With no little heat, their various opinions

I live in New England, near the ocean, where it’s often rather cold. I also live in a somewhat old apartment, with a rather old heating unit. It’s a gas heating thingy, attached to the kitchen stove. It works better than one would think by looking at it, but that’s not saying much. It gets cold here, especially in the bedrooms. So it’s pretty awesome that Jason, our pretty awesome landlord, is having central heating installed throughout the three-apartment house.

Of course, the disadvantage to having central heating installed is that it requires a moderately intrusive, well, installation process. We have fairly loud contractors working rather early in the morning, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Ok, so we have to wake up a little earlier than we’d like. Fine. But, well, it turns out they’re not just loud, they’re also… hmm. They’re different. They’re the kind of people who make up the bulk of America — the kind that it’s easy for an Ivy League academic to almost forget about. It’s a surprise to see this sort of person.

Ben and I were eating breakfast while they were working, and George, the boss, perhaps about 40, asked us where we were from. I told him I was from California (I decided to give the simple version), and Ben told him he was from Utah. George took that as an invitation to tell us about Phil, the older worker who was also there. Phil was crawling around the attic at the time. “Phil is from West Virginia,” George told us. “Oh,” we replied. George added, “His mother’s his sister’s his aunt.” We said nothing. “Isn’t that right, Phil?”, George called into the ceiling. “What?” “You’re a fucking inbred redneck!”

Ben left for class, and I started working on a paper about truth in fiction. A little while later, Phil came in and spoke to me. “What’s your major?” I told him I was studying philosophy. “Oh, philosophy’s almost as bad as psychology.” (here we go.) “My daughter went to college and she says our whole family needs to go talk to a therapist.” [pause] “But those therapists don’t know shit. She’s the one who needs a therapist.” Thanks for sharing, Phil. That’s really relevant to my interests and/or an important piece of knowledge about your family life and/or appropriate material for light conversation with a stranger.

And then, worst of all, just as the two of them were on the way out for the morning, George asked me: “so you’re studying psychology?” Philosophy, I corrected him. In retrospect, I’m grateful that he didn’t ask my least favorite question ever that I get asked all the time, which is “what’s your philosophy?”. Instead, he asked me what my opinion was of the ancient Greeks.

Armed with the knowledge gained in the first session of a course at Harvard on ancient epistemology, I could have started talking about Sextus Empiricus and Aristotle and the Stoics versus the Academy and Epicurus and Aenesidemus, but I decided that would be rude. So I said something like “honestly, I think that modern thinkers are much better philosophers.” This seemed to satisfy George, who moved on to the next question.

“So do you believe in evolution? Or creationism, or what’s your belief?” (here we go.) “I think that evolution offers the best explanations.” Then the real fun began. “You think evolution is true? So you think man evolved from rocks?” “Well, no, I don’t think that we evolved from rocks.” “From what, then?” And here Phil jumped in, very reasonably. “Single-celled life.” Way to go, Phil — you have at least a very rudimentary understanding of what evolution claims, which might’ve made him above average among the people in my apartment at that moment.

“Are you an agnostic? What do you believe.” (small internal death) “I’m an athiest.” “You’re an athiest!?” Then, muttered aside to himself, fairly loudly: “well, it’s your choice…” (not really). They left, promising to show up again bright and early tomorrow, Saturday, morning. I think there might’ve been something from George about how Phil would have to talk to me about religion.

I sighed with relief as they left, and went about my business. Then I read an email from Jason, my awesome landlord:

Hey guys.

Kerri just called me to tell me that the contractors had been bugging one of you about religion…What the —-?

I’m really sorry. As if it weren’t bad enough that they’re waking you up and invading your space. Well, the views expressed in that broadcast are not necessarily those of our house!!! Kerri put it perfectly when she said that home should be a safe place where you can be comfortable. I’m sorry we’ve introduced some strangers who apparently lack the scruples that tell them to do their work and leave you the f— alone. Let me know how you feel about this and I’ll take whatever action is needed to deal with it.

Thanks,

J

And I replied:

Hey Jason. I don’t know if this is what Kerri had in mind, but on
their way out this morning, they did ask me a number of questions that
started with what I was doing at Brown. How do you feel about the
ancient Greeks? Do you believe in evolution? Do you believe in God?
I guess their characterization of and attitudes toward various groups
that I belong to were borderline offensive, but I didn’t really find
it much more than annoying. Kerri wasn’t there, but she might’ve
heard from downstairs, as this was occurring literally on their way
out the door.

I really appreciate the concern, but I think that this is just the
sort of thing that happens sometimes. If we had to coexist with them
for a long period of time, it’d probably be important to get an
understanding and lay down some behavior guidelines, but I don’t
really see that there’s much point in making a fuss, given that
they’ll be all done pretty soon.

Jonathan

And Jason’s next response, the one that made me realize that he might very well be right:

Hey Jonathan,

That sounds like it…George (the younger of the 2 and the boss) spoke to
Kerri about it in a way that put her through the roof. UG.

Kerri and I ARE concerned. We like having a happy house and very much care
about inconveniencing you, Ben, Rebecca and Matthew. For these guys to
annoy you further is infuriating. I appreciate your perspective on the
issue. It sounds like we’ve got our own little clash of civilizations going
on. I think I’ll tell them I’m bisexual, I’m sure they’d be equally as
tolerant; with the result being them getting their work done much faster and
without the added conversation. …make their closed minds work FOR us.

Okay, moving forward…George also said that there was someone who will be
working tomorrow that is apparently very religious and a real “expert”…oh
boy. Kerri and I will be home tomorrow. If they bug you at all call me.
I’ll take care of it. Also, don’t feel obligated to be there. We can
handle letting people in and out.

Again, I’m really sorry for this.
J

The fact that they talked to Kerri about it, and are planning to have an ‘expert’ talk to me tomorrow, makes this whole thing jump about four levels of discomforting in my book. A younger version of me would have relished the opportunity to really dig into arguments with an expert who wanted to convert me. But I really don’t want to have to have that fight tomorrow morning, and Jason makes a good point: I really don’t want to have to do it in my home. I think I may just plan to not be here tomorrow — either by crashing in Boston tonight, or by getting up super-early (ugh) and going to the library or something. I feel kind of dumb for letting this upset me, but I’m not going to deny that it has.

There are two morals to this story.

First, religious persecution is real, and just because there’s no killing or firing or calling stupid or evil involved, doesn’t mean it can’t be really upsetting. My adventure this morning pretty much ruined my day, so far. Everybody, be tolerant out there.

Second, my landlord is approximately the coolest guy ever.