Being pseudo-intellectual means always having to say you’re ambivalent

Bad attitude about

Gray Areas

            I asked my friend Ed, a thinker of balanced clarity, to advise me on a business dilemma. He pondered as the waitress refilled his coffee cup. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s one of those gray areas.”

            “Yeah, but what do I do?” I asked.

            He carefully and cogently outlined all aspects of the problem but refused to make a recommendation. “It’s up to you,” he said.

            “I know it’s up to me. I’m not abdicating responsibility; I’m asking for advice.”

            “It’s a gray area,” he repeated.

            I’ve always hated gray area-ism. It’s for suckers who, finding they don’t know an answer, accept the pop assumption that no answer exists, or that it’s mired in impenetrable gray muck. I fantasize getting drunk and threatening to duke it out with the next guy who says, “gray area.” Somebody’ll throw a punch and I’ll parry by asserting that if morality exists, it cannot tolerate areas of ambiguity. Right or wrong is often difficult to discern, but it doesn’t cease to exist!

            That afternoon, Ed called to say he’d left his briefcase at the restaurant and did I have it – I did – and could I please drop it off on my way downtown?

            “It’s a gray area,” I told him. “Shall I go out of my way to correct your oversight? To some questions, no answer exists. It’s a gray area.”

            He was really sore, like people get when you purloin their pet rationalization, but he cooled off later when I showed up with the briefcase.