Civility and Halloween...Trust Me On This

    From the suburbs of Washington, DC to the  decades of living in the 'burbs of Boston, back to Bucks County, Pa., I’ve watched Halloween evolve from a quirky neighborhood pastime into a full-blown civic ritual. Blocks that once featured a few carved pumpkins and a scattering of trick-or-treaters now explode with inflatable ghosts, fog machines, and crowds of costumed kids. Don't get me wrong, sometimes those huge inflatable ghosts and fog machines are annoying, but in an age of atomization and distraction, the overall evolution strikes me as a good thing. Anyway, right now...I'm still waiting for the kids to devour the candy so I don’t have a diabetic seizure! 

    I didn't want to publish this and sound annoyingly preachy, although I have friends tell me there is no way I can avoid that. Really, me, preachy! C'mon...! Maybe I should just say that Halloween gives me a glimpse of what a shared life can look like in a dense and diverse Boston to Washington, DC, megalopolis. To invoke the words of my preacher forefathers, it is something "secular but spiritual," or as I might put it, “mischievous but wholesome,” or  “commercial but communal.” For a few hours, strangers open their doors, neighbors linger on stoops (or in my case, the garage), and city sidewalks turn into spaces of collective delight. Honest...I have spent the last few hours, on this Halloween night, talking to people that live right around the corner from me (or maybe a little further...and whom I have never had any appreciable interaction before), and reveled in the conversations and simple innocent humanity that community infers. Forgive me for getting so emotional...but I am a blessed man. Wait for it... “Peter, my love, You're not an idiot.”

    Now, don't get me wrong. Halloween is not immune to cultural friction. In 2015, Yale University became a flashpoint (so what else is new) when Associate Master Erika Christakis asked whether students still had the freedom to be “a little bit obnoxious… or, yes, offensive” in choosing costumes. Her email followed a note urging cultural sensitivity, and her defense of judgment sparked protests that ultimately drove her and her husband from their posts. As FIRE documented, even a discussion of costumes can become a proxy for deeper debates about expression and identity. Yet most Americans weren’t staging ideological battles that year—they were handing out candy and enjoying the night with their neighbors. Maybe I'm an idiot...but that's what normal people do.

    But this is what matters. Halloween’s meaning doesn’t come from the Witches of Eastwick, or the  latest headlines, but from the small gestures that add up to a civic good. I have friends with grandchildren, who look forward to this craziness all year, and I love watching them race from stoop to stoop, greeting people whose names we may not know but whose faces have become familiar through these rituals. For a few hours, the suburbia edge softens.

    This isn’t nostalgia; it is civic realism. Let me share some research, boys and girls. Scholars from Robert Putnam to Yuval Levin have shown how trust and association have eroded over the past half-century. Halloween can’t fix that, but it offers a modest antidote, or more precisely, an improvised block party built on voluntary participation and good faith.

    Its genius is that it aligns self-interest and community interest. My example: Parents want their kids to have fun and be safe; residents want to join in and meet neighbors. The ritual works because it is decentralized and cooperative. No city agency mandates candy or decorations; people take part because they want to belong to something bigger than themselves. Thank you...I have just been elected GOD! I'm kidding, sort of...but do you see what I'm getting at?

    Let me repeat that last pertinent line. “Something bigger” matters. It always matters. Civic life depends not only on elections or voter participation, or the fact that you don't pee in the public swimming pool, but you pee in the public toilet. It acts on your small acts of reciprocity; borrowing a ladder, sweeping a sidewalk, handing out candy. These are all things which make the civilized world go 'round. Philosopher Michael Sandel reminds us that a politics of the common good requires shared practices that teach us to see one another as fellow citizens rather than competitors. Halloween, in its humble way, rehearses that politics. You know, I wish I had come up with that, but I didn't. However, if you find what I just typed in bold is relevant, feel free to forward it to someone else. And on, and on, and on. If anyone has actually read what I have written above, I would like them to read it again and again, and then pass it on to someone they care about...deeply. It is where, dear reader, the rubber meets the road. 

    This, if you are still reading (because I know I can...oh, what's the word...PREACH!), is where you need to follow my addled brain…because sometimes, I'm  right! Child-centered rituals strengthen adult life, too. Parents who might never meet, strike up conversations while walking door to door. Elderly residents sit on stoops to greet young families....like I did tonight! Even decorating—whether hanging paper, flying bats or building elaborate haunted houses—creates cooperation and pride. In a country famous for ambition, Halloween rewards the ordinary civic virtues of hospitality, generosity, and play.

    Yes, there are excesses. Some displays verge on grotesquery (I saw a few of them tonight), and the commercialization of the season and of the self (like Christmas and Thanksgiving) is real. Candy prices climb; costumes come wrapped in plastic from half a world away. But those irritations pale next to the social value of a tradition that draws people from their single shared public life. A healthy society need not abolish every frivolity; it must channel them toward connection rather than consumption.

    When I talk and debate with my friends, I try to remind them that democracy depends on habits learned long before we vote. The ability to share space with each other, to wait your turn, to delight in another’s joy—all are civic skills learned through repetition, not argument. On Halloween, children (like the beautiful youngsters that came to my home this evening) learn to trust their neighbors, and adults remember what generosity feels like.

    If we want a more civil and connected society, we should notice and protect these modest civic rituals. The block cleanup, the parade, the holiday lighting – these may seem trivial next to the great debates that fill our screens. But they form what philosopher Charles Taylor called the social imaginary: the lived experience of togetherness that sustains democracy.

    So this year, as skeletons dangle from fire escapes and children in superhero costumes flood the streets, I am choosing gratitude. Halloween isn’t perfect, but it remains one of the few civic holidays that invites us to participate rather than spectate. It costs little, requires no ideology, and reminds us—if only for an evening—that community still exists. In a divided nation, that’s no small feat.

Write to Peter: magtour@icloud.com