Is a Dent Worth Suing Over?   

By Harry T. Cook 

2/1/13

Harry T. Cook

I am once again captivated by the scholarship and composition of Jared Diamond, this time in his most recent book The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn From Traditional Societies?

In his research of the lore and customs of extant tribal societies, Diamond discovered a strong preference for community as opposed to individual welfare. In one instance, a group of aborigines had been on its nomadic way when a woman in the company became so sick she could not continue. The tribe promptly moved on without her, eschewing farewells that might have given rise to emotion sufficient to detain its urgent journey. The safety and survival of the tribe was perceived to have been at stake.

People who live in tribal societies generally do not think first of going to law for the settlement of disputes, Diamond found. The offended and the offender are brought together and encouraged to settle their differences in the process of repairing the relationship that was sundered by the offense.

That sounds a little like what Hillel the Elder at the turn of the BCE-CE millennia is credited as saying: "What you hate, do not to another." Or as Hillel's near-contemporary, Jesus of Nazareth, was said to have taught: "Do to others what you would have done to yourself." In other words: Make it work.

About two weeks before I encountered the Diamond volume, I watched a man drive a borrowed pickup truck into my parked car, leaving a nasty scar on an otherwise clean and undented fender. I had, as my kids might say, "a cow." I approached him in a considerable huff, saying with a keen grasp of the obvious, "You hit my car!" I demanded to see his license and insurance information. He was irate with me almost immediately.

Not knowing what else to do, I called the local police station and filed a report with an officer who came to the scene. The man's passenger was his daughter, who was clearly embarrassed by what had happened. "He didn't mean to hit you," she pleaded. My rejoinder, still steamed at the damage, was, "Yeah, well, he did." The fact that I happened to be wearing a clerical collar at the time only seemed to increase both her embarrassment and her father's anger.

I now await compensation from the man in the same way that an apocalypse-loving fundamentalist pants for the rapture, but, in his heart, knows that pie in the sky is unlikely.

Diamond's work set me to thinking about how things might have turned out differently if, say, the minor accident had occurred on the two-block main street of the village in which I grew up, where everybody knows your name, where passing motorists wave at you, where friends shop together, eat and drink together, vote together, live and die together.

Suppose it had been one of my friends who dented my car. Would I have had that cow?

No. I would have said, "Jim! What the hell happened?" He would have been sheepish and replied, "Jeez, I'm sorry, Harry. Let's go down to the garage and see what it'll take to fix it." I would not have called the police, and if the lone part-time officer in the village had shown up, no report would have been made or taken, and we three probably would have gone to Red's Grill for Cokes.

Bud Holland at the garage would have charged about $25, if that, to bump out the fender and buff off the scar. My friend would have paid for it, yet it would have embarrassed me to ask him to do so.

The difference between the real and the imagined occurrences is that I had no idea who the guy was that drove into my car the other day. He was from a different city, in mine on business. I was pretty miffed. That got his back up, and my guess is that he will try his damnedest to get out of paying me a dime. "Goddamned priests," he must be thinking.

Obviously, the guy didn't mean to hit my car. As I came to find out, he was driving his alley mechanic's beaten-up pickup as a loaner and probably was unfamiliar with its turning radius.

I see at this remove that we both acted like idiots that day: I out of indignation at being the aggrieved party, he out of embarrassment veiled in defensiveness at being in the wrong. What if I were the king of my realm and he of his? Ignorant armies would already be clashing by day as well as by night. (Apologies, Matthew Arnold.)

re essay of 1/25/13 Two Roads Diverged         

Cynthia Chase, Laurel, MD:

Wonderful essay. I am in total agreement. I'm reading Henry James' Portrait of a Lady. It takes place in the early 1870s, the beginning of America's Gilded Age. Following the disastrous Franco-Prussian War on 1870, the Third Republic was established. Wealthy American ex-pats had been living in Paris for years. One complained (a paraphrased quote from the book), "Paris is ruined! We didn't cross the ocean to escape from one republic only to be compelled to live in another."

Tom McCullough, Royal Oak, MI:

I agree that gun violence is a plague upon our culture. I don't understand the evangelical, right wing fascination with munitions. Nevertheless, I was dumbstruck when I heard President Obama's inaugural address and the comment you quoted, "A great nation must care for the vulnerable and protect its people from life's worst hazards and misfortune." And yet it is the most vulnerable (the unborn) that he has no qualms against killing. It is not hard to see why most of my "brothers and sisters" unfortunately dismiss the rest of his agenda because of his perceived hypocrisy on this one point. I know the whole abortion question comes down to one's definition of "life" and when life begins. For my part, if there is a question, I prefer to err on the safe side: the side of life, not death.

Mary Walker, Sea Island, GA:

When you got to the part about FDR, I stopped reading. That is certainly not a road we want to go down anymore. Your comparison of President Reagan to Jacob Marley is an insult to Mr. Reagan, whose face will be on Mt. Rushmore well before that of Barack Obama, if indeed Obama's ever is.

Veronica Smalley, Columbus, OH:

I thought President Obama's second inaugural was right up there with Lincoln's. Let's hope there is no John Wilkes Booth lurking somewhere. Or, let me rephrase that: I hope the Secret Service has all the potential John Wilkes Booths under constant surveillance.

Sherry Owensby-Sikes, Mt. Pleasant, SC:

Let's hope that God will turn the hearts of those opposed to this. I'd hate to think what might happen if people have to be shamed into doing what is right. I hope Obama can use his gift of persuasion to convince people to do the right thing so that we can begin to learn what at least a semblance of consensus means. Yes, I'm an idealist.

Michael Howard, Palm Springs, CA:

The President's inaugural address sentiments agree with my own. I actively apply those sentiments as a citizen. I hope that President Obama likewise will apply his good words in his office, but my impression is that he is a better speaker than executive. I do not think that he has the skills or resourcefulness of Franklin Roosevelt; I would be pleased if the results of the second Obama administration prove me wrong. FDR had the rare Presidential ability to overcome the greed, ignorance, and fear of the populace to make progressive policy for the good of the nation and the world. But, greed, ignorance, and fear are always with us; the governor of Kansas and the governor and legislature of Michigan, with their regrettable policies, were elected to office by the people. How good it might be if President Obama has the conviction and courage to take the road less traveled by, in effective policy as well as speech, to work vigorously for the common good with common sense and compassion. That would indeed make all the difference.