Editorial October 21, 1991 Issue

Dancing

Allison W. Phinney, Jr.

Such a large part of our lives calls for working together, moving together, cooperating, in order to accomplish something. We live in family groups, neighborhoods. We function as part of an office, a church, a community.

In a way it's like dancing. If two people are dancing, it helps not to step on the other person's toes.

It's obvious enough. But the lesson is apparently lost on many of us much of the time, since over and over people do tend to step on one another's toes. Husbands or wives spend money oblivious of its effect on family hopes and plans. Acquaintances who were thought to be friends let slip demeaning judgments and perspectives. Bosses are hard and uncaring about the extreme effect their demands have on other people's lives. And we ourselves may attempt to force our own sense of what is right on others through personal assertiveness or domination. Then the result is more stumbling than dancing; it never gets beyond rigidity and awkwardness.

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