“Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I will have to do something that isn’t Ralph Waldo Emerson next time. The thing is, he’s just got so many good quotes out there, and many of them are among my favorites.
This particular quote is on my mind right now because of something I am currently witnessing between… people I know.
Of course, because this is a free and public Internet, I am going to attempt to be as impartial as I can in relaying the circumstances and how they relate to my quote, but given the topic at hand, I will have no choice but to present one party as having acted favorably in regards to the subject.
Our story begins in a lush, yet remote forest clearing. There, at the edge of the clearing, were three small houses packed tightly next to each other, side by side. The front doors all shared a sidewalk, and the back doors all opened up to a small space for a yard. The middle house had a fence around the backyard space, but the other two did not.
From left to right, in the first house there lived a short Asian man and his wife. They had a small child and a dog. The dog was well-liked by his family, and he took good care of them. He was very protective of his family.
In the middle house there lived a very tall man from England. He and his short wife had two dogs that got along well. The dogs were good friends, and they were both carefree, happy dogs. They didn’t get to run free often, but they enjoyed their fenced-in yard and loved sitting on the couch despite being told not to do it.
Finally, on the far right, there lived a medium sized man with his wife and two children. They tried as hard as they could to be good, quiet neighbors, but the rigors of family life often resulted in a slammed door or a loudly spoken word here or there. The medium sized man and his wife enjoyed the company of the tall man, and had often had pleasant exchanges with the short Asian man’s family.
Perhaps the only potential problem in the small neighborhood existed because of a law set by the town to which the houses belonged. All dogs were required to be on a leash when not contained within a fenced yard. Where the short man came from, dogs were allowed to run free, and his dog was well-behaved. He saw no reason to keep his dog tied up or fenced in. Most of the time the dog was inside the home, but when they went for walks or took the dog out for any other reason, the man never had the dog on a leash.
This didn’t cause problems most of the time, and so the neighbors largely tolerated the behavior. Then, one day, the dog was out alone and the medium sized man’s wife walked too close to the dog. He became startled, and being close to his owner’s properties, he became territorial. He growled at the woman, and this frightened her. She told her husband of the incident, but the husband declared that the dog was simply being protective of his territory. Surely it wasn’t anything to be concerned about.
All three men worked for a large business situated just outside the forest. They each worked slightly different schedules, but often passed each other while going about their duties at work.
One day when all three neighbors were home, the Asian man decided to relax with his dog while listening to his music. There he sat, his dog at his feet and his music drifting gently through the air, soaking in the loveliness of his home and enjoying the relaxation.
Suddenly, his music was drowned out by the sound of his wife cleaning the home. He turned up the volume a little until he could make out the sounds again. Returning to his favorite chair, he closed his eyes and began to relax once more.
Next door, at the tall man’s house, the wife was watching a television show when the sound of the Asian man’s music forced her to turn up the volume.
The Asian man heard the television volume go up next door, and became angry because he could no longer hear his music. So he turned it up.
The tall man heard the music volume go up again, and decided it was just too loud. He couldn’t hear himself thinking over the noise of the music and the television show.
Calmly he knocked on his neighbor’s door and requested that they turn the volume down.
Pride, immaturity, selfishness, and feelings of entitlement seized control of the two men. What might have been a simple compromise or act of tolerance quickly escalated into a war of unheard of proportions in that region. Both parties complained loudly and freely to their friends, family, and coworkers.
The battles raged on for several long weeks before the problem became an issue at their place of employment. Their management had to get involved because the bickering and squabbling became a barrier to effective work output for both men.
A meeting was held, a compromise was thought to have been reached, and the two men begrudgingly shook hands and parted ways.
Several months passed. On a couple of rare occasions the two men had arguments over the dog running free, over volume levels, or over anything else they could manage to argue about. The medium height neighbor on the far right rarely heard anything from either neighbor, and largely presumed the conflict to have ended.
