In every human relationship, from public to personal, there is a specific territory, which an anthropologist would define as “region of critical distance”, that describes a flexible space which people perceive as a comfort zone. You may not notice critical distance until you cross it, but as a foreigner inevitably you will, when you accidentally cross its invisible boundaries. My thesis is that, not only is this distance significantly different in America from the one we are accustomed to in our Italian culture, but does this distance impose diverse expectations on different observers. Before I get on with this subject, let me make a declaration of fairness. There is no system of rule, which is intrinsically better than another. All systems are based on well-ingrained habits and all systems have advantages and disadvantages. But our cultural bias does not allow us to gain a deeper understanding of a foreign culture – not until we step into someone else’s shoes. Thus, the point of observing diversity is not to point fingers around but to raise awareness, and foster mutual understanding and tolerance. When we eat a bad pizza, we know it because we remember what a good pizza tastes like. Americans experience the same lack of comfort when they fly Alitalia or when they rent a hotel room with a less than perfect shower. They are used to different standards of punctuality and expectation, and who can blame them?
This time, I want to talk about a behavior I noticed the other day when I was driving home. As a sign of respect to our American readers, let me say that we preach better over our own old sins. Let me also mention that, however bad, the traffic in any U.S. city is a paradise of orderly and well-behaved drivers in comparison to what we experience in Italy on any given day. What I mean to say is that I am not as good a driver as I should be, even after more than two decades outside the Italian traffic madness. I give you an example: in the US, a smooth driver is one who easily goes with the flow; in Italy, it is the one who never uses the breaks. Back to critical distance, in this country getting too close to strangers and colleagues, and, in a more moderate way, even to friends and companions is considered impolite, and in certain cases rude. You may see its manifestation from those people who bend over when they hug, in the extreme attempt to maintain critical distance. The American bar is the classic place where that distance is broken in public. The operation is achieved by a trick: loud music, so loud you have to lean over and talk directly in the ear of the other person in order to be heard. Loud music is also there to temper the embarrassment of not being adept to conversation with strangers. These are facts.
I deem the first as a decent reason to put up with such unbearable decibel volume, since it has a non-discriminatory effect. Strangely, the same approach at the office will spur harassment charges. But in society, the invisible principles which rule the distance kept in informal conversation, apply equally to the distance of your garbage bin from the neighbor’s driveway or car, to the distance of your house from the next one (curiously called, setback), or of one subway passenger from the other, or of one bank teller from the next one. This character is so ubiquitous that it is almost difficult to notice. As a result, in the eyes of an European, the American culture critically lacks density both physically and conceptually. Conversely, no one could miss to notice the beastly assault to an Italian bank teller or to a Post Office window, a true war-zone, which has no resemblance to a line. Chaos and prevarication over the weak and the unfit are the reigning rules there. Use your elbows or you may be the last customer to be attended. Even the system of numbers is subject to an underground lottery, which manages to buy the right to the first twenty turns, or so, before opening time. So, for instance, you get to the bank half an hour before it opens, and, with no one in sight when you get there, you are twenty first on line when the doors open. It’s magic! Or it may be done in order to allow every bank employee to gossip, get coffee and relax during the first half an hour. I don’t know! The underlying concept, however, remains the same: in Italy everyone hates to work. So things happen which are apparently unrelated to “the concept.” But nobody in Europe seems to mind the extreme proximity of others. This behavior is cultural and it pervades Italian life.
As a result, privacy in Italy is virtually non-existent. Europeans have opted to trade it for the numerous advantages of the concentration of services, which promote convenience, safety and availability. Europeans are so accustomed to such close quarters that they miss the sense of comfort and company that derives from the proximity of others when they move to a diluted and non-integrated society like the U.S. In the U.S. it is hard to experience any pressure from the society. People tend to mind their own business, and with no members of their families around, individuals are often quite on their own. Dependence on services and solitude are the by-products of urban sprawl. Paradoxically, taking independence to its extreme manifestation results in solitude and dependence on basic services.
