You know, I’m a fan of Lonesome Dove. I find a lot of meaning in Larry McMurtry’s characters. One character in particular reflects an individual who floats through life using situations, people, and opportunities to his advantage. Jake Spoon is what Augustus McCrae calls a leaky vessel, someone you just simply can’t count on to be there or to do things right. In a fateful scene in the movie, we can see the struggle Jake faces with personal responsibility. When Gus accuses him of crossing the line between being a citizen or an outlaw, his response is one with which perhaps many individuals today can relate.
“I didn’t see no line, Gus.”
In life we come against a lot of lines – lines which separate organization from chaos, good from bad, happy from sad, and life from death. As a society we have drawn lines. Some are helpful. They help us live peacefully together, such as lines of law and order. Others help us establish boundaries – city limits, county lines, state lines, and property lines. Often lines can help to keep us safe – caution lines, traffic lines, and fence lines. Other lines help entertain us – I’m thinking of goal lines, free-throw lines, and finish lines.
Other lines aren’t helpful at all, like the lines we draw between ourselves. Lines which classify us, and divide us – race, ethnicity, age, sex, politics, and religion. These aren’t lines we’ve drawn for positive use in our society, they are lines which have become walls to separate us from each other. These are the lines that many hope to erase within our society, our country, and the world.
Still, there are some lines which need to be there to keep society functioning. Society has to have boundaries to function effectively. Whether those lines are those we create as individuals (courtesy, respect, tolerance) or those which we follow as laws. We elect leaders of government to help us set boundaries upon our society fairly. We have a constitution which sets forth parameters for us as a society and for our government. These lines restrict the government from imposing upon our freedoms.
Sometimes we draw self-imposed lines. For example, we have a freedom of speech, but we impose lines upon ourselves to govern the way we use it or to control how our speech impacts others. We have the right to say nearly anything, but (at least sometimes) we choose to control our conversation as individuals, not as mandated by government. These are lines of courtesy and respect which we show towards others within our society. Maybe we have drawn lines for ourselves that we just won’t cross – lines that keep us from lying, stealing, cheating, or hurting others.
Respecting the property rights of others – not walking on their grass, not taking what doesn’t belong to us, and not damaging what belongs to our neighbors – is a line which can be drawn by both the individual and by government. Laws maybe written in a way to draw lines of protection around such property. Or we might simply show respect and draw the lines ourselves.
It seems these lines which help us function as a society are becoming harder and harder to find. Poor behavior, disrespect, and hateful speech seem to erase them, or at least cloud them. Much of the critical structure of our society, these lines and boundaries which we place upon our actions, speech, and attitudes, comes from personal responsibility. Not every rule which governs the way we act toward and with others should be written by lawmakers. Some of them should come from shear personal responsibility; they come from within. Yet personal responsibility comes from what we learn from our parents, our teachers, our ministers, and our society. If those people fail to pass on the rules of society, it makes it much harder for us to learn how to function together.
In my opinion, social media has played a huge role in erasing those lines. It serves as a platform for individuality – me speak – and creates space between individuals (whether real or imagined). The feel of anonymity and freedom which comes with the use of social media, actually plays a role in the breakdown of social structure. True, it has its ability to bring us together when used in a positive manner, but it taps into a place inside the individual which seems to embolden and promote this sweeping away of the lines we used to govern our personal actions, speech, and manners.
Still, this can’t be the excuse. Sometimes, we have to use reason to determine how to act, speak, and respond to others. Sometimes we have to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Perhaps the golden rule still has a role in society, even as religion is also being erased from the square. Maybe, we need to step back and see our neighbor not as an enemy, opponent, or a danger to our way of thinking, but as a human being. Too much has been done to damage our society in the name of protecting it. There are somethings which are out of our control, but when it comes to personal responsibility, we have to look for the lines in order to follow the lines.
