To the Editor:
To paraphrase the golden rule, treat others as you’d like to be treated. When I was a child, my mother explained that freedom did not mean you could yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater. I took that to mean that I couldn’t do what I wanted, when I wanted if that put others in danger. Rather, I had a responsibility to others to take their well-being into consideration. This was just common sense. Tell the truth. Don’t unnecessarily endanger others. It is not freedom to possibly harm others by ignoring public health warnings or by treating others as you would not want to be treated. Surprisingly, it turns out that this is not common sense to many people but extraordinarily important for a safe, fair, just life for all in our society.
Sincerely,
Judy Ullman
Portsmouth, N.H.
Judy:
How charmingly old-fashioned, we say, in a tone devoid of irony.
Having lived now long enough to have a few vague recollections of the Truman Administration, in our estimation the general curdling of our social norms was caused not by the villified juvenile delinquents of the ’fifties, but the exhortations of that era’s Mad(ison Avenue) Men. Drawing on lessons learned from Woodrow Wilson’s WW I-era propagandists (Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, &c.), corporations poked and prodded everyone’s ids to stimulate their spending.
The Editor