Safety Dance

I wrote this two years ago in an attempt at creating a parable. Parkville, Riverside, and Platte Woods are small communities directly adjacent to Kansas City, Missouri.

 

The leader of a land we'll call Parkville decided he or his representatives needed to secretly read the mail coming to each citizen of Parkville from any source in a land we'll call Riverside, with whom Parkville's leader and his representatives were having a feud. An ordinance was passed which established that this procedure could occur, but only with an OK from a special council appointed by the Board of Aldermen to review each case. Furthermore, it was determined that only a small portion of the subject mail would be read. It was seen that this procedure would prevent even the appearance that Parkville's leader (who was known to supporters and detractors alike by the nickname "Phi") was abusing his authority by reading mail coming from Platte Woods, for example, or using this procedure to spy on his political rivals.

 

The special council was not given to shows of willfulness, so they duly approved all but a couple out of several hundred requests coming from Phi. However, the day came that Phi, who had assumed office under what might euphemistically be termed "unusual" circumstances, decided that he didn't want to get the special council's approval sometimes, because doing so made him feel like a wimp. So Phi and his representatives (we'll call them the IMPs) read much of the mail coming from Riverside, as well as some from other municipalities, without approval from the special council. What the special council didn't know wouldn't hurt them. And who would ever find out, anyway?

 

Of course, as often occurs when too much secrecy is demanded, there was a leak. Word that Phi and the IMPs were reading much of the mail coming from Riverside, as well as some from other municipalities, without the approval of the special council, reached an intrepid reporter from the Parkville Luminary. This reporter knew there could be trouble if such news was printed, but, ignoring the fear of reprisal, the Luminary broke the story.

 

Instead of being embarrassed by this news, Phi angrily sniffed that he was entitled to do whatever he wanted. Based on the authority granted to him by what had earlier appeared to be a limited special resolution passed by the Board of Aldermen, Phi claimed supremacy. He declared that a super-secret investigation was going to reveal who had leaked the news to the Luminary. Most scholars of city governance agreed that Phi leader was seriously delusional.

 

However, because of the feud between Riverside and Phi and the IMPs, many of Parkville's residents were jumpy. So jumpy that, combined with the fact that a large percentage of them willingly degraded their own brains and fed their fear by staring at the excited electrons dancing across their televisions, they found it impossible to muster the intellectual firepower or gumption to care whether Phi was breaking the law. Despite the fact that the law was clear and the standards established by Board of Aldermen's ordinance were exceedingly easy to meet, the citizens remained complacent.

 

Now, most of Parkville's residents were wise enough to realize that Phi had achieved his position as a result of special privilege, not on the basis of merit or even average intelligence. However, they liked that he shared in their common vernacular, and that he didn't act like he was more clever than they, plus, he was good at remembering their names (especially those upon whom he'd bestowed special nicknames), and was easy with a slap on the back. Despite his life of privilege, he easily assumed the mantle of "good old boy". Oh, they knew he'd badly mismanaged Parkville's affairs during his tenure (for but one example, through myriad maneuverings, the budget surplus he inherited from his predecessor had been transformed into a huge budget deficit), but they felt easier knowing he and the IMPs were watching out for them against those rabid Riversidians about whom he'd warned so effectively.

 

All the other media outlets in the area lacked the cleverness of the Luminary, of whom they were very jealous. Also, given the fact that they were generally lazy, they simply listened and reported what Phi said without doing much independent verification or critical thinking. As a result, they almost never pointed out that Phi was breaking a law that was an exceedingly easy one with which to comply.

 

Based on their general insecurity and the fact that their thinking had become confused in part by the rapidly moving electrons on their televisions, many (if not a large majority) of Parkville's residents felt that it was OK for Phi and the IMPs to read that part of their mail coming from Riverside. They had nothing to hide, right? A goodly proportion of the this group could be identified by the "Phi" stickers on the backs of their SUVs.

 

This story would have had a much different outcome had it not been for the tireless efforts of the staff at the Luminary. Even though they knew that the other media outlets were failing to report the whole story, and even though they had to deal with the general malaise which had befallen the citizens as a result of the electrons on their televisions, they continued to report on the abuse of power by Phi and the IMPs. As so often happens in these cases, Phi and the IMPs became arrogant (OK, more arrogant). Thinking they could get away with anything, they continued to abuse their power until one from among them got a guilty conscience. The guilt of this individual was enough to influence him/her to collaborate with the Luminary and finally shock the citizens out of their stupor and fear.

 

And a terrible shock it was. The extent of the abuse of power was greater than had ever been seen before, and Phi and the IMPs were swept out of their positions in disgrace. Ironically, it turned out that, instead of being more secure, Parkville's citizens had been made less secure as a result of Phi's policies. And they were reminded that theirs was a community of laws, and that no person was above the law. With the removal of Phi and the IMPs, and with a new sense of purpose, Parkville's citizens (with a lot of help from their little Luminary) set about building a city with a new understanding of how no person is above the law. They also had a new realization of how real, not illusory, security is gained from the relationships engendered within legitimate community.