Open or Shut?

I boarded a fairly empty bus on a warm, sunny day and, all the windows being shut, I opened two of them – one on each side of the vehicle. It was a decisive and, to my mind, reasonable action given the circumstances as I perceived them: the interior was stuffy but the passengers were too inhibited to do anything about it. But come the hour, cometh the man and so I dutifully rescued all of us from suffocation. Nobody said anything at the time but as we alighted at the terminal stop one of them, an old lady, asked me politely whether I didn’t think I had acted inconsiderately.

I conceded that she had a point insofar as I hadn’t conducted an opinion poll before opening the windows but countered that I hadn’t considered my action to be anti-social. She demurred and I apologised for the offence although this failed to assuage her indignation: it seemed she had already made up her mind to lump me into the category of “people these days” who have no consideration for others – which was unsettling because I just don’t see myself that way.

Maybe I was due a bit of correction in that respect but, if we accept that it can be  therapeutic to see yourself as others perceive you, it would also be very enlightening to be able to see others as they perceive themselves. Mind-reading is not one of my skills but my critic on this occasion did reveal one or two clues as to her self-perceived position. As I attempted to channel our exchange into a sociological discussion it became clear that she was unwilling to be persuaded: she was right and I was wrong. Her ultimate statement was that she suffered from arthritis in the neck which could be set off by draughts. I hadn’t thought of that, had I? No, I hadn’t, but how could I be sure it was true? I could see that she would not concede a single point. It was then I noticed the gold crucifix dangling from her neck and gave up on my hopes for a rational argument.

The next day the media were full of those fascinating old photos of mass weddings conducted by the Unification Church. Headlines proclaimed that its founder and leader, Sun Myung Moon, billionaire media owner, sometime political power-broker and enemy of independent thinkers (well, that’s how I see him), had died before I got around to making his acquaintance - thereby denying me a chance to ascertain how he saw himself. And so I can only speculate.

I would have liked to ask him, for a start, how he knew for certain that “There is one living, eternal and true God, a Person beyond space and time, who possesses perfect intellect, emotion and will, whose deepest nature is heart and love, who combines both masculinity and femininity, who is the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness, and who is the creator and sustainer of man and the universe and of all things visible and invisible” because this statement is both an article of faith and an unsubstantiated story which usefully eliminates the need to think rationally about a difficult concept. Did he believe the former and exploit the latter?

I can only see Mr. Moon through the lens of his legacy which leads me to conclude that he was a megalomaniac who, by succeeding in persuading others to regard him as the saviour of mankind, may even have convinced himself that he actually was. He would probably have seen me as no more than a potential donor to his coffers (or, euphemistically, a lost soul in need of salvation).

If it were possible for us to see ourselves as others see us - and for us to see others as they see themselves - we might have a chance of making honest dialogue work towards vanquishing stifling dogmas. I just wanted to open a few windows.