When an orange upset the apple cart
‘CIVILITY” recently popped into my head in response to a crossword puzzle clue, “politeness”. Even as I filled in the boxes, I thought it an awkward fit.
Civility, a somewhat old-fashioned word today, sadly, is associated in my mind with the rise of the city state, when, arguably, people of different backgrounds had to find some way to get along with each other in the no-man’s land of cities.
We live in a time when we can reasonably expect to walk down the street or drive along the road safely and relatively pleasantly. We all know that it has not always been so, but when that veneer of mutual co-operation or forbearance gets peeled away, we are surprised and rightly worried because we realise how tenuous and how limited our own abilities to put it back in place.
Iain Sutherland’s pamphlet, The War of the Orange or the True Story of Sabaid Mhor Inbhir – Uig, a detailed analysis of civil unrest in Wick in 1859 (and a good read as well), is a good case study because time has filtered the immediate polarized, politicised reactions. Iain explains that the August day had begun “like any other during the great summer herring fishery” and that despite the massive influx of people, which resulted in an increase in the resident population from 6000 to 15000, for 25 years Wick had lived with this seasonal alteration amicably enough. Indeed, after this incident for another decade things carried on uneventfully.
An orange upset the apple cart. The incident that precipitated several days of violence, including stabbings, stemmed from a misplaced orange. A young boy dropped an orange; a larger boy picked it up and refused to return it. A fight ensued.
The young boy cried out in Gaelic to two adults of his acquaintance nearby for help. The fight was stopped, the orange returned to its rightful owner, and the situation could have ended there and no-one would ever have heard of that orange.
Instead, one of the adults called on for help apparently had been drinking and “hit the Pulteneytown boy, whereupon, as if at a signal, fighting exploded right across the Market Place”.
HISTORIANS and sociologists, who were the first to apply the term “tipping point” to social behaviour, are good at describing or interpreting the events that precipitate a breakdown of social order, but they cannot predict, prevent, or even ameliorate them once the destabilisation has occurred.
Nor can police “keep order”. Police can arrest wrongdoers, attempt to defuse tense situations, defend people or property under threat, but no-one can anticipate or control the dramatic effects of a tipping point, which is why we need to be careful not to lose it in the first place.
My wondering about civility led me to erudite discussions on the internet, including discovering that the London School of Economics has a Centre for Civil Society. Its definition is interesting and consistent with my example: a parable of the single-track road. The road is essential for getting from one place to another; the road has to be shared. When two people meet on the road, neither can advance until they negotiate a mutually satisfactory relationship.
So the next time you meet someone on the road, congratulate yourself that you are demonstrating the complex workings of a civil society. The wave is optional, but I like it.