As we were walking along the shore, we saw a seal coming ashore. It was one of those moments you hope for on a seaside day. There are still wonderful animals like this in the natural world, and every so often you get to see one. We have not destroyed everything quite yet.
The seal came ashore with obvious intention. It wanted to lay on the beach more than any vacationer. To warm up and rest, between bouts of strenuous activity in the ocean.
But as the seal made its way ashore, the frenzy began.
I got no pictures of the worst of the crowding and jostling. One person holding a telephoto lens 12 inches away from the seal's nose (hint - what does a telephoto do, buddy?). Someone trying to pet the seal's head - a bad idea as the seal made very clear.
Another person pulling on its tail and yelling that it was going the wrong way - the ocean was back down the slope.
A well-intentioned man throwing sand on the seal, believing that was somehow helpful.
A concerned visitor called the seal in to a local wildlife association, but only got their voice mail. Perhaps someone would be along some time.
What do you do? It's an interesting social question. If you are in a place where something wrong is going on, but you have no official appointment as the defender of what's right, are you willing to tell total strangers to stop what they are doing?
My wife and daughter led the way. They waded in to try to convince people to back off. We all tried various ways to communicate. I loudly asked the crowd, "Hey, who knows how far away you are supposed to stay from a seal on the beach? Is it ten feet? I think it's twenty."
Diddly. Very little effect. it was maddening.
Why? Because we had no symbol that said we should be listened to. I remembered the marine mammal protection volunteers (where was one now?). What did they have that we didn't? The volunteers had pamphlets, ropes, and T shirts, that told everyone they were for real.
We had no official T shirt.
Still, there had to be a solution. Some way to put up some signs, because people follow instructions on signs more than they listen to a person right next to them.
My wife Sara found the solution. We needed to build a boundary.
We gathered rocks and placed piles of them at a reasonable radius from the seal, still close enough that people could get their pictures, but creating a little bit of room. Then my daughter dug lines in the sand between the rock piles. Virtual ropes.
Voila!
The paleolithic markers achieved what we could not ourselves do. The seal was able to rest without being harassed any further.
There are several possible takeaways from the episode. How people believe they have the right to take any image anywhere, even if it disturbs or harms the subjects. It brought to mind The Day A Dozen Parents and Children Killed a Shark for a Selfie as reported on Huffington Post.
But I was must struck by the power of even the slightest symbol of an official boundary - far more important than any amount of reasoning.
It made me think that we should make up some T shirts, that simply say "VOLUNTEER", and carry them in our bags everywhere we go. See a situation - throw on the T shirt! I bet it would make a world of difference.
In the larger sense, we see how symbols of authority are misused every day. Where people having no symbol are ignored, those with the symbol demand obedience regardless of the merits of their demands.
The power of legitimacy - of being the official arbiter, whatever the topic - holds an astonishing amount of sway in our world. On this day, I wished we had the official symbol to convince people to do the right thing. But on reflection, perhaps a bigger problem is the ubiquity of such symbols, causing ordinary people to believe they don't have the standing to make a difference, and causing everyone else to ignore them when they try.
Notes:
I do volunteer with various environmental groups, between a hundred and several hundred hours per year, and strongly encourage this kind of participation in our world and community. But hopefully each of us can gain the understanding that we don't need the blessing of some official body to make a difference during each moment we have in front of us.
James R. Wells is the author of The Great Symmetry, coming in April 2015.
In an asteroid in the Aurora star system, exoarcheologist Evan McElroy has made a discovery about the Versari, a long-departed alien race. But Evan’s sponsor, the Affirmatix family of companies, realizes that they can make huge gains from the new finding, if it is kept completely secret.
As Evan flees for his life, he finds that his trajectory has reawakened the long-buried struggle of the Infoterrorists, who believe that all knowledge screams to be free, against those who maintain the True Story that holds all of civilization together.
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