A Captive Audience
Atlanta, GA
January 16, 2021
A few years ago, we got a dog.
At the time, I resisted. But Rocky has grown on me, and we’ve grown close. Since March, when I was forced to work from home, he has trailed me around the house, and lain loyally beside my desk. On many mornings, I take him for a walk.
He is a good companion, and is always willing to join me. He has a great disposition, and listens politely to what I say…even if he ignores most of it. Yesterday, against the morning chill, about a mile from our house, we were all alone.
Rocky doesn’t read the papers, watch TV, or follow social media, which probably explains why he is so happy. Unlike most of us the last ten months, his social calendar has blossomed. It’s been fertilized with more walks in the morning, more company during the day, an ability to come within six feet of anyone, and never needing to wear a mask. Our dog’s cheery temperament seems impervious to pessimism.
As he sniffed the pavement and led the way, I decided to test his resolve. After finishing another week of work and starting a new year of idiocy, the peace and pace of our solitude was refreshing, and welcome. I took advantage of our isolation, and my captive audience, to unburden my mind.
When I started talking, Rocky looked back, and his ears perked up. He seemed justifiably concerned about what he had gotten himself into. All he wanted was to smell some dirt, chase some squirrels, and defile some lawns.
Rocky gets along with everyone. To him, all people are wonderful. To guard his home and those in it, he’ll growl and bark at strangers in the driveway or on the street. But if they enter the house, his tail wags with the enthusiasm of confetti falling on Lower Broadway.
Anyone can say anything to Rocky, and he won’t bear a grudge. He just likes the attention, and the affection it confers. He was skeptical when I told him people don’t always react the same way to each other as they do to him.
His head cocked, and his tail stopped wagging. He couldn’t imagine how this could be. After all, human beings always seem so nice.
As he looked up at me, I began to relay the woeful state of affairs…and the wretched affairs of state…among his human heroes. I told him that, despite how good last year might have been for the canine caste, for the bipeds it was dismal. And, a couple weeks into 2021, what we had hoped would be a welcome reprieve seems instead to be the dark at the end of the tunnel.
Rocky gave his body a shake, as if to toss off what he had just heard, and to ward off what yet to come. He seemed curious why I’d talk to him about such dreary topics, or dispel him of his delightful illusions.
I explained that I didn’t enjoy doing so, but I had some thoughts I wanted to share, and that most people wouldn’t welcome what I had to say. And, given current trends, I may soon not be allowed to say it! I explained that many these days merely want regurgitation and reinforcement of their own opinions, and a demonization or silencing of others. In such circumstances, conversation is futile, if not impossible.
Rocky couldn’t believe his ears, which promptly drooped. To him people always act kind, considerate, and gracious. He knew they weren’t as curious as the canines, but couldn’t understand why they’d refuse new ideas if they were offered. After all, sampling a morsel from someone else’s plate need not mean abandoning your own meal.
Besides, the notions of heated conflict over abstract concepts, of intense arguments about noxious people, and of angry disputes regarding distant events are absurd and abhorrent to our gentle black lab. At home, any time voices rise (even if on TV), Rocky removes himself from the room, and curls contentedly in a quiet corner till the storm has passed.
Overhead, a hawk soared. Rocky poked his snout into the air. His nostrils flared, as if sending a signal of distress to come carry him away from this depressing discussion.
He couldn’t get over it. How could these humans, who are so wonderful to him, be so rude and disrespectful to each other? Life’s too short for such silly acrimony…especially in dog years.
We passed a couple houses, and waited for a UPS truck to go by. As it did, I peeled away another layer of our pup’s purity. I explained that, no matter the subject, few people seem able to laugh anymore. Not only at themselves, but at anything.
We wander warily thru a conversational landscape of religious, racial, sexual, political, and grammatical land mines, all buried under an endless carpet of eggshells. Verbal missteps and stereotypical humor aren’t merely discouraged…they’re often policed, and frequently arrested.
Should they slip out, the perp is subjected to the public humiliation of a degrading apology and a disgraceful grovel. This embarrassing ritual erodes whatever residual dignity he had, while salvaging no goodwill in a land that can’t take a joke.
Rocky was sad to hear that human beings have lost their ability to discuss…much less debate…contentious issues. Not long ago, they could do so respectfully, even vigorously, yet still depart as rational friends.
No more. Even innocuous topics can breed resentment.
Reasonable discussion of opposing perspectives…even those about which everyone agreed ten minutes ago…has become almost impossible. It’s not just that arguments are resisted. Motives are impugned, integrity is challenged, and intentions are questioned…even among close family and lifelong friends.
Online or in-person, sanctimony and self-righteousness reign. People ascribe the most uncharitable interpretations to differing opinions, while demanding an enlightened understanding of their own.
It’s not so much that they expect everyone to agree with them. It’s that they can’t fathom that they wouldn’t. After years of intense lavage de cerveau, the prospect of disagreement…or even neutrality…never crosses their well-scrubbed minds.
Open communication is necessary to speak truth to power. Suppressing speech is meant to do the reverse.
Opposing perspectives are deemed “offensive” or “dangerous”, and no longer allowed. Like a Mob boss in the back room of a Bowery olive oil shop, the State runs its racket from behind its fronts.
To its connected companies it out-sources its dirty work. These quasi-governmental “private” corporations quell communication, freeze bank accounts, eliminate payment platforms, and rescind flight privileges…without so much as a trial, much less a conviction, of those they preclude.
This is more than a bias. It’s an agenda. And, like a horse head in a producer’s bed, the message is clear. The dissent is stifled…at least for the moment. But, like rising water behind a makeshift dam, it usually finds another way out, and is more destructive when it does.
This graceless gangrene has spread from public to private life, infecting relationships, and amputating friendships. We’ve reached a point where personal amity or social enmity rides on how someone votes. I am on neither Instagram nor what Bill Belichik called “Snapface”, but have heard from those who are that close connections are routinely sacrificed on the altar of political conformity.
At this point Rocky, like Ebenezer to the third ghost, was begging me to stop, to show him no more. I empathized with his plight, respected his plea, and mercifully relented.
We had returned to the street that headed back toward the house. I started to turn right, and prepared to walk up the hill. But suddenly, Rocky pulled left, and tried to continue in the direction we’d been going.
He resisted my tug. I pulled again, but he was adamant. I was initially insistent. But then I became indulgent. After all, I’d put him thru enough.
I had forced Rocky to hear my thoughts, bear my concerns, and follow my path. Now, for just a few minutes, he wanted to blaze his own. After what I’d just subjected him to, the least I could do was let him. And never let it be said that I didn’t do the least I could do.
I loosened the leash. Rocky wagged his tail and resumed our walk…in complete happiness and total silence.
For almost an hour, I no doubt convinced this poor dog that people should keep their mouths shut and their opinions to themselves.
For the last ten minutes, I’ve probably done the same to anyone unfortunate enough to have read this note.
JD
