I had two favourite conversations last week.
First, a suppertime discussion of the difference between lying and defamation (Being Executive Director of a deeply dysfunctional organization is going great, by the way). Word of advice: when attempting to explain the concept of defamation to a five year old avoid unnecessary legal jargon (a “third party” is “someone else”, “reputation” is “what people think of you”, etc.). I found that the most successful approach is to think of a real world example that they can relate to. In this case, it was Ngila lying about Beatrix breaking a toy to make mommy think that Beatrix was being disobedient. Ngila and Beatrix started suggesting ways they could defame each other. It was a funny conversation because it quickly became clear that it is hard to defame a three and five year old. A three and five year old have done most of the bad things they can think of. When you say someone broke a toy, hit someone else, or took a cookie without asking, so long as you don’t put too fine a point on the timeline, “Beatrix took a cookie” rather than “Beatrix took a cookie yesterday,” you’re pretty much safe because Beatrix has taken cookies and therefore your statement is factual rather than defamatory. Their efforts at defamation were foiled by a combination of crooked pasts and innocent minds.
The other conversation stretched through a gallery at the Library of Congress. We were looking at an exhibit of political cartoon mostly drawn between the late 1930s and the 1970.
Ngila would step forward, point at a cartoon and say, “Daddy, what does that one mean?”
I would launch into “Well, that’s President Kennedy of the United States and Nikita Khrushchev, they are trying to keep a lid on the box because a monster called Nuclear War is trying to get out. They were trying to keep their countries from going to war with nuclear weapons.”
“I thought you said monsters weren’t real.”
“Monsters aren’t real. That monster is a metaphor.”
“What’s a metaphor?
“It’s a comparison that helps you understand what something is like (without using the words like or as, that would be a simile).”
“Okay. What does that one mean?”
And on we went, through the gallery, talking about Richard Nixon, the Vietnam War, McCarthyism, the contrast between the message of West-German socialists and the realities of East Germany, etc.
As a person tending toward intellectual arrogance, it is tempting to take smug satisfaction in my five year old’s interested in the kind of incisive political cartoons that warrant a retrospective in the Library of Congress. But that wouldn’t be true. We’ve sat and looked through Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes books doing exactly the same thing. Incidentally, it is much easier to try and explain political cartoons than the Far Side.
“What does this mean?”
“Well, uh, its funny because the mosquito is a detective.”
“Why is that funny?”
“Because mosquitoes couldn’t be detectives. They don’t have trench coats.”
“Okay. What does this mean?”
As I reflect on it now, Ngila was enjoying having her questions taken seriously. Parents always think we’re victims when inundated with a never-ending series of questions. My answers quickly move from dismissive to hostile, “Ngila, just look out the window! I don’t know why that sign if blue.”
She’d struck pay dirt with political cartoons. I was willing to stand there, contemplate her simple question and give my best answer, over and over as we moved slowly through the gallery. She couldn’t have understood 80% of what I was talking about. These were characters holding positions and doing things she’s never heard of. But she was being dealt with in the manner of someone who was owed a response.
Ambition in life is directly related to our confidence that we have a question worth answering. You can’t be a good scientist without a commitment to a question. You can’t be a good writer without a commitment to the question what happened? Or what happens next? You can’t be a great leader unless you demand to know what if we did it this way? It takes arrogance to think that others should support you in finding your answer.
Kids come pre-packaged with this arrogance. They don’t know that all the good questions have been asked, and anyway, who are they to ask? Parents quickly work to strip them of this arrogance because it’s annoying. We introduce them to television that gives questions packaged with answers (will someone save baby jaguar? We’ll find out in 20 minutes) so the kid doesn’t come bother us with questions they’ve devised themselves. We dismiss them to show them that they shouldn’t have the audacity to ask. And we tell them “I don’t know” over and over again to show them that it’s easier to be incurious and let the blue sign slide by without wondering.
Yesterday I came home from another long week at a job I dislike and Janelle mentioned that she thought I was used to getting things done. It was a strange thing to say because we all know that nothing ever gets done in government. Thinking about it, what I miss is having my questions taken seriously. In Alberta, I’ve wormed my way into a position where people (mostly) have to give me an answer. For the most part, they don’t have to do what I say, but they have to be careful to engage with me for fear that I’ll get someone important to care about my question. It’s my currency at work and, at my job in Washington, I’m broke.
My situation at work bothers me more than I can explain. I guess its because someone spent some time with me in a place like the Library of Congress, coaxing my confidence along with each reply, wasting my time and theirs on topics I couldn’t possibly understand.
