful to you or disobey the rule and still act more respectfully than someone who obeys it. Why not just scrap the rule altogether since evidently, it doesn't say whether the observer is truly respectful or not." To rebut that, one can assert that by the same token, no single action can be relied upon to adequately convey intent, and yet, most times, that is all we have to go by. Nonetheless, I'm generally wary of people who are quick to advocate that a practice be done away with for no good reason. It appears that a lot of us believe that giving up on an old way is tantamount to progress and a guaranteed step in the right direction. I wonder if that’s necessarily true, dear friend.
Fin.
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Write you soon, merci!
- Wolemercy