Anneliese Hager: Untitled [Portrait A. H.] (1947)

"Attempting to live Decently incurs ever more complicity."

To live is to become complicit. Attempting to live Decently only deepens this dilemma, for one may not insist upon society respecting one’s personal proclivities. Vegans surround themselves with murderers. Choosing to live Decently distances one from some, though it might also bring others closer. The least common denominator seems as unconscionable as it also seems most divisive. No way exists to avoid experiencing this division. The higher the aspiration, the lower the everyday experience. I have cordoned off vast swaths of my community as unworthy of my presence. I won’t shop at Walmart because of their disgustingly indecent business policies toward those they euphemistically call “Their Partners.” I won’t visit the Tractor Supply store since they tried to gain street cred by noisily cancelling their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies under the phony guise of promoting actual equality. I was not born yesterday.

The more I embraced Decency, the more complicit I became. What I once engaged in without concern turned into burning issues. The shop owner here, who killed a fleeing shoplifter who had stolen a belt buckle, lost me as a customer forever. I don’t care how inconvenient cordoning him off might be for me. I won’t associate with someone so utterly devoid of moral character, not if I can help it. I can see that there might be times when I cannot help but resort to visiting his business, but I’ll feel the infraction every second I’m there. I’ll feel as though I’m collaborating with the enemy. My sense of Decency does not seem to be intermittent. Quite the opposite. It haunts me in every waking moment. It demands constant vigilance, and I gladly contribute that, for it must be the price of my chosen brand of liberty.

The idea might be that I won’t have to feel so guilty if I religiously observe these admittedly studied omissions. I do have to tiptoe, questioning which gas station might leave me feeling least complicit after I visit: The one that side-stepped responsibility for the Valdez spill or the one that killed the wildlife off the coast of France? My sense of Decency gets stretched most egregiously when forced into just these sorts of choices. Do I buy the corn-fed beef because that’s what The Muse prefers, or choose a tougher cut of the greener grass-fed stuff, or bypass the beef section altogether in solidarity against the corrupt administration fiddling with the cattle markets and increasing prices? Decency compels me to live as if such choices matter. They do, of course, but perhaps not on the scale I’d wish.

Decency demands such sacrifices, though they do not seem very much like sacrifices in practice. They seem much more like sacraments, rituals reinforcing underlying beliefs. I either live by my convictions or undermine my purpose for being. Of course, few if any of these observances “really” matter. They might be little more than virtue signals reminding me of where I’m falling short of my own expectations. Choosing Decency quite naturally declares me guilty, as I myself charge. Decency might embody original sin, the ability to perceive anything as wrong and any act as somehow confirming complicity. I am continually guilty as charged, even though I try hard to avoid committing additional crimes. If I choose to watch a streaming series on Amazon Prime, I commit the crime of colluding with a heartless billionaire. If I visit the Home Despot, I enrich someone deeply complicit in electing our idiot incumbent. I need not do anything, it seems, to fall prey to some scheme I should have avoided. To live is to become complicit. Attempting to live Decently incurs ever more complicity.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz