Knives and Forks at 20 Paces

Wife Lorna is fond of telling folks about the early Spanish colonial dinner table exhibit at San Diego's Old Town where the table settings consist of crossed knives and forks. The tour guide explains that the crossed eating utensils signified to guests that there would be no talking about politics or religion at the table. Such a quaint custom may gather renewed currency today in our increasingly factionalized society. It seems that the partisan rancor that has our nation's capitol in a state of perpetual war has spilled over and turned "Guess who's coming to dinner?" into one of the great threats to domestic tranquility.
We recently attended one such ill-fated dinner. The conversation started innocently enough with lots of talk about the latest developments in the neighborhood, new movies, foreign travel. Then it got around to the travails one couple was having caring for elderly parents, and someone said how that care was costing $6,000 a month. That inspired me to lift a glass to toast, as I jokingly called it, “the socialist state of Massachusetts” where my elderly mother was receiving outstanding assistance, much to the relief of her sons living 3000 miles away. The reaction around the table was quick and fierce. “And who's paying for that?” someone asked. “We're paying for it,” someone else proclaimed. To which someone else added, “We always end up having to care for these people who didn't make plans to take care of themselves.”
I don't believe there was much time for any of the speakers to process the full implications of what they were talking about. To consider (A) the utter mathematical impossibility of most ordinary people to prepare for a future of doling out $6000 a month to care for an elderly parent. To consider (B) that the care being provided my mother was the result of considerable political effort exerted by the man most of them had voted for in the last presidential election--Mitt Romney. To consider (C) that they had just insulted a dining partner by essentially calling his 89-year old mother a parasite on society. The instant fever pitch of the conversation didn't allow time for reflection that might have mitigated such views. And thus, with my willing and eager participation, we were all suddenly plunged into a highly contentious conversation about the idea of commonwealth and whether we should be living in a society where we share certain burdens or living in one where it's every man and woman, regardless of age, for themselves.
It was clearly an unsettling turn for the hostess, who had, as gracious hostesses are like to do, put considerable thought and preparation into creating a pleasant evening for one all. As the runaway train of discourse roared down the track, she appeared helpless to stop it and regretted not listening to one of the other diners who said in the midst of the uproar, “This is why when we entertain we put up a sign saying, Leave politics at the door.”
Which they do, and that's all well and good. But the last time I was at their house to be entertained one of their guests had no sooner arrived than he was holding court in the middle of the party and brashly announcing to anyone within earshot that the problem with this country was the immigrants. As it happens, this was the same person who was my main antagonist over the subject of care for the elderly. And though this brief profile clearly indicates that he comes by his pugnacity from the right side of the political spectrum, I’m unhappy to report that I’ve known a few of my friends from the left to exhibit the same social aggressiveness. They seem compelled when walking into a gathering of old, new and just passing acquaintance to straight away put their political marker down. It’s like the gunslinger who strolls into a bar and immediately goes and knocks someone’s hat off. I call them rhetorical bullies. 
Planning a guest list to avoid political differences isn’t always the answer. One of the most heated dinner table discussions I ever witnessed was between two parties who supported the same candidate—Barack Obama. They had, in fact, just spent the day together campaigning for him. But when the discussion got around to how successful Obama had been in living up to his promises, it was indeed forks and knives at 20 paces. The Tea Party would have been humbled by the acrimony.
That experience convinced me that it isn’t a simple matter of outlawing certain topics at the table. There’s really no telling what will set people off. In growing up around my mother’s highly strung Italian brothers, I can hardly remember a family gathering that didn’t get punctuated by an explosive argument over music! Was Di Stefano better than Caruso? Was Beethoven better than Mozart? Was Toscanini just a great conductor or the greatest conductor who ever lived?
I myself have been driven from a dinner table discussion when the subject was child rearing, and I saw an argument erupt over mere semantics. A couple at the table had attributed their impressive accumulation of material possessions to the fact that they were “blessed.” Someone else at the table suggested that “luck” would be a more accurate description. There ensued an hour-long, emotional debate about whether our individual fates were divinely determined or the result of random opportunities. At one point I ventured the opinion that if hard work and prayer truly did yield material well-being, Mexican immigrants who spend half the time on their knees working and half on their knees praying would all be living in mansions. To his credit the pro-blessed protagonist thought that was a good point and admitted he’d never considered it before, which to my mind made the whole uncomfortable exercise worth it. Getting people to consider viewpoints they never heard before is about as good a party favor you can give as far as I’m concerned.
But still, getting to that positive point is hard on a hostess (or host), and my heart really does go out to someone who puts a great deal of time and detail into planning a warm evening among friends only to see it go up in smoke. I’m not sure that the crossed forks and knives is the answer, however, since politics and religion may be overrated as sources of rancor. Except under the most restrictive Miss Manners rules, a hostess is limited in how much control she has over the direction of a dinner table discussion. It’s impossible to account for all the factors that might affect a group’s dynamics—alcohol, a bad day, deeply buried psychological issues, hot-button topics. The problem is compounded if the hostess’s highest priority is to have her guests feel, as they say, “at home.” A good, heated discussion is sometimes the mark of a successful dinner party, and certainly there are hostesses who prefer fireworks at the dinner table to boredom.
So here’s my solution. When a hostess sets her table for a dinner party, she puts a sock beside her plate. Whenever the conversation gets out of hand, she passes the sock to the guest who in her considered opinion has crossed the line she wishes to maintain for the evening. She need say nothing more. The simple act says it all: Put a sock in it.