DEFERENCE

I have been thinking about deference. It is a quality I learned as a very young child in my native England, when it was made clear to good little boys like me that "children should be seen and not heard"--an ancient adage (first recorded in the 15th century!) that was seized on and amplified, I have no doubt, by Victorian paterfamilias. It was the unspoken rule that I should always put others first, that I should never make an exhibition of myself or think of myself as in any way more important than those around me.

In many ways it is an admirable, even endearing characteristic. Deference is at the heart of being a "gentleman"--which is what I was brought up to be and in part what others, I believe, found appealing about me as a person as I navigated my way through, now, more than eighty years of life. I joke, quite seriously, about my lifelong inability to walk through a door ahead of any other living being, whether man, woman, child, or dog. I stand back. Even today, at my painfully respectable age, I will insist on everyone going on ahead of me. It is that deeply ingrained.

So there is an obvious disadvantage to this characteristic. At some point I do actually need to get through that door. Besides, my age alone qualifies me to precede the young--particularly young men, who stand aside in vain as I insist on ushering them through. Worse, though, as I can attest through personal experience, deference can breed a secret, seething rage at the heart of even the mostly gentlemanly of gentlemen. It's not a pretty sight when it erupts, as it is prone to do when the repressed ego feels abused.

My upbringing notwithstanding, however, I have learned from the dharma (of all places!) that taking care of myself first is not a reprehensible act of selfishness but rather an essential step on the way to being good to others. As I have learned to  practice it at the start of my daily meditation, metta requires me to send out goodwill to myself before even those closest to me, those I love; and only then to a an ever-expanding circle that reaches out to all living beings. As for deference, no one, I've learned from no less an authority than Thanissaro Bhikkhu, is required to be a doormat. Not even an incorrigible doorman.

Still, the quality of deference--or at least a sense of responsibility to one's fellow world citizens and an appropriately modest assessment of one's place amongst other living beings--is one that I miss in my fellow Americans today. Well, okay, let's admit it: I judge them. Us, In this dire situation in which we find ourselves, in the context of a frighteningly contagious and increasingly fatal disease, it pains me to see how little they... we--yes, I am one now, have been for nearly 50 years!--are concerned for the rights and safety of those with whom we share our country, let alone our planet.

The rights of the individual were an essential part of the founding ethos of still-young America as it made its "declaration of independence" from the tyrannies of the past. No more fealties, except to oneself. All well and good, at a time when space seemed as boundless as the prospect of material well-being and possessions, and rights--if one happened to be masculine, and white--subject to no discernible limitation.

But we live in a very different world today--a crowded world of diminishing opportunity and resources, where we are constrained to vie with each other, to push and shove to satisfy what we perceive to be our needs and assert our rights. It's a time, in my view, when a measure of deference to others would serve the interests of all, but that quality is no longer understood or respected. The unexpected benefit of pandemic that currently afflicts us is to have opened a window onto our mutual dependency, our kindness to each other, our deference to others' needs.

In view of this, it seems to me that we are now approaching a moment of decision about who we are. Will we crush each other in the stampede to reassert our rights and regain such privilege and wealth as we possess? This seems to be one direction--the one embraced, unfortunately, by our leadership. Or will we find the strength to continue down the path of common interest, of mutual responsibility and respect, of deference, in a word, to the needs of those with whom we share this country and this planet? I fear for the former, but still hold out hope for the latter. We are offered the choice, and our survival as a species depends on which choice we make.