The Pursuit of Happiness

Dan Krotz – Nearly everyone morally judges people who think or act differently than we do. Remember the time you drove over to Rogers, and you got behind some geezer slow-poking his way back to Kansas? What a moron! Or, how about that maniac in the pickup who tailgated you for miles before ragefully passing on a blind curve? If only people would drive as safely and expeditiously as we drive.

We make the same moral judgments about how people wear their pants, express their sexuality, or how often mow their grass. I’m sure, for example, that I set the standard for lawn and home care: what I do to my yard, and when I do it, is what you should do, and when you should do it. You’re welcome.

That’s why I was happy see a guy down the street remodel the old house he’d just bought. He began by gutting the entire interior, and he tore off a bunch of dreadful 1970’s aluminum siding to reveal some old and handsome shiplap siding from the ‘30s. I’d have done the same thing.

Then he brought in a stump grinder and loaded it with the discarded drywall, the aluminum siding, the asphalt shingles, and all the nails and the screws he’d pulled off the joint. Pretty soon there was a pile of ground up stuff in his backyard twice as big as your father’s Oldsmobile. Which he thickly spread over the yard.

I’d judged the guy good because he’d rescued an old wreck – I’ve done the same thing. Then I judged him bad – a moral and, probably, a rational judgment – because he’d turned his lawn into an environmental freak-show, which ought to be reported. But I won’t.

Years ago, I frequently complained to a city official about unkempt properties in town. Sighing, he stared over my shoulder, and said, “There are two things you can know about poor people. Their dogs will always bark all night, and they never cut their grass.”

What he meant was that I’m a Middle Class Twit who moved to a small southern town and ought not to be so judgmental… because moral judgment, absent context, is always a two-way street.