Other people’s lives without expertise

People are remarkably eager to discuss how others should live, spend money, raise children, build relationships and choose clothes. Especially when their own decisions temporarily require no attention.

Not every difference needs to be assessed.

One person spends money on travel, another on a house. One collects books, another buys an expensive bicycle. A third finds it sensible to save on tomatoes, and a fourth will earn more during the price comparison than the saving could ever be.

Rationality depends on the goal, the income, the time, the pleasure and the price of an error. Even an outwardly absurd purchase may be buying someone experience, convenience, standing in the circle that matters to him, or simply joy. You do not have to want the same thing to understand the structure of the decision.

Conversations about politics, religion, sex, other people’s bodies and ways of living call for more care, not because the topics are forbidden. They are closely tied to identity and quickly turn an exchange of arguments into a defence of dignity.

It is worth establishing first:

• whether the person wants to discuss the topic or to confirm his membership;
• whether there are shared definitions;
• whether this conversation will change anything;
• whether we are talking about facts, tastes or moral judgements;
• whether we have any experience of what we are pronouncing on.

You can be curious about other people’s values. Issuing them a certificate of conformity on the spot is optional.

The substitution test works fast. A person who finds paid grocery delivery absurd usually pays somebody else for something he could do himself: for washing the car, for a haircut, for ready-made food on Friday, for a taxi instead of two changes of bus. What differs is not rationality but which hour of his life he agrees not to live through. An argument about this almost always turns out to be an argument about whose hour is worth more, in polite packaging.

It does not follow that other people’s decisions are untouchable. It follows that judging them requires knowing the price, the income and the goal, and the observer usually has none of these. An opinion, however, is always available — it is cheaper.