Synecdoche

I am a man, an American, a husband, an erstwhile father, a senior citizen, a voter, a Christian, an Episcopalian, a homeowner, a writer, a some-time curmudgeon, a dog and cat owner, an Element driver, a liberal, a member of the middle class, a retiree. And a whole lot of other things, including occasional jerk.

At home it doesn’t matter too much how I act as long as I don’t hurt myself or anyone else – that is, Ann, my wife of 40 years. In public, however, people frequently perceive me – and everyone else they meet – as representative of a whole class of people. This is technically synecdoche (sin-ECK-da-key), a term that means the use of a part of something to represent the whole thing, as in “wheels” for the whole car, or “pad” for an entire home.

Unfortunately, we too often apply synecdoche to people. For example, in the 1988 presidential race against Michael Dukakis, George H.W. Bush’s campaign used the image of Willie Horton. Horton was a prisoner on weekend furlough who raped and robbed a woman when Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts. Horton came to represent Dukakis’ “soft on crime” stance, and even more largely, the threat of African-Americans against the mainstream community. I understand that this example reveals me, too: What most other people think of as history, I still regard as current events.

In another example, a friend who is a devout Episcopalian refuses to have any Christian symbols on her car because, she says, if she makes a driving error, people will think she represents the way all Christians drive. And I can relate to this. I am often irritated by other drivers, and if they have a bumper sticker about the Rapture and the car being “unmanned,” I attribute their ineptness to other-worldliness.

Last night, when I was on the way to pick up a friend for dinner, I saw a woman on a cell phone had stopped about two car lengths from a viaduct, effectively creating a traffic jam for a mile behind her. I felt lucky to be traveling in the other direction on the two-lane road. A lesser person could well have attributed the gridlock to women drivers. I just muttered about stupid people in general and merrily drove on. I gave her enough grace to assume she was calling the cops or a tow truck – instead of chatting to a friend about her day and the rude people honking behind her.

One priest who abuses altar boys seems to create suspicion of all priests. One inept teacher often casts doubt on the competence of the whole profession.

Teenagers seem to bear the biggest brunt of emotional synecdoche. Many people fear teens, especially teenage boys. “They travel in groups and use jargon we don’t understand.” And things or people we don’t understand are the ones we fear most. A thousand teens volunteering in hospitals or tutoring grade school children somehow don’t make up for one teen who shoots another person – and gets all the publicity.


What to do, what to do? We can only be more conscious, more mindful, live thoughtfully in the moment. That means not judging all members of a group on the behavior of one. Teens, for example, are usually great people – and they grow up. It also means giving grace to people who fall. And all of us do that on a pretty regular basis.

Giving grace to others is not the end of it, however. We cannot behave as if we are always being watched and judged, even though we probably are. We must live with integrity. We must be our true selves, perhaps our best selves. We must give mercy to ourselves when we - frequently - fall short.