William Merritt Chase: Alice (1892)

"It's me, mustering my own Decency for its own sake. That's plenty."

It doesn’t seem fair that Decency doesn’t bestow special privileges on those who practice it. The Decent get sick and die at pretty much the same rate as the indecent do, so Decency might not provide any evolutionary advantage. Likewise, we see Decent people being taken advantage of, despite their good records. Decency also seems like a difficulty when compared to its alternatives. Just appearing upstanding can prove exhausting, and maintaining a Decent reputation can sometimes seem life-threatening. Those who cut corners without remorse might seem to inhabit the most advantageous universe. Someone else absorbs their overhead costs while Decency spends extra resources dotting their ‘t’s and crossing their ‘i’s. Why?

The MotiveToDecency mystifies me. I do not for a second understand what moves me to strive to land on Decency’s side, but I do. I watch myself seeking that point. I have not accumulated anything like a king’s ransom of goodwill as a result. My Decency has apparently been something I engaged in for its own benefit. It has not produced a leverageable asset. Were I to take my accumulated Decency to the bank, I could not secure a loan with it. It doesn’t pay my mortgage. Nor does it directly contribute to putting any food on the table. It is apparently not fungible, either. Whatever my Decency might be, it’s not easily replaced with any other substance, however notional. I know more about its presence than anyone else ever has, and should anyone mention it, I respond with a blushing, “Ah, shucks.” I hardly acknowledge any personal knowledge of its presence.

There’s no tangible return on Decency. In a capitalist economy, it should rightfully be about as rare as hawk teeth, yet it seems common. It’s dependable. Generally, if I rely upon the Decency of my fellows, I’m only rarely disappointed. The default value of human interaction tends to be Decent. We are not mongrels trying to eat each other, but Decent beings striving to protect each other instead. Few ever mention this. We pray for protection from evils that hardly exist, but neglect to explicitly appreciate all the freaking Decencies surrounding us. Nobody’s checking to see how current our Decency might be when we meet. We presume it’s active, and rarely depart disappointed. There are unscrupulous actors, though. We possess few defenses against those. They seem to operate with impunity, possessing an annoying immunity to consequences. Most of us can’t imagine how they live with themselves, because Decency, however intangible, nonetheless serves as foundational in our lives, especially in our relationships. We quite literally couldn’t thrive without it.

Maybe that’s the MotiveToDecency. We dimly perceive how essential it proves to be, despite apparently bestowing no tangible evolutionary advantages. We notice it most when it goes missing because its absence leaves a glaring hole in our existence. The Great Again crowd takes advantage of Decency’s inherent blindness to its own absence. We’d grown complacent in its reliable presence. It alarms us when it fails to manifest. We can’t quite imagine indecency’s presence. It easily takes mean advantage of us. Their motive was never fairness. Indecency seeks dominion more than it ever pursues communion. Decency considers this to be inhuman.

The MotiveToDecency might be the evolutionary imperative. Experience should have taught us that indecency poorly serves our survival, that it undermines necessary social fabric. We need not behave like dogs seeking to devour one another. We should have grown beyond that self-destructive so-called survival strategy. I choose to see this brief suspension of forward evolution as the final confirmation that we’ve grown beyond such notions. Certainly, there will likely always be pockets of indecency, but the future bodes poorly for any future attempts to organize indecency on a threatening level, or so I hope. I’m not the praying kind, though, because I believe I know the source of Decency, and it’s no heavenly inspiration offering anybody eternal salvation. It’s me, mustering my own Decency for its own sake. That’s plenty.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz