Two cafeteria workers:
“Look at these bags. They’re always trying to find the cheapest stuff for us to use. Well, I just put one inside another.”
“It has to be Bertha; she’s the one who does the ordering. And I think she thinks she’s the boss.”
Two professors:
“So what if he publishes many papers? Aren’t they mostly the work of his graduate assistants. He’s going after an endowed chair. When he gets one, he’ll have an unending supply of eager young assistants willing to have their work subsumed by his. Then he’ll show up to give an opening lecture from yellowed notes before he leaves the actual teaching to those assistants. He will claim he is too busy with his 'important' research.”
“You have to hand it to him. He knows how to milk the system for his own aggrandizement.”
Two mechanics:
“We’re not going to be able to fix these new cars without a new diagnostic computer, but he won’t get one for the shop.”
“I’m already lookin’ to get that job at the dealership. They have better tools, hours, and pay.”
Questions and comment:
Does it really matter what station in life anyone has? Isn’t “important v. trivial” relative? Bags or computers? The intensity of feeling can be identical regardless of the nature or venue of the objects (bags, diagnostic computers, endowed chair) under discussion.
You and I:
You argue, “But just dealing with the accoutrements of any job isn’t the same. Someone at CERN might discuss the strength of a magnetic coil necessary in an experiment that will unravel the nature of the universe. Someone driving a garbage truck might discuss work gloves. There’s an obvious difference.”
I say, “Yes--To you!”
In the news:
On February 18, 2018, The New York Post (and other media) reported the arrest of a twenty-year-old woman who shot and killed another driver over a traffic incident.* Call it road rage girl gone wild. However you want to label it, the incident centers on the difference between the important and the trivial. Look at daily crime reports. More of the same, often resulting in the destruction of property, injury, and death.
The next time you observe others in conflict or think about your own conflicts, simply ask, “Is this important or trivial?” I know. You will tell me that in the “heat of the moment” anything can seem to be important. All right, you have a point. But what if we put the emphasis on how trivial something is rather than on how important it is. What if we have a Scale of Triviality as a base for our ethics and interactions? We have a tendency to think of rising levels of importance. Why not increasing levels of triviality. Train your brain to view the scale of importance upside down. Maybe the next “heat of the moment” won’t be very hot.
*Lapin, Tamar. Woman accused of fatally shooting driver for cutting her off. February 18, 2018. New York Post online at https://nypost.com/2018/02/18/woman-fatally-shot-driver-for-cutting-her-off-cops/
“Look at these bags. They’re always trying to find the cheapest stuff for us to use. Well, I just put one inside another.”
“It has to be Bertha; she’s the one who does the ordering. And I think she thinks she’s the boss.”
Two professors:
“So what if he publishes many papers? Aren’t they mostly the work of his graduate assistants. He’s going after an endowed chair. When he gets one, he’ll have an unending supply of eager young assistants willing to have their work subsumed by his. Then he’ll show up to give an opening lecture from yellowed notes before he leaves the actual teaching to those assistants. He will claim he is too busy with his 'important' research.”
“You have to hand it to him. He knows how to milk the system for his own aggrandizement.”
Two mechanics:
“We’re not going to be able to fix these new cars without a new diagnostic computer, but he won’t get one for the shop.”
“I’m already lookin’ to get that job at the dealership. They have better tools, hours, and pay.”
Questions and comment:
Does it really matter what station in life anyone has? Isn’t “important v. trivial” relative? Bags or computers? The intensity of feeling can be identical regardless of the nature or venue of the objects (bags, diagnostic computers, endowed chair) under discussion.
You and I:
You argue, “But just dealing with the accoutrements of any job isn’t the same. Someone at CERN might discuss the strength of a magnetic coil necessary in an experiment that will unravel the nature of the universe. Someone driving a garbage truck might discuss work gloves. There’s an obvious difference.”
I say, “Yes--To you!”
In the news:
On February 18, 2018, The New York Post (and other media) reported the arrest of a twenty-year-old woman who shot and killed another driver over a traffic incident.* Call it road rage girl gone wild. However you want to label it, the incident centers on the difference between the important and the trivial. Look at daily crime reports. More of the same, often resulting in the destruction of property, injury, and death.
The next time you observe others in conflict or think about your own conflicts, simply ask, “Is this important or trivial?” I know. You will tell me that in the “heat of the moment” anything can seem to be important. All right, you have a point. But what if we put the emphasis on how trivial something is rather than on how important it is. What if we have a Scale of Triviality as a base for our ethics and interactions? We have a tendency to think of rising levels of importance. Why not increasing levels of triviality. Train your brain to view the scale of importance upside down. Maybe the next “heat of the moment” won’t be very hot.
*Lapin, Tamar. Woman accused of fatally shooting driver for cutting her off. February 18, 2018. New York Post online at https://nypost.com/2018/02/18/woman-fatally-shot-driver-for-cutting-her-off-cops/
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