I’ve been invited to a party of an 18-year-old friend. Her parents, on holiday abroad, told her she could not have anyone over, so she has instructed her friends not to let anyone know. I told my parents, who are friends of this girl’s parents. More than 40 people, aged between 16 and 18, have been invited to come, and to bring alcohol if they wish. Should I go?
To un-know something one knows is impossible. Even Günter Grass eventually remembered that he was in the SS. Information can be such a burden. Knowledge is a marvellous thing, but ignorance can also be a pleasure: consider, for instance, the difference between knowing exactly what George Galloway looks like when dressed in a red Lycra bodystocking, purring like a pussycat, and being sublimely ignorant of such an image. You see what I mean? Ignorance is what makes flirting fun: it’s knowledge that can cruelly wrench the scales from your eyes.
Had you not known that your friend was forbidden to hold open house, you could have attended the party in innocence. Had you not told your folks, they could have minded their own business.
But now that you and your parents know, you are complicit in your friend’s deception if you attend her party. If you do not go, but stay silent, you are in the same soup as someone who knows the identity of a felon, but feels no burden to act on this knowledge because they did not witness the felony. To contact the absent parents would be noble, but also disastrous for your friendship. You might persuade your friend to convene a gathering elsewhere: a picnic, maybe, or at a concert. Or your parents might tip off her parents. If all else fails, spread the word that George Galloway will be at this party. That should at least keep numbers low.
FACING A DILEMMA
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