It's a question we face in various forms and throughout our lives: to what extent should we intrude into other people's affairs, when we think something is amiss, and to what extent should we respect the other person's boundaries and autonomy and mind our own business? Let me start with a few concrete examples. A good friend, or member of your family, is heading toward a marriage you think is going to be a disaster. He or she does not ask your opinion. Do you say anything? If so, what and how? Or maybe someone you know has a drinking problem but doesn't think so and doesn't welcome anyone's bringing it up. Do you say anything? Do you mind your own business and let him destroy himself? Sometimes the situation involves people you are not so close to, even complete strangers. You're walking down the street and some teenagers are walking in front of you, having a good time. As they finish their Big Gulps from 7-11, they throw them onto the ground, not bothering to look for a trash can. Do you speak up? You're in the supermarket. Right in front of you, a parent and a young child are embroiled in an interaction that looks to you like serious abuse. It seems to you the parent hasn't got a clue how to discipline a child effectively, and the child is being injured. Do you say or do anything? Or nothing? I don't think it's easy to know how to proceed in situations like these. I puzzle over them and, imagining that many other people do too, it seemed that it might be an interesting topic to explore together. Also, it seems to me that such questions are often enough handled badly --standing idly on the sidelines and letting terrible things occur that might have been avoided, or jumping in clumsily and making a bad situation worse-- that a thoughtful discussion might be useful. I'm not suggesting that we seek some hard and fast rules to govern our conduct. I doubt there are any. Every situation has its unique aspects --how receptive is the listener? how well is the speaker able to speak in a way that will be heard in a constructive way? what history is there between them?-- and therefore each situation may require its own unique response. But our conversation today may help clarify the issue. This is one of those topics in which I'm more interested in posing the questions than in putting out my own answers to them. But there are a couple of ideas I'd like to propose at the outset. First, I think that in our culture we may err more often in the direction of minding our own business too much than in getting too involved. More than practically any culture in history, the Anglo-Saxon culture which is at the core of American civilization stresses the virtues of individualism. We are big on the idea of private property, the house as castle, the individual's right to privacy, etc. Our families don't arrange marriages; our offspring do not expect to follow our orders until we die. We value community, but we have a harder time fostering community than we do protecting individual autonomy. We are troubled by an event like the famous murder of Kitty Genovese in New York thirty years ago --where many neighbors heard her anguished cries but did nothing-- but we should also recognize in that event a characteristic tendency of our culture magnified to grotesque proportions. It's interesting that the saying that "It takes a whole village to raise a child" has recently gained wide currency in our public discourse-- perhaps a sign of a growing recognition that we need to mind not just our own business-- but it's interesting also that the saying itself had to be imported from an entirely different culture (in this case African). The second point I'd like to make is that the question is far more complex and far deeper than simply "to intervene or not to intervene." If one speaks, there is an infinite spectrum of possible ways of speaking: there are clumsy ways and tactful, ways that knock respectfully at the door and ways that just barge in, loving ways and harsh, ways that convey recognition that one might be mistaken and ways that seem to cocksure of one's rightness, ways that open the doors for more communication and ways that slam them shut. We're talking about situations often of great delicacy, and whoever is going to venture into such china shops needs to learn how not to be a bull. So. I'd like to invite you to call in and share your thoughts --and your experiences-- around this issue. Can you think of any important instances in your life when you spoke up, or refrained from speaking up --or when someone spoke up to you, or decided not to-- that taught you something about when it's a virtue to be one's brother's keeper and when it's better to mind one's own business?