As someone who has done a bit of writing over the years, I have to say I like dilemmas. If you do fiction among all that writing, you have to enjoy a good dilemma when you see one. You know, where the protagonist has to decide between saving the world or forgetting all of humanity and saving the love of his or her life.
Okay, that's a bit of a stretch, because having the world destroyed includes the loss of even the most precious person to the protagonist, but you get the point. The person who is the core of the story has to make a difficult decision. Ideally, they make 'the right choice' and all turns out well. I suppose this is a bit like the classic 'which wire do I cut to stop the bomb going off?' scenario. One wrong snip and the ditherer has merely hurried up the inevitable.
But, fiction aside, life does have its own little dilemmas. Pay the milk bill or go to the cinema? Pay the TV licence fee (aka the Telly Tax) or have something other than broken biscuits for tea? Choices, choices... Though I won't include elections here because usually however you vote you get the same result: the power-hungry get to win and they will always vote for their own comfort and security ahead of yours.
(Nope, the above paragraph is silly. You have no choice but to pay the Telly Tax, even if you don't watch the ridiculous output of our bloated, smug state propaganda machine. So, it's broken biscuits for tea after all then. No choice there.)
A real dilemma is when you don't know what to do for the best.
Let me give you a completely made up example, and invite you -- the way an author or screenwriter can do -- to ponder awhile.
The other day I was driving through a northern town (not my own, as it happens) and saw a muslim police officer, complete with bushy shaggy beard, getting out of his panda car and going into house. No doubt some routine business, perhaps checking up on all sorts of everyday questions that arise with the law (no, I'm not going down the path of saying as some might think likely of whether there had been any grooming going on there) and seeing if those of who lived in the property could assist with enquiries. It could be, too, he was going home for tea. Or something.
Now this officer represents a potential dilemma for some.
One of the issues that has emerged over the past few years is the increasing authoritarian approach of 'public servants' and the increase in 'offences' against the community, which allows them to fine you for you not doing what you are told. The law has shown itself to be more and more petty, increasingly officious and even downright anti-citizen. There is also, in the explosion of laws we have had over the past twenty years, a whole bunch of misunderstood laws.
With that misunderstanding has come imagined laws. What's this, you ask? Surely that cannot be in an ordered society... Well, yes, it can. One of them has been whether members of the public can take photographs of buildings in public places. Or even, for that matter, take photos of a whole street.
Some people, possibly not professional card-carrying snappers, have been approached by the authorities and told they aren't allowed to take pictures. In fact, there is no such law, but when someone in a uniform -- real copper or plastic bobby or even grumpy council worker -- demands you put the camera away because they have decided it is against the law, then you can argue or obey.
Most will, however reluctantly, obey. Officer Unhelpful has won the moment and best not to be taken to the local police station and have to call a lawyer who can then explain the police that there is no such law prohibiting the taking of photos of the scene in a public place. Of course, if the police have evidence that will stand up in a court that you were planning some heinous crime then fair enough.
But by the time you get out of the cop shop you have, if nothing else, lost the light for the picture you hoped to take.
Now let's say the copper has got a point about your presence in a certain place. It might be utterly valid and he says he knows the law (he might even say words like "Section nine, sub-section three, paragraph five of the Public Security And Freedom Of Restricted Access Act" and you, in the face of such great knowledge, do what you are told.) As you probably don't know the law, and you want a police force that is fair and reasonable and acknowledge that they have a difficult job to do and anyway you don't want to be in their way, you comply.
Most coppers are going to merely ask you to move along without having to resort to pseudo-law. Again, you will more than likely comply.
But his action in moving you or demanding you don't take photos might utterly not valid and the quoted act doesn't exist. You are told to do something when in fact, you are doing nothing. Nothing at all, neither wrong or right.
Again, you say, well, what the hell? Might as well keep the officer happy. No skin off your nose.
But here the dilemma might get a little tricky. Let's say you are approached by a muslim police officer and you very definitely aren't muslim. Your experience of them is that while they are people and all people are just that, with all the same complexities and hopes and fears as we all have, they tend to see the world through the pages of a religious book you don't believe in. It's a religion that you don't think is all that nice or trustworthy or even relevant to this country. Perhaps it's not the sort of religion you would join, especially as the track record of some members of that religion has proved to be devious and criminal and as such, makes you feel nervous.
You may also suspect that this muslim officer is likely to be impressed by social practices you find reprehensible. Say the man, away from his job, insists his wife (or wives) all wear a bag over their head all the time and walk three paces behind him. He might, for instance, believe in a system of law where a woman's testimony is worth half that of a man's. He might turn blind eye to some of the antics of some fellow cultists who are not always working for the greater good of anyone but their own religion. He may be hampered in his job as he has to pray five times a day or the universe will collapse in on itself, and who may believe with it that the death of non-believers will please a very angry god (and who, incidentally, isn't the same as the one you believe exists.)
The officer is, in short, a person with little relevance to you and yours.
But, and there is always a but, he has been appointed -- fairly and reasonably and not as a politically correct gesture you will hope -- to a position of authority. He has to abide by a set of rules laid down and perhaps even swear allegiance to the crown. He has to be truthful and uphold the law of the land and above all he is allowed to wear the uniform and carry a warrant card. He even has a number so you know who he is.
But what if this man wants you to do something that is closer to his perhaps desired law than the one you think we should all adhere to? What if he orders you to stop doing something that isn't illegal?
You may try to put the uniform and the position ahead of the man inside it, but what if you can't? What if you think that Islam has absolutely no place here in western society?
What if you see the shaggy beard ahead of the silver badge with a crown on it?
Of course, you will have your answer as you sit reading this. You know, in a the spirit of fairness and for the sake of a unified society allied with a desire for fair play and approved thinking, what you would do in order to oblige and be reasonable.
Unless of course you think otherwise. In which case, there is a dilemma indeed.
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