Stream of consciousness ... dogs and democracy

This is a wandering stream of ideas that took me—improbably—from a trotting dog to the meaning (and distortion) of democracy. Jump on in! 

Recently, walking along a local bike path, I saw a woman who was walking her dog. Well, actually, she was jogging her dog. This was a really well-behaved dog, trotting neatly beside her human. As I watched them, I thought, “That dog hasn’t been formally trained.” I knew this because the dog was trotting on her human’s right side. Formally trained dogs are on the person’s left. So then, I asked myself, “Why should dogs be on the left anyway?”  “Convention,” I answered. But why? Why this convention and not another? Presumably, I figured, to keep the right hand free for other things.

Pondering on this, I was reminded of other “conventions” designed around handedness. For example, the handshake evolved in the Western world as a right-handed gesture to prove that neither party has a weapon. So a right-handed shake is a sign of friendship, of peace. And why would a right-handed shake be any better than a left-handed shake? Because most people (about 90%) are right handed. So that’s where the weapon would be. Or, in this case, would demonstrably not be.

This got me thinking about examples of preferences for the right hand in everyday life. (And any left-handed person can tell you there are many.) Consider scissors. We cut accurately with scissors by sighting along the sharp lower edge. (You may not realize you do this – try it out.) But for lefties, regular scissors are difficult to use because the upper blade obscures their ability to see the cutting edge. Or can openers—the old-fashioned hand-cranked ones. If you’re right handed, try to use one left handed. You’ll see that it’s possible, but you’ll also see that’s  it’s designed for righties. Remember pay phones, the kind you no longer see—in phone booths on the street corner or lobbies of hotels? They're so 20th century, they're hardly worth considering. But trust me: they were designed for righties. Think also of golf clubs, baseball gloves, power tools (what do these choices say about me…?), place settings at the table … and on and on.

So I was walking along pondering these things, and I thought about my father. I imagined having a conversation with him about the right-hand bias in the world. I feel sure that he would have said something like, “It’s not a bias. It’s just realistic. Most people are right handed, so you make things right handed. You can’t make separate can openers for everyone, for Pete’s sake! You do what works for the majority of people.” He, of course, was right handed.

I thought about that line: “You do what works for the majority of people.” And I was struck by the similarity between that phrase and a common (if simplistic) rendition of democracy: “The majority rules.” It seems that this is the understanding of democracy that is supported by the Tea Party and other social conservatives—“the majority rules.”  And, in the case of handedness, as my imagined father pointed out, “most people are right handed. You do what works for most people.” The parallels are easy to see.

It suddenly struck me how easily this very common definition of democracy—seen in dog training, scissors, and handshakes—can be used to justify our assorted biases against “minority” folks. We do what works for most people. To heck with lefties. That’s democracy. 

This isn't a new thought, of course. From the beginning of this nation (and before), people have warned about “the tyranny of the majority.” Recently none other than Rachel Maddow tweeted a caution about the “will of the majority” in matters of human rights.

It just hit me on a new and very concrete level. The majority rules. It actually appears to make prejudice and unequal treatment the "democratic" thing to do, the "patriotic" thing to do. Democracy, the great leveler, the philosophy that sees everyone as equal, reshaped into a tool of bias.

And that's the story of my journey that day. All from seeing a well-behave dog trotting along the bike path.

On her human’s right side!

Anarchy!