Experimenting with Video -- and Milking The Dirty Knife Allegory Dry.

Live & Uncensored!: The Dirty Knife Allegory.

The DKA gets some real-life application.

Gotta forgive the shakycam. I'll improve things if I decide to keep doing this.

The Dirty Knife Allegory: Epilogue

Fig. 1: Possible exception to Theory of Guest Washing Dirty Knife, esp. when sinkful of existing dishes is vastly disproportionate to number of dishes used.

Me: The Dirty Knife Allegory bothers everyone.

Guy Who Related Dirty Knife Allegory to Me (GWRDKAM): What is left to ponder about it?

Me: I don't know, everything. Most people are really adamant that they would wash the knife. I think they're all liars.

GWRDKAM: Really?

Me: No, not really.

GWRDKAM: Why? It doesn't seem so unreasonable.

Me: I think in retrospect it's too easy to say you'd wash the knife. Like, I've thought about it so much that I'm convinced I'd wash the knife.

GWRDKAM: Funny story. The other day I had a drink, and out of habit, I washed the glass, because I always do after using one. And then I thought "oh fuck"!

Me: Hahaha.

GWRDKAM: Because I hadn't even thought about it -- and there was a whole sink full of dishes. And so I went ahead and washed all of them, then later my girlfriend [who has since run back into my arms following the original drama of the dirty knife, and all I had to do was take her on a weekend trip to Stockholm!], asks me, "Did you wash all of my dishes?"

Me: THAT'S THE THING. It gets all under your skin.

GWRDKAM: I had totally washed a sink of dishes in a frenzied panic.

Me: Suddenly every sink is booby-trapped.

GWRDKAM: But as my girlfriend pointed out, this is a different scenario. If there's a sinkful of dishes, no one would expect you to wash them. There's apparently a line somewhere between a knife and a sinkful of dishes.

I think I naturally wash only what I use because there's no ambiguity there (in most common situations).

Me: Bare minimum of courtesy.

GWRDKAM: Exactly. Otherwise I'd have to figure out every time what I shouldn't wash and what I should. And I think to wash nothing (not even what you use) would be a bit rude, and standing there for 20 minutes washing all the dishes would be rude, and everything in between is a grey area except washing just what you used.

Me: What if the person catches you in the act and says "Don't worry about it"?

GWRDKAM: Everything in between is a grey area except washing just what you used. [See fig. 1.] That may be the bare minimum of courtesy, but it'd be hard to argue that it was actually rude. And in this world, where all my friends all have different norms and different standards, it seems like the safest bet.*

Me: It is pretty safe.

GWRDKAM: Unless there's just one dish in the sink, I guess.

---

* This is probably too philosophical for people that are still wondering, "Seriously, what if the host asks you to stop washing the dishes?" I like to think the answer has something to do with whether the person would be receptive to you insisting you're going to finish the dishes ("Oh, I've already started!"), or whether it'd be better to just concede and leave them in the sink. S/he can't really blame you then. Well, possibly.

The Dirty Knife Allegory

A few days ago, a friend presented me with this scenario:

"What if you were dating a guy, and one night he came over to your apartment. You cooked him dinner, everything was fine, and when he finished eating he washed all the dishes he used -- except for a single dirty knife that was already in the sink when he arrived.

"How would you react?"

I answered from my gut: "It would be weird, but it wouldn't bother me. I mean, if you invite somebody over, he's not obligated to wash any of your dishes. So if he washed the ones he used, that's pretty much the bare minimum of courtesy, right?"

"This happened to me," he said. "My girlfriend invited me over for dinner, and I washed all my dishes except for her dirty knife."

"Why?"

"Because I feel uncomfortable washing other people's dirty dishes. It's like telling them they're not clean enough to meet my standards."

"I see."

"Anyway, she left me over it."

After a setup like the one he gave me, a statement like that is fit to make your eyes pop. But really it was an oversimplification: the girl treated the dirty knife like a microcosm of everything else wrong with their relationship, in particular his own emotional unavailability.

The guy wrote the situation off as one of those instances where you become so ruled by your own fears that you project them onto situations that don't mean much at all. Sometimes a knife is just a knife. But I've been obsessed with it -- what I've come to call The Dirty Knife Allegory -- ever since.

I presented the scenario to an ex-boyfriend in the same way the first guy pitched it to me. His response to the hypothetical love interest who wouldn't wash his dirty knife:

"Wow. That can mean so many things. For me it would indicate that I can't trust her; she's only out for herself."

For some reason this completely freaked me out: the fact is, I wouldn't wash the knife. I might wash the dishes I used, but then again I might not. I guess it's a matter of how delicate the social situation is.

Crucially, the Dirty Knife Allegory put a clear face on a personal fear: however good, ethical and kind I try to be, there's a part of me I think is fundamentally bad. It's the part that, as a kid, wished my parents would divorce. It sabotages my romantic relationships, or ferrets out -- and broadcasts! -- bad qualities in people I personally just don't like. It's the part of me that resents hippies -- and that, a year and a half ago, dropped a big rock on a crawdad in Fall Creek.

(I felt really crappy about that afterward.)

I can terrace or hide these aspects of myself, but they never really go away. This leads to the question of whether there's a core to someone that is fixed -- something they're born with, aspects of character that betray them in the little things they wouldn't consciously think to change. Like me not washing the knife.

If a piece of us, the essence of us, remains static, then you have to wonder: are some people born with counterproductive or antisocial characteristics?

Pragmatic people will argue that's subjective, and to an extent I agree. But part of me has bought into the idea that a villain can be born as well as made. However hard I've worked to be the kind of person I admire, there are still things I've missed, things that fall through the cracks. Like other people's dirty knives.

Verdict's still out on this, and it probably always will be. My guilt over what I am -- and the irrepressible sense of empathy I feel for Anakin Skywalker's bad rep -- are probably just things I'll have to get over.

Some social media grokking on the topic (non-Twitter responses come from Facebook):

Me -- "Wondering if there's an aspect to people that can't be changed -- however hard they try, however much they want."

@andrewlockhart: "I was wondering about that the other day. I think some things are just in the hardware. No amount of programming will help."

@woodswittdealy: "It's a good bet that the best and the worst are never going away--greed and selflessness--they're with us forever."

@jolieaodell: "If people can't change, I think it's because they don't want it enough or try hard enough. Sincere, diligent effort is IT."

Evan B: "people can change themselves with a tremendous amount of effort. like, herculean. however it's all case specific, so your chances are fifty-fifty."

William O: "you can't 'fix' people."

Atif C: "There probably are some aspects about yourself that you can not change, but you can change the behavior associated with them...."