Dissense

Thanks to McArthur and Benavides, I’ll never think the same way about opening the door again. Rather than merely checking to see if anyone’s around, I’ll take glee in the opportunity to inflict social violence and engage in some reckless utility reduction. That is, I would, if either of those two descriptions actually described the act. Sadly, that’s simply not the case.

A necessary preface: McArthur deserves praise for attempting to subject something so quotidian to a real analysis. It is often in the most prosaic daily actions that truths about our society are best expressed. And I’ll even agree with his argument this much: many actions, perhaps even holding the door, have an emptiness to them, a mechanical practice divorced from meaning.

Similarly, Benavides perfectly captures the quandary that faces any encounter with a stranger, particularly for the well-intentioned: how does one convey respect in such crude terms as the opening (or not) of a door? How do we genuinely indicate courtesy and not simply attempt to paint how we wish to be perceived on others?

Nonetheless, both of their arguments vividly highlight why we have norms and precisely why they are useful. McArthur and Benavides both struggle with how we should respond in the face of ignorance, and both fail mightily in their response; McArthur, by attempting to calculate what can’t be quantified, and Benavides, by ignoring the solution that society has crafted for his dilemma.

First, McArthur errs in attempting to quantify the utility of door-holding at all: except in fairly rare cases (holding the door for the patently infirm or the fellow with his arms full of groceries), how do we even talk about the “value” that is increasing or decreasing for either of the individuals involved?

McArthur’s own critique includes a hodgepodge of unquantifiable variables thrown together in a bizarre bouillabaisse. His recipe includes the exertion of door pulling, freedom from same, Goldilocks speed (neither too fast nor too slow, just the pace of your “life plan”), emotional discomfort generated by social compulsion, lost autonomy, the cost or threat of peer criticism, dull obedience…and that’s only two paragraphs! How on earth can McArthur begin to make any calculation of “utility,” when his formula contains an alphabet of unknowns?

This is precisely why norms are important: no man could be expected to be making that calculus in his head every time he approaches a door. It’s neither reasonable nor sane. Opening the door, like countless other social conventions, serves the purpose of lubricating social transactions by saying, a) here is the standard to expect, and b) yes, it’s the one where you at least try/pretend/feign/genuinely express concern for those around you.

The latter point brings us directly to Benavides’ “heart-wrenching” quandary.

He rightly points out the problem with applying a single standard of courtesy to the infinite variety of preferences of mankind. The economist Ludwig von Mises ties M and B’s problems together in this useful quote:

It is vain to speak of any calculation of values. Calculation is possible only with cardinal numbers. The difference between the valuation of two states of affairs is entirely psychical and personal. It is not open to any projection into the external world. It can be sensed only by the individual. It cannot be communicated or imparted to any fellow man.

How then are we to calculate a standard for door holding (eh, McArthur?), much less a system of common courtesy? For instance, how could Benavides ever anticipate that as I approach a pair of double doors, I enjoy nothing so much as to grab both handles and fling both open violently, striding through the vast opening (preferably with the sun silhouetting my entrance)? He can’t, nor can McArthur ever calculate the utility lost by the scrub who limply barely holds a single door from entirely closing. And with every waking moment, every interaction with another human being whose preferences he doesn’t know, every door he passes through in the company of other humans, he is the perpetrator of a thousand crimes, a Prince Asaka in whatever city he dares walk.

As K. Lear said, that way madness lies.

In fact, social customs emerged to solve the twin struggles with ignorance that McArthur and Benavides deplore and fear, respectively. Sure, they can become artificial things, hollow acts that no more represent the man than the clothes he wears. But that means nothing by itself, anymore than a belly ache doesn’t immediately reveal whether you are suffering from indigestion or stomach cancer?

More importantly, however, social norms can influence the actor, even if he is unwilling to admit as much. Just as smiling, even artificially, has been proven to lighten one’s mood, so too do habitual actions protect and inflame a spark of concern for the other. So, too, opening the door: even if you resent it, it sparks an internal conversation (perhaps mirroring this very debate), which will push you to find ways to more sincerely express your concern for others.

Just as laws legislating morality cannot cure the ills of a city (ask Augustus how that went) nor can we hope that adherence to custom will solve our problems. But abandoning the forms that cultivate a public-spirited citizenry is only to abandon ourselves to the disease of selfishness plaguing our interactions.