An anecdotal theory of interpersonal behavior

-- By MattBurke - 18 May 2015

Introduction

Someday, I’d like to write a compendium of wrong ideas—Lamarckian transformation, Ptolemaic geocentrism, and Aquinian scholasticism. My thesis: Each wrong idea struggles to formulate some truth until the truth becomes incompatible with the idea that formulates it. The formula, though essential, is essentially incidental. The struggle to understand produces the greater insight. But my compendium is a long game. I mention it here to help introduce a wrong idea of my own: We desire others to accept for us that which we struggle to accept about ourselves.

Anecdote 1: A speech

When I was nine, my parents separated. After, I had trouble in school, frequent fights, diminished quality of work, that sort of thing. My mother took me to a therapist. At our first meeting, the therapist told me a story: A man came to her office with a boa constrictor around his neck. Whenever the therapist tried to engage the man, he would ask her to pet the snake. So, the therapist told the man to put the snake down, or she would not help him.

Of her story, I understood that because snakes were scary, she was brave. Bravery was good, I thought. But I didn’t understand who needed to be brave, the therapist, myself, or someone else. And so I concluded that I had missed the point. It is a feeling, that of missing the point, I frequently felt as a child, and one I often still feel.

I continued not knowing her point for nearly fifteen years until my first year as a high school teacher. I was in the office during a free period. I might as well claim to have been making copies or grading, but likely I was just hanging out because the office had air conditioning. A student entered. He’d just misbehaved—sworn at his geometry teacher. The principal was in a meeting, so the secretary instructed the student to wait. After a while, a senior teacher, who I’ll call Peterson, passed through the office. Peterson was something of a mentor to me then, and I watched to see if and how he would engage the student.

I watched Peterson’s posture and expression as he deduced the student’s transgression from the student’s posture and expression. “Get into a fight with a teacher?” Peterson asked. The student nodded. Then the student explained: The teacher had mistakenly accused the student of another student’s misdeeds. Peterson gave the student a familiar speech about respect even when a teacher makes a mistake. The speech was right. I understood it, so did the student. But the student also held his justification close, the teacher was wrong, the student was right, and no speech would change that.

After Peterson left, I asked the student what he thought of his geometry teacher, the one at whom he’d cursed. He told me. I nodded and listened, but I didn’t reply.

Anecdote 2: A question

In my second year, a student I’ll call Jon appeared in my class. It was in the middle of the period. He was a transfer. He introduced himself by shouting a profanity before finding his seat.

I held him after class and gave a speech. But my speech meant the same thing to him as his profanity had to me. An announcement: This is who I am. After my speech, we talked.

We talked frequently. Often removed from class, I’d find him pacing the hallway and walk with him up past classroom doors. I’d find him in the office and hand him a stack of papers and a red pen. He’d grade some. I’d grade others. He told me about his family, his brothers in jail, and his father in Nevada. He talked about Nevada—his house had a backyard, he had his own room. We’d play cards.

Eventually they suspended Jon for stealing a teacher’s purse. He didn’t do it. He was with another student who did, but the other student pinned it on Jon, and Jon took the fall. In New York City, students serve suspensions for severe infractions in specially designated off-site centers. Jon stayed in a center for the remainder of the year. Infractions while there lengthened his term.

I saw him again the next year. But this time, when he appeared in my class, he found his seat wordlessly. He seemed older. He raised his hand and answered correctly. After class, he stayed behind. I told him I was glad to see him. He was glad to be back. I asked him about his suspension. He didn’t reply.

Then he asked me if believed in heaven. I said: “Why?” He said: “I don’t.” I didn’t reply.

Then he asked me: “Is it okay to join a gang?” When I said "no," it missed the point.

Conclusion

I put the second anecdote in my law school personal statement. There, it was about society, about "social problems." I didn’t use the word “aporia” because it didn’t fit the tone, but the meaning would’ve been right. As to the first anecdote, this is the first time I’ve joined the two scenes that form it—the realization upon which I premised the story is one I had while writing it, not, as I claim, while experiencing it. Together they relocate the aporia I previously located in society into people—the desire for something from another that none can give.

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