Pickett. Chain-link. Barbed wire. Rock. Wrought iron. People have strong feelings about fences, no matter what forms they take. Somewhere imbedded in the human psyche is an enormous attraction toward surrounding ourselves with ourselves, and, what’s more, keeping themselves with themselves.
Although civilization unconsciously hums the refrain of “Don’t Fence Me In,” rejecting limits, pulsating outward, and striving to be free, in truth, there is nothing society likes more than good solid boundaries. While that appears to be a bit of a paradox, it also is a double standard. For many, the tune goes something like, “don’t fence me in, but you guys stay put!”

The history of colonialism provides ample evidence of this concept. People saw exploration as a God-given right (Manifest Destiny used as its fences nothing less than the Atlantic and Pacific oceans). The idea that limits might be more subtle seems not to have entered the western mind, articulated by the popular indignant cry, “I can do what I want. It’s a free country!” We were founded as a country born to be wild.

But humans can take being free for only so long. Limitless existence can be extremely daunting. As soon as frontiersmen hacked their way through the wilderness, they began to establish homesteads, draw property lines, sign deeds, and put up literal, and all the more often, metaphorical fences, fulfilling that seemingly primal drive to make order out of chaos. The thought of being too free was too much, and to compromise, they said, “Well, I’ll be free within these lines drawn in the dirt, and you all stay out.” The more stuff they collected, the more they had to protect it, and in effect, they eventually sang, “OK, OK! Fence me in! Fence me in!”

Fences are universal, and certainly not only a western invention. All around the world humans alternate between disrespecting someone else’s boundaries and vehemently proclaiming their own. The Great Wall of China dates back to the third century BC, certainly the largest fence ever created though its size has not prevented the scope of China’s domain from fluctuating, then or now. Years ago I visited China and followed thousands of other tourists to see the wall, and while I was awed by the sheer grandeur of the structure and overwhelmed by the tales of dead bodies mixed with the rocks, I could only wonder “Why?”

Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” discusses this very theme of humanity’s need to build fences. He writes, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense.” However, the line everyone remembers from the poem is “Good fences make good neighbors,” though the poet is actually questioning this concept. I ponder over this statement too, turning it over and over in my head. Do good fences make good neighbors?

It certainly seems that people want fences and that they want them to be “good.” Several of the gated communities in the area offer this amenity to their homeowners to the extent that you can’t drive your cars into the neighborhoods without a code. That’s a pretty good fence. And although, of course, the owners can use their codes to come and go as they please, I can’t help but think of their actions as voluntary confinement and see their fences as little more than jails. One of the title characters from my favorite film “Harold and Maude,” sadly quips: “Oh how the world dearly loves a cage.” Insert “good.” Good cages.

Last summer I took my daughter to the birthday party of a 3-year-old boy. Fifteen or 20 children descended upon his home to wish him a happy birthday. But he didn’t have a happy birthday. He was so frantically worried about his toys being used or broken by the other children that he threw all of his belongings in his room, including himself, and refused to come out.

It’s a strange concept, walling oneself in so that you can wall everyone else out, but it’s a part of our innate need to feel in control of what is ours. Often people get together and do this in groups, building bigger fences and trying to block out those who won’t agree to the rules. Sometimes the rules are racial, sometimes cultural, and sometimes economic. Some fences keep out people who won’t paint their houses a certain shade of yellow, some fences keep out people who live in trailers, and some fences keep out people who will cut down trees. To perpetuate the idea that we’re in control, we paradoxically choose to give up our freedom. And even more often we choose to give up the freedom of others.

If the statement is true that good fences make good neighbors, it follows that perhaps good neighbors make good fences - that, to be a pretty good neighbor, you set and respect boundaries. This seems well enough, but as all neighbors know, sometimes boundaries are blurry. Good is a subjective term. What are people allowed to do on their own private land? If a person leaves two or three junky cars in the front yard, is that infringing upon the boundaries of the neighbors who have to look at them as they drive by? What about a mountain of stinking trash? If a dog’s barking travels over a fence into another yard, have boundaries been broken? What about 10 barking dogs? What about a crying baby? What about an asphalt plant?

Though we often attempt to surround ourselves with ourselves to promote these good fences and good neighbors, it is - or should be - an ongoing ethical struggle to reach compromises in which our needs to control coexist with the control of others. Maybe when we truly become good neighbors we will no longer need good fences.

(Esther Godfrey teaches English at Western Carolina University. Readers can contact her at egodfrey@wcu.edu)

 

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The Smoky Mountain News