As you can probably tell from yesterday’s posts, I was feeling surly and fed up with the disrespectful people that were interfering in our lives (e.g. squash thieves and annoying, unemployed, loud, pothead neighbors).  Today I’m over it, but I still feel the need to bring up a couple of things.  First, I keep thinking about how I’d handle the squash theft if Holden was a bit older and capable of understanding that someone had taken our veggies without asking.  Obviously I don’t want to encourage him to hold on to anger indefinitely when it doesn’t do anything to change what’s been done.  At the same time, though, I think it’s important for him to understand that you can’t tolerate being taken advantage of.  How would I explain to him the reason for someone stealing?  Would I suggest that the person was hungry and needed the food?  Nope—I don’t think I would.  Because I think that such an explanation justifies and supports the behavior.  I don’t want my kid thinking that he can take another kid’s Twinkies granola just because he is hungry and feels like it.  Additionally, it would be too much to expect a young child to understand the existence of social programs that are in place to feed people who need it, and that stealing food when there are soup kitchens less than a mile from the garden is like double-dipping.  This explanation is too abstract for a young child.  Would I instead explain that there are just assholes in this world?  Just people who do things for their own selfish needs without regard for others?  I mean, the concept of asshole isn’t really that abstract.  It has a figurative meaning as well as a literal meaning that does a decent job of promoting the proper imagery.  To explain poor behavior as “Well, he or she is just an asshole,” is succinct, accurate, and above all, lacking in the nuance that young children often have difficulty grasping.  I know that some people cringe at the thought of telling a young child that there are bad people in this world.  But you know what?  We have to face that reality at one point or another.  And if you introduce them to this concept at a young age, it won’t be such a shock to them later on when they are at work, surrounded by LOTS of assholes.  

Aside from how to deal with these delicate situations when children are involved, the whole community garden episode and our condominium living frustrations got me thinking about a class I took in college.  The class was offered through the philosophy department and was centered on the concept of “Community.”  It sounds like one of those superfluous, basket-weaving-esque courses that would guarantee all participants an A+, but in fact, it was one of the more challenging and interesting courses I took in my four years of college.  We were assigned a TON of very thought-provoking readings that delved into the role of community in education, social services, healthcare, law, and negotiating and resolving conflicts between groups of people when their religious, economic, and socio-cultural mores clashed.  And of course, any class on Community HAS to include reading by Wendell Berry.  We read “Sex, Economy, Freedom, & Community,” a collection of essays dealing with our relationship to the land, the benefits of supporting a local economy, and the consequences of becoming further removed from the process of making our own food:

I haven’t read this collection of essays since college (about 8 years ago), but I am beginning to wonder what Wendell Berry would say about the theft of food from a community garden plot.  Would he say that it is a small price to pay for the privilege of growing one’s own food?  Would he say that theft, even in a community garden, goes against the spirit of sustainability and helping your garden neighbors?  I need to remember who I lent my copy of this book to, because now I’m feeling antsy to revisit some of these issues, especially in light of our experiences with the community garden.