By this time, both the tall and the medium neighbor had experienced several run-ins with the short man’s growling dog. The dog had grown slightly more bold and aggressive, and he often patrolled the sidewalk in front of the three houses as though the entire neighborhood were his. The tall neighbor, of course, brought this to the attention of the short neighbor, but it quickly turned into more bickering. The medium man simply felt that it wasn’t his job to tell a grown man to obey the law. He simply decided to hope that some kind of law enforcement officer would happen to see the dog loose one day. Surely justice would be served then.
The tall man, though, perhaps because of his culture and possibly due to his nature as a man who had a deep sense of personal responsibility and accountability, much preferred knowing that he had done all that he could to resolve problems before they became worse.
Unfortunately, the short man greatly resented being told what to do and how to do it. He was glad for his independence and autonomy, and he had no intention of letting the taller man boss him around.
And so, the squabbling began again.
Now, the tall man had many friends, including the medium sized man and his wife. One evening the tall man invited most of his friends over to his house for a party. They played games, they ate food, and they enjoyed each other’s company late into the night. Occasionally, the party-goers let out exclamations of excitement over events in their games, or their conversation became passionate to the point of loudness. The medium man and his wife were sleeping during the party, having stopped by to say hello earlier in the evening, but retired early to ensure they could get enough rest to deal with their children in the morning.
The noises of the party were not enough to wake or disturb anyone in the house on the right, but on the left the bitter short man decided he had heard enough. He called the law enforcement agency and requested that the party be silenced at once.
This action, of course, angered the tall man, and he also decided he had put up with enough. So he went to the city officials and began to file a request to have the short Asian man evicted from his home.
The tall man was not silent about his actions, of course. He told anyone who would listen. And so once again the management found out about the fighting. And once again meetings were held.
This time the management had also decided they had seen enough. So they appointed a mediator to hear the evidence from both sides and make a decision on what should happen to the two men, how justice should be served, and perhaps even who was at fault.
Clearly both men had exhibited copious amounts of angry behavior ranging from name-calling to noise-making.
Now, we will skip ahead to the end of the hearings before discussing how this relates to the quote.
In the end, the tall man’s actions were nearly entirely ignored. An investigation was launched into one or two comments he had made in anger that could be considered racist, though he may not have intended them to be. By the end of the hearings most observers agreed that it didn’t matter much since he had clearly behaved himself in a more mature and controlled manner.
The short man though was condemned for his actions. He was punished quite severely and many people felt he could have been punished further.
It’s almost hard to believe that the punishment would be handed out so unevenly given that both parties behaved with immaturity and anger. It’s true that the only real law broken was that of the dog being off the leash, but surely all of the bickering between them couldn’t be blamed on just one of them, could it?
What was the difference between the two that decided the difference between their punishments? Common sense and plain dealings.
Long before the formal investigations with the mediator, the tall man decided that he would be straight forward and plain in his dealings with the mediator. He had also been plain in his dealings with the short man, despite the anger that motivated some of his less fortunate actions. And so, he resolved to continue to deal plainly and honestly with the situation, since common sense dictated that he couldn’t be punished if he hadn’t done anything legally wrong.
And so, in the course of the proceedings, the tall man was honest, plain and open about his actions. He admitted to using strong, angry language. He admitted to everything that he did that he felt was wrong.
The short man, on the other hand, took the stance of denying that he had done anything wrong. When asked about his dog, he replied that he had a cat. When shown evidence that he had a dog, he replied that he always kept the dog chained up. When presented with evidence that the dog was often loose, he was caught in his lies. And so it was with everything else. He spun webs and webs of lies attempting to hide his wrongs and paint a picture in which he had been a victim rather than an aggressor and a bickering neighbor. Lies, he discovered, could not hide what he really was.
And so when the lies about his own behavior began to fail, he sought to destroy the tall man with wild accusations. He lied about how noisy the tall man was, he accused the tall man of hating him due to his being Asian, and he did everything he could to discredit the tall man’s position of honesty. But the tall man had been honest, and he had evidence to support his honesty. The lies could not destroy the honesty of the tall man.
The short man was astonished at the tall man’s common sense and at his plain dealings. The mediator was astonished as well, and all involved took note of the virtues of common sense and plain dealings.
May we always practice common sense and deal plainly with our fellow man.
