Conscientious Objections by Neil Postman

Author:Neil Postman [Postman, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307797315
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2011-06-08T05:00:00+00:00

Etiquette

This and the next piece need little advance comment, except to say that the second one is written in the only form (so it seems to me) in which it is now possible to speak of nuclear war. The language of everyday political commentary is incapable of expressing what is at stake. One must therefore speak about how we speak about the subject.

It is no secret that human beings have been replaced by baskets at toll-booth stations throughout the country. I, for one, am not at all sentimental about the substitution since in the first place, human money-collecting on highways is undignified and probably boring, and in the second place, baskets are much better suited to the job than human hands. Baskets are bigger and never clammy. A basket cannot make change, but that is only a temporary deficiency. With very little effort, baskets can be programmed to subtract 25 cents from anything up to a thousand-dollar bill. There would then remain only one problem for the basket. It cannot answer such questions as “What exit do I take if I’m going to New Hyde Park?” or, “How far is it to the next rest station?” Theoretically, a basket can be programmed to answer these and any other reasonable questions, although it is unlikely, even in theory, that a basket could ever respond intelligently to such a remark as “The baby just threw up. Do you have a towel or something?” Nevertheless, that problem can be solved by keeping one human being, supplied abundantly with towels, in some sort of emergency booth.

This solves all of the problems from the basket’s point of view. But there still remain several for the motorists, almost all of which concern their sensibilities. Each basket has an appendage that has been programmed to flash “Thank you” after the motorist has performed her civic duty. Common courtesy, of course, compels the motorist to respond. In these circumstances, however, one feels quite silly saying “You’re welcome,” unless one has some sort of assurance that one’s courtesy has been understood and perhaps appreciated. I know many motorists who refuse to say anything to the basket only because they assume the basket is indifferent to their responses. This is perfectly understandable, but it could be corrected if the basket were programmed to respond to a human’s “You’re welcome” by flashing something like “Well, it was awfully nice of you.”

There still remains the problem of what one is to do or say when the coin has missed the basket. After you’ve retrieved the coin and thrown it in, the basket’s appendage still says “Thank you,” but unquestionably the remark now has a sarcastic ring, which only adds to one’s sheepishness. In such cases, the sensitive motorist will invariably say something like “I’m terribly sorry,” to which the appendage could not, in all courtesy, reply, “Well it was awfully nice of you.” That simply would not do. Perhaps the basket can be programmed to reply, “That’s quite all right. Others frequently make the same mistake.

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