Social Feedback

In the U.S., when responding to some public display of idiocy, we can generally either boo or cheer. Occasionally, we are known to turn our backs, or walk out, or sit on our hands while the other side roars in approval. Generally, especially in politics, this is all tribal, and we know what people are gonna do, based on their affinities.

One of the things I really admired about the people of Sierra Leone, was their ready, unified response to individuals that got out of line in the course of everyday interactions. Feedback was given, and it was immediate. This from a generally easy-going people! Perhaps it contributed to their equanimity.

If someone misbehaved, everyone joined in to critique.

Sucking Teeth.

In Krio, it is pronounced “Suck Teet”. “Why dey una suck teet na me?”, or Why are you all sucking teeth at me?

Imagine you are sitting in an overloaded small lorry, packed with 30 or more people, goats, chickens, bags of rice, a driver and two or three apprentice helpers. It is 4 in the afternoon and hot. You all have to get to your villages, some hours away, and the driver won’t leave, cause he has room to squeeze in one more person. The apprentices are out scouring the lorry park to find that additional passenger. Everyone is calling to the driver to leave, yet he waits. Finally, they find another passenger, and she is squeezed (literally) into a small space at the rear. There are benches down each side of the little truck, and one in the middle. People are packed in, their knees interlaced with the person across from them. Their bags and groceries are packed under their seat, or in their laps, perhaps on top of a baby who is already there. There are chickens hanging outside the lorry and sheep bleating up above, on the roof. People up there also.

The lorry leaves, but on the way out of the park, two women with enormous headpans of cassava, wave the lorry down. The driver speeds up, then slams on the brakes abruptly. Everyone and everything slides forward 6 inches, packed even tighter. The apprentices squeeze the additional passengers in at the back. And everyone else, every single one, sucks teeth at the driver for doing this to them. Except the two new women who are grateful.

The Coo

A little later in the journey a spat breaks out. Someone put their foot on someone else’s cassava. Normally, this self-corrects with an apology, but this time, it escalates, and finally, one party starts insulting the other in an angry display. They’ve lost control.

Everyone on the lorry suddenly pulls their head back, straightens their neck, looks down their nose, and Coos at the person out of control. First of all, it is funny. But it is impossible to ignore that you are considered out of bounds and are being mildly mocked. As a means to defuse a situation, it is unparalleled, and the fire is snuffed.

Using These Tools in the U.S.

I can’t help but think training the press gaggle to use these tools during White House press conferences, or in the impromptu chats at the partition on Air Force One would help to turn those occasions into a two-way conversation, instead of an exercise in dictation.

Of course, eventually, the handlers would get the picture and replace the entire press corps. In that case, I would suggest replacing them with barking seals, which will clap if you throw them a fish off-camera.