The vast and still largely uninhabited U.S. territory has allowed each individual to have his own private space and express himself as he or she pleases, without fear of disturbing others. Autonomy is an exciting characteristic and a disappointing one at the same time, if you just consider one of its most questionable by-products: the monotonous and uniform vastness of the American suburbia. But Americans praise their privacy and defend its space with all possible means. Communion is not an important issue, autonomy is! As a result, on this side of the ocean, privacy is taken very seriously and any breaching of it is a failure to understand what is going on and a blatant lack of consideration toward others. Unwarranted closeness generates in quick progression tension, uneasiness, disturbance, agitation, irritation, and under restricted circumstances, it can trigger the most bizarre and irrational reactions. The moral: watch your distance!
The vehicular traffic offers circumstances, which perfectly fit this model. Have you ever witnessed the following? A car driver will not yield to someone trying to cut through his path, even if he is still one hundred yards away, with plenty of time for him to slow down, change lanes, apply some breaks, or allow anything out of the ordinary to take place. Instead, if you are cutting through anyone’s intended path, and expect the driver to slow down, depending on the age of the former, you are about to get honked, yelled at, or squashed like a bug. American drivers are not used to handling interferences and do not know how to react. People at a party, same thing! Thus, if you want to live long, I recommend that you do not overestimate the time-reaction of an American driver. My personal impression is that he (and she) would be almost happier to hit you, just to make a statement. The rule is: stay out of their freaking way or you will get run over. My next question is: what happens to those who cannot abide to the ongoing rule if they are experiencing an emergency or an unforeseen event? Lost directions, or a cup of coffee spilled over the seat! Well, the oncoming driver couldn’t care less. In view of a prospective obstacle, rather than applying the breaks, he or she would actually accelerate and rush to the intersection and loudly honk at the unfortunate or careless passerby, simply to underscore the aggravation caused by his stupid attempt. I have seen it hundreds of times, and I can state with precision that Americans, especially Southerners, have an agenda and do not like interferences.
On behalf of good behavior, I have already pronounced that our hypothetical passerby is not supposed to cross the traffic at that time. He is supposed to wait, until all is clear (which at rush hour can imply unacceptably long waits). This is the unwritten law! However, even laws must permit some flexibility, otherwise, making mistakes such as being in a rush, being confused, distracted or even temporarily oblivious, would be unaccountable, unacceptable behaviors. Think about it, if all the traffic rules were applied rigidly, traffic would come to a halt! For instance, you would never be able to come out of a parking lot in rush hour traffic. In fact, policemen are employed during rush hour for such tedious task. In Italy, this would be considered a waste of manpower. My point is that only the courtesy of those occasional drivers who seem to enjoy yielding at others can allow the traffic a democratic flow.
Now, I would like to think that all of us are aware of the extreme unfairness of expressing our cultural judgment over these autochthonous rules. If one looks at the same scene through the European lens, it would appear that it would cost very little to the first driver to use some kindness and allow others to wander occasionally outside the rigid rules of traffic. Instead, as all of us have experienced, an American driver would rush to the point of interference as quickly as possible in order to make his statement. Incidentally, this behavior is extremely dangerous because: a) it doesn’t alter the position of the interfering vehicle b) it precipitates an innocuous situation into a potentially dangerous one; c) it creates a scenario for an accident; and, if I am permitted to say, d) it looks callous and utterly anti-social. But, regardless of our judgment, the core question remains unaltered: what is it that has been broken there? The right to be left alone in one’s path? Or was it an invisible broken, an unwritten law that anyone is supposed to abide to, even if someone’s emergency is causing no significant pain or delay to others? Why would an European observer invariably assess that the honking driver lacks courtesy, when the American driver would invariably find that the unkind and disturbing one is the interfering driver? Ultimately, what does an interference mean? And, if you permit me to extrapolate from this example, where does an interference with one’s life start? Is it your mom’s questioning you when you come home, visibly troubled, and she gives you the third degree, because she knows that bottling up your feelings is bad news? But even in the absence of mothers and fathers, what kind of human being is truly supposed to be left alone in their path, and why? Aren’t all of us looking for the presence of others, and a gesture of courtesy?
I am just here to raise questions.
Arturo G. Pirrone