Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes: Por Temor no Pierdas Honor
[Do not lose honour through fear] (1816–19)

"…with ample domain to rule with Decency if I chose."

The Decent possess a superpower the indecent can’t imagine: enough. Indecency might most often emerge due to the presence of some mysterious and overwhelming sense of insufficiency. Everyday temptations can become compulsions under this sense of absence’s malign influence. It might be an illusion either way, the delusions of plenty and scarcity being opposite sides of some self-same coin. Yet the sensation each conviction compels couldn’t be more different. Scarcity, even when (and, perhaps especially when) delusional, easily becomes definitional. Those without enough seem capable of justifying any action with an explanation that it was either necessary or essential rather than merely consequential. Those with plenty, or that innate sense that they possess it, might likewise characterize their actions as necessary or essential, though their effect seems the polar opposite of those ruled by the insidious scarcity mindset.

I’m not suggesting that starving people, for instance, aren’t also capable of Decency, just that those who feel as though they’re suffocating from a sense of want might more easily justify the minor odd indecency, or even justify that lifestyle. Whenever some experience seems like a matter of life or death, something significant does seem to die inside. A sense of impending doom supplants one of possibility, and one might naturally turn more miserly in response. Be wary of those who routinely inflate their choices into life-or-death ones, for they tend to be the most dangerous to themselves and others. Safety, even if it’s “just” a sense, resolves more crises than any other single source. When The Muse and I were consultants and had to facilitate another “difficult conversation,” we’d seek first to make the space safe for thoughtful consideration. Threatening those already overwhelmed never once worked, for it only amplified the sense that there was not nearly enough to go around.

One key for experiencing Decency comes from understanding how to deliberately Lose in order to gain an experience of a different order. The herd mind might seek an ever-elusive safety, one that can’t emerge around so many panicky animals. The choice not taken often proves to be the one most likely to lead to a sense of salvation, but majority voting tends to steadfastly avoid that choice. The minority opinion, the one that usually loses elections, offers options beyond the obvious, but one must choose to Lose to experience them. The apparently most pleasing or obvious solution often ignores otherwise avoidable externalities. They succeed only in a narrow short run, or they transform a potential win/win into a zero-sum. Either one of those transformations sidesteps an opportunity to inject Decency into the proceedings. Sure, they might produce a straightforward resolution, but one that poorly serves some constituency, so it more easily falls apart. Choosing to Lose often proves to produce longer-lasting Decencies.

The whole concept of Lose and Win seems questionable when considering Decency. As I outlined yesterday in Win, Decency easily gets chased away in competition. Competing can subtly (or not so subtly) encourage throat-cutting, cheating by any other term. Those who cheat at solitaire not only take advantage of themselves, but they also train themselves to tolerate shaving hairs. They reengineer their self-esteem so that it only depends upon winning, whatever the cost. The cost tends to be considerable and always unaccounted for at first, perhaps unaccountable for then. There’s rarely a good enough reason not to cut that corner in the moment the idea to cut that corner hatches. The counter-argument gestates longer than the impulse and depends upon some sixth or seventh sense in the instant it might contribute any good to this world. It’s an innate, nurtured sense of plenty, as if you could well afford to lose plenty and still feel wealthy beyond imagination. That sense reliably produces Decency in this world.

Yesterday was the second No Kings celebration all around the world. All reports proclaim that they were peaceful “protests” without much hint of violence. One woman in our march was screaming her fool head off with grievance. It was clear that she had reached her maximum tolerance. She floated F-bombs enough to sour the atmosphere immediately surrounding her, and I felt pleased when she hung back at a busy intersection to scream at passing traffic. The rest of us marched, occasionally mouthing protest rhymes, though most of us were Decently silent, as if our presence might have been enough of a statement. I felt that deep sense of camaraderie that reliably emerges when like-minded Decency appears. We proclaimed that there were no kings while separately and together modeling our own kingship of sorts. We sure seemed powerful. We didn’t require anybody to be humiliated to successfully navigate our route. Rather than No Kings, I left with a sense that I was a king myself, with ample domain to rule with Decency, if I chose.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz