Nice guys don't always finish last

Pulling the Wool
    By Ben McGrath

Yale students are generally a civil bunch. We respect each other's interests and, for the most part, try not to interfere with anyone else. But free food can bring out the animal in all of us. A few days before Thanksgiving break, Saybrook had a Taco Bell study break in the dining hall. My roommates and I anticipated a big crowd and showed up 15 minutes early, only to find that a dozen or so students had already come up with the same bright idea. No more than 10 minutes later, the line of hungry burrito-lovers extended beyond the common room.

Not everyone was willing to accept his or her place in line, however. One student took it upon herself to sneak through to the front. I heard her say "Sorry" as she slipped past a person not far behind me, and then, more menacingly, "Sorry—it happens," after a final push to the dining hall entrance. It was difficult to tell whom she was speaking to in particular, and nobody saidanything to prompt an explanation. As far as I could tell, few people even noticed. The line wasn't exactly single file, and I thought the student was just trying to find her friends. Once she arrived at her destination, however, it was clear that she had no intentions other than faster access to the food.

What I find interesting about the incident is not that someone blatantly cut the line (who hasn't?), but that the offender chose to acknowledge—indeed almost revel in—the act and squash any possible objections. One is tempted to say that this kind of frankness is actually more admirable than the surreptitious silence that usually accompanies guilty behavior; openness is in short supply these days, so we ought to appreciate it when it occurs. This line of thinking, however, is wrong.

The taco culprit's approach may demonstrate a degree of bravery lacking in the more typical foul-and-hide method, but it represents a rejection of our shared values. The attitude underlying such behavior is dangerous. The extended implication of the cutter's "it happens" remark is that what we take to be ordinary civility is merely an invention of the weak to keep the strong from getting ahead. Somebody's going to cut the line, the reasoning goes, and it might as well be me, or else I'll be left behind.

This "me first" attitude is a little more understandable in underprivileged communities where rewards of any sort are hard to come by, but it's absurd coming from a Yale student waiting for a free snack. Survival here doesn't require an every-man-for-himself approach.

There is actually something comforting in people's attempts to be discreet when cutting a line. Such discretion at least indicates a feeling of guilt or shame. I don't mean to say that deceitfulness and cowardice are to be repected—far from it. Our selfish inclinations just overcome us sometimes, and it's possible to act on them without disavowing the general principle against cutting lines. As Yale professor David Gelernter writes in the current issue of The Weekly Standard, "In bygone America, condemning a sin did not mean that you had never committed it and never would." No one would really call line-cutting a sin, but the same principle should hold true today.

During my senior year in high school, my friends and I used to cut freshmen in the cafeteria line on a daily basis. "Senior privileges" was our explanation. We even asked the school administration if this privilege could be officially recognized as a "right" granted to all seniors. We understood the rules of etiquette and civility, but we wanted an exemption to ease our consciences. The administration had the good sense to dismiss our request as frivolous and unfair.

In the adult world there is no such administration to govern simple matters of civility, but things tend to work out all right anyway. As it happened, the coveted tacos, burritos, and nachos were slow to arrive, and our friend the line cutter grew too impatient and abandoned the line altogether. Sure, nice guys finish last sometimes. But mean guys don't always get what they want either.

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