Good Fences Make Bad Neighbors

In case your Monday was sunshine, rainbows, and laughter, allow me to provide a negative critique about something. Apologies in advance for the parade-raining.

“Good fences make good neighbors.” I don’t like this phrase. In fact, I would amend it to “good fences make polite neighbors.” It comes from Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” wherein the narrator questions the use of such a structure:

“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it where there are cows? But here there are no cows.”

Why don’t I like it? I have little issue with actual fences. They’re good for things like keeping deer out of a garden, or preventing a dog running away, or, if such a situation calls for it, keeping cows from wandering onto a neighbor’s land. What I dislike about its typical use is that it seems to discount deep connection among people, instead holding decorum in higher esteem. I think that we sometimes get so bored with this life that we forget it’s our one miraculous go-around on this rock. We start to take ourselves too seriously. It’s important to snap out of it, to remember that no life was ever made tear-jerkingly beautiful by the stale politeness associated with keeping neighbors out and staying separate. In some cases, I might even say fences make bad neighbors… sounds pretty dull to have a neighbor with whom you actively avoid connecting.

Okay, so I realize a fence isn’t stopping you from bonding with a neighbor and forming a deep friendship. I’m waltzing more in the metaphorical realm here. It seems to me that the fence (and the praise it gets for making “good” neighbors) is upstream from a society that is disconnected, suspicious of each other, and staunchly unwilling to “dance under the sun with all of life’s merry characters.”

Many parents don’t let their kids run around the neighborhood like they did growing up. Talking to people in cafés, subways, and on the street is an afterthought, undone by headphones, smart phones, and what I see to be a general distaste for public conversation.

“How can you blame them? People are worse/crazier than ever!”

No, not really. This is the age-old bias we hold toward our own time. It seems people often feel like they live in the most horrid or consequential of societies. Add to that an unprecedented access to information, and that feeling explodes. People aren’t worse than ever. We just know about the bad ones more than we ever did before. They were always there. The truth is that in the US, the rate of violent crime has been steadily declining for decades. Murder rates are around half what they were for much of the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Reports of missing children have also declined significantly in the last 30 years. Among those cases, less than 1% are stranger abductions. That isn’t to belittle the dangers of children being abducted by family or running away. It just points out the illogic of the distrust we have towards our community.

On the other hand, it makes sense why fewer people trust their community.

They don’t know them.

They don’t meet people when they’re out for lunch because they’re looking at their phone, AirPods in. They don’t talk to the stranger in the waiting room for the same reason, or simply because “that’s just weird and awkward” (how is it weird for one of the most social and cooperative species on Earth to speak to one another?). They don’t know the family down the street because they’re inside, comfortably watching cable news with the AC blasting. Our comfort is killing our social connection. Why go outside for a passing breeze when your climate-controlled house offers far cooler temperatures? Why speak to an old woman in the coffee shop when you could listen to a far more engaging podcast about your favorite political hot button? More on this topic in an intriguing article here.

In other words, we build fences.

I understand that as an extroverted man, it’s easy to call out the lack of conversation and connection in public (I wrote about it just two weeks ago). Moreover, I understand that as a person who doesn’t own a house, it’s easy for me to talk about effortlessly connecting with neighbors, and I know that when I have children of my own, I’ll be able to better grasp why some parents are so fearful of potential dangers, no matter how low the likelihood. I still argue that these issues are important to point out, though.

Why? Because forgoing human connection is a high price to pay.

Here there are no cows.