Context
I was reading some of the entries in the "Ask ET" forum today. You can find the index for the forum here. "ET" in this context stands for Edward Tufte, a professor emeritus at Yale University whose current passion is analytical design. I find a great deal of Tufte's work fascinating, if only because of his elegant defense of the idea that how you present information is as important as the information itself. However, today I was particularly struck by the wisdom of this entry in the forum, where the author decided to open up a broader philosophical discussion on "Grand Truths about Human Behavior." Here's one quote that Tufte believes fits the "Grand Truths" bill: "Upon expecting fair play in high places: You'll get it if enough folk are watching." ( J. P. Donleavy's variant of Wendell Phillips' "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.")
Commentary
Yippee! Another chance to justify the existence of this blog, this time by quoting people who think just watching what other people do is important.
The political theory expressed above looks remarkably cynical: people in power don't base their decisions on ethical principles; they do as much evil as they think they can get away with. I'm not sure that's actually what's being said, though. I believe that most of the time, people think they're doing the right thing. This belief requires a really broad definition of "right" that encompasses convenience, instant gratification and no small amount of self-centeredness, but what I'm saying is that we very rarely pull out our Snidely Whiplash capes and decide to do wrong. So what Donleavy is saying is that a few extra eyes will tilt a governing authority away from a selfish view of what's right toward a more socially beneficial one. I think he may be right in some cases, but I think we have to recognize that oftentimes people are sufficiently set on a bad path that just seeing them doing wrong will not be enough. We have to both care and act.
I spend most of my work day in front of a computer. In this Information Age, that means I learn about a lot of situations that could be defined as "wrong," if only grammatically. In the vast majority of circumstances, I don't care because life's too short to worry about every little thing. I've seen what someone is doing, but I deem his/her action unimportant, so my seeing has little impact on either me or her/him.
Some items bubble up to the level of concern. They make me mad or sad or depressed, but I don't do anything about it for any number of reasons (sometimes the emotions themselves paralyze me). Well, now the person's choice has an effect on me, but if I don't at least take the step of letting him/her know my opinion, I don't think it matters much to that person.
So in order to inspire fair play in high places, or to effect any positive change for that matter, we have to see and care and act. Luckily, "acting" can take many forms. Just in the non-violent realm there's voting, protesting, debating, educating and publicizing (this last one adheres to the "more eyes watching are more likely to provoke good behavior theory."). Or you could try writing in a blog that hardly anyone reads. Hey, it's a start!
What did you see today?
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