The Dilemma of the Twins

 

Once when I was six years old, I really wanted to borrow the Nintendo game Kid Nikki again. I had previously taken it off the hands of Aaron and Dan, the neighborhood identical twins and promptly held onto it for 4 months. When I requested to borrow it again, they were understandably put off. However, a bargain was struck. If I were to show my weiner to my also six-year-old girl neighbor while they watched and laughed, I could have it for as long as I wanted. I agreed and Michelle was thoroughly embarrassed (though she later told she wouldn’t have minded the show had those two twins not been cackling at us. So it goes.)  I didn’t speak to the twins much after that as they refused to lend me the game despite fulfilling my end of the deal.

That is what I had in my head when I would read about the twins in the newspaper some six months ago. But, more on that later…

 

I like to think I’m pretty good at judging people. I know that its considered taboo to say that you judge people at all, but the fact is we all do it. We all have our biases and our particular tastes, and when confronted with a new person in a familiar circumstance, we all want to place them into a category. This is much more for the sake of ease, rather than intolerance: if we had to learn someones entire life story, personality, and corroborating testimonies from his friends and family, it would take months before we can say that Joe Blow is a nice guy or not. So, like everyone else, I make judgments on people.

Coming from a family of sales people, I like to think my judgment is innate. Moreover, my family likes to say that our snap judgments (our assessment of you after meeting for only a moment) yields 75% accuracy for your personality. We’ll know if we like you, how you’ll probably respond to our quips, and if we can sell you the product we’re selling (or if I were selling it). Oