I may have had the coolest grandma ever. She was little, maybe five feet tall, and lived all her life on two Kansas farms. She had six kids, all of them delivered on the kitchen table. She died when she was 90 or so, and she had a smile on her face when they buried her–she was that good natured.

I read Peggy Noonan’s article today and thought of her. Maybe you will think of yours, too. Have a great weekend.
~excerpt from Peggy Noonan, March 9, 2007

One of the clearest statements ever about the implied limits of legitimate political discourse was made by the imprisoned Socrates in his first dialogue with Crito, when he said, “That’s not nice.” Actually, it was your grandmother who said “That’s not nice.” She’s the one who probably taught you the wince. It is her wisdom, encapsulated in those three simple words, that is missing from the current debate.

We tie ourselves in knots trying to explain why it is, or why it isn’t, always or occasionally, helpful or destructive to use various epithets, or give full voice to our resentments. But the simple wisdom of Grandma– “That’s not nice”–is a good guide. (I should say that when I was a kid, grandmas were older people who had common sense. They had observed something of people, had experienced life directly, not only through books or TV. Almost all of them had religious faith, and had absorbed the teachings of the Bible. Almost all of them sat quietly at the kitchen table, and even when I was a kid they were considered old fashioned. They were often ethnic and had accents. As a matter of fact, all of them were.)

I think that as America has grown more academic or aware of education, the wisdom of Grandma has been denigrated. Or ignored. Or stolen and dressed up as something else. For instance, Rudy Giuliani’s success in cleaning up and reviving the city of New York is generally attributed to his embrace of what is called, in academic circles, the broken-window theory. It holds that when criminals see that even small infractions are met and punished, they will understand that larger infractions will be met and punished. It also holds that when neighborhoods deteriorate, criminals are emboldened. People from Harvard won great prizes for these insights.

But all of broken-windows theory comes down to what Grandma always knew and said: “Fix the window or they’ll think no one cares! When people think no one cares, they do whatever they want.” There was not a single grandmother in America circa 1750-2007 who didn’t know this. But no one wants to quote Grandma. She’s so yesterday. And her simple teachings have been superseded by more exotic forms of instruction.

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