Willem van Konijnenburg:
The re-voting in Groningen (1897-06-27)

"Ditto and more so with Decency."

Think of Decency as Dust, as a sometime annoyance and occasional inconvenience. In this country, Dust is ubiquitous, present regardless of cleanliness habits. It’s probably never not there, but its presence isn’t usually prominent. It’s most appreciated in its absence, for the necessities accompanying its presence tend to inconvenience. It shocks when it finally comes into focus, almost always unexpected. Annually, the knick-knacks get attended to, and a deep sense of significance and gratitude always gets left behind. The Dust was never as rare as was the shocking awareness that it had always been there.

Decency seems the opposite of Dust, that reviled presence that tends to sneak up on us. Decency seems clean by comparison, but think of indecency as mud. Mud accumulates, impeding progress, then dries into almost impossible-to-remove residue. Dust remains eternally fluffy and relatively easily removed. Its presence adds a patina of depth to some objects, a shadow against which an item displays its deeper dimensions. I rarely see Dust, especially when I take my glasses off. I found that if I didn’t want to see Decency, it would visit me very infrequently. I could too easily fail to find Dust when housecleaning. The Muse would review my work and immediately perceive what I’d missed. My sense of accomplishment would evaporate the instant she pointed out to me what I’d overlooked. I took to cleaning house with my glasses off so that I could achieve at least a temporary sense of accomplishment.

Decency can be damnably difficult to perceive, especially when we’re poised to see its opposite. Indecency’s mud tends to be damnably difficult not to see, while Decency seems at least equally difficult to catch. Like a thin patina of dust, it blunts the sheen of showier pieces without rendering them as invisible as Decency usually seems. Decency puts little cats’ feet to shame. It creeps through insidiously, not even trying to catch a spotlight. It prefers to operate in shadows and seems embarrassed ever to take center stage, as if its performances might somehow embarrass those involved. Indecency loves the spotlight. It revels in making itself into a spectacle, its impact only occasionally overshadowed by Decency’s subtly insidious Dust.

I imagine Decency utterly encompassing me, though I cannot often sense its overwhelming presence. My eyes more often notice its opposite in action, casting alluring shadows. I hear distant rumors of Decencies only after the fact. These rarely carry the impact even mediocre indecencies impart. Doomscrolling revels in attention. Decency doesn’t. It seems unseemly to even imagine scrolling through serial Decency videos, like a misuse of the self-inducing morphine plunger temporarily used in recovery. Decency thrives in small doses and revels in the most minute ones. Little fanfare ever accompanies either Decency or Dust; both sift in as an inescapable feature of existence, but neither really qualifies as an exclusive diet.

This existence was never properly characterized as a competition. Keeping score rarely properly accounts for impact or influence. A single Act of Decency could overshadow scores of serial indecencies, and a single indecency might discourage even a concerted search to catch even some minor Act of Decency in action. Decency sifts in when we’re not paying attention. Indecencies seem to be in the business of dominating attention. Indecencies trade in prurient interest while Decencies seem more prudent, perhaps even prudish in comparison. It’s damnably difficult to put on airs when your furniture shows that fine patina only Dust imparts. Ditto and more so with Decency.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz