knacking is the dispiriting unpleasant
counterproductive but wholly
understandable and poignant version of a
hugely noble ambition the desire to
change other people there is so much we
might fairly want to change about them
we're an entirely imperfect lot and
therefore we want other people to be
more self-aware punctual generous
reliable introspective resilient
communicative profound at home we want
them to focus more on the sink the
children the bins the money and the need
to put the phone down and look up at a
macro dimension we want people to think
more about the suffering of engaged
animals the destruction of our habitat
and the iniquities of international
capitalism we are most of us very far
from our ideal selves and at the level
of the species we come close to an
evolutionary error the desire to change
people is therefore no pathology it's a
clear sighted recognition of the scale
of human wickedness nagging is in its
essence an attempt at teaching at
getting an idea for improvement from one
mind into another but it's also a
version of teaching that's given up hope
it's descended into an attempt to insist
rather than invite to coerce rather than
charm one is too panicked by the thought
that the unteachable student is ruining
one's life to find the inner resources
to see it a little more from their point
of view it's one's own suffering that
dominates all the available imaginative
capacity
and so one gets straight to the point
gets rid of the garlands omits the honey
and says it in plain terms the bins need
attention now get to the table
immediately you're a selfish lay about
not there here one isn't wrong one is
really very right but also very tired
and deep down quite sad lamentably also
it just doesn't work by the time one
started humiliating the student the
lesson is over
nagging breathes an evil twin shirking
the other just pretends to read the
paper goes upstairs and feels righteous
the shrillness of one's tone gives them
all the excuse they need to trust that
we have nothing kind or true to tell
them one changes other people only when
the desire that they change has not
reached an insistent pitch when we can
still bear that they remain as they are
all of us improve only when we've not
been badgered or made to feel guilty
only when we have a sense that we're
loved and deeply understood for the many
reasons why change is so hard for us we
know of course that the Billie's need
our attention that we should strive to
get to bed earlier and that we have been
a disappointment in the couple but we
can't bear to hear these lessons in an
unsympathetic tone we want tricky
children that we are to be indulged for
our ambivalence about becoming better
people the same excuse dynamic is a play
at the political level we know we
shouldn't abuse the planet bend rules or
close our hearts to the unfortunate but
we won't do any of the good things if a
doer figure works their finger and
delivers Stern lectures we want to be
charmed not dragged into goodness
the tragedy of nagging is that it's
causes are usually so noble and yet that
it doesn't work we nag because we feel
that our possession of the truth
lets us off having to convey it
elegantly it never does the solution to
nagging isn't to give up trying to get
others to do what we want rather it's to
recognize that persuasion always needs
to occur
in terms that make sense to those who so
badly need to be altered we publish new
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