Ours is a world full of agreements. Some are given by law, others are socially and culturally enforced. Here in the U.S., we keep our voices down in restaurants and avoid eye contact on the subway. We shake hands, we say thank you. We throw our food wrappers and cups in garbage cans (or at least, most of us do).
There are also agreements we’ve yet to make whose time has been long coming. For instance, putting a stop to the dropping of cigarette butts on the street and the rude and lewd catcalling of women and girls, as well as requiring equal pay for equal work.
If you’re unclear of how pervasive and engrained our agreements are, try kissing a stranger on the sidewalk, or screaming in a restaurant. Try dumping your entire garbage can onto your street corner or out of your window, or staring for a full minute at someone on the train.
In certain cultures and countries, each of these is entirely acceptable. But not here in the states.
It’s funny when we’re called on breaking even the simplest and most inconsequential of agreements. Just yesterday morning, I ran out of my Manhattan apartment in flip flops to a café a block away for a coffee, only to have a homeless woman scream at me about the inappropriateness of my footwear in the winter.
Being social animals, the need for agreement is part of our nature. We all long for acceptance and to fit in; once for actual survival and now primarily for a sense of the same, we struggle to do what’s right in order to remain safe, included, and accepted.
Unfortunately, this holds true even when the accepted things to do are altogether unacceptable. Which in my mind includes the ongoing bashing of Chris Christie’s weight.
To be clear, I’m not referring to comedians. It’s their job to poke fun at everyone and everything. By cultural consent, we’ve granted them this permission, just as we grant ourselves the freedom to enjoy and laugh at whatever they have say.
But TV anchors and guests on respected news shows? Journalists in top publications? Other politicians?
Cultural agreements are interesting, as are how they come into being. For one, they’re neither necessarily nor universally morally inspired; not everyone “agreed” to stop persecuting African Americans, bashing gay people, or beating their wives and children. Some people, sadly, still continue to do so.
Publicly, however, our agreements become standards that must be adhered to, lest we face the shame-inspiring and often legally-binding consequences of collective disapproval.