About a half a mile from me, an independent school is building a bridge across a busy street in order to connect the upper school on one side to the middle and lower schools on the other. The purpose of the bridge, of course, is to keep the students out of the street and prevent them from being hit by cars. The neighborhood will probably become accustomed to this ugly intrusion in what is still a pleasant residential setting; after all, the safety of children and adolescents is more important than aesthetics. But erecting the bridge raises some troubling philosophical questions.
As the world becomes more crowded, are we to lean ever more on the protection of governments and institutions or are we to become more responsible and teach our children to do so too? For instance, do we double our efforts to teach children how to cross the street as traffic becomes more hectic or do we build a bridge that joins divisions of a school so they won't have to learn? How many bridges must we then build around the city in our efforts to avoid danger?
Regarding this particular bridge, how do we know that the students and visitors to the school won't think it amusing to throw objects from the bridge onto passers-by or cars? In order to keep that from happening, will some kind of screening have to be added to the bridge? Where will it all end?
As our population increases, the tension between hearty individualism and the public good heightens. Residents of apartment houses and condominiums deal with this more than owners of individual homes; so do residents of uniform housing developments and gated communities. The smoking-in-public-places conflict is another example of bowing to what is perceived as the public will.
So whether we concern ourselves with a school's bridge or with regulating behavior in a neighborhood or restaurant, we must admit that we're defaulting on personal responsibility. As we turn to organizations for help and supervision we must know that we're giving up freedom of choice and self-reliance. It would seem as schools and neighborhoods get bigger and more crowded that saving us from ourselves becomes a priority and democracy becomes a luxury. This is hardly news; it just keeps cropping up in odd places.
Anne Egerton is a Baltimore writer.