ABSTRACT
A less meddlesome society would certainly be one that was more honest about its methods of helping others. This chapter discusses the matters continue to be couched in a language of extremes: "privacy and connection", "individual and society", "self and other". In a nation of meddlers we talk about one pole as though it has to be eliminated in order to achieve the other. To move toward a less meddlesome society, though, will require that one think differently about the relationships with one another. Caring, helping, supporting, and even protecting others are too often expressed through minimizing their choices while maximizing our own. Few meddlers would tolerate for a moment the kind of reductions in choice they routinely foist on others. If meddlers could somehow be held personally responsible for the outcomes of their directives and advice, they might see at once that other people's lives are not theirs to control and that they shouldn't want it any other way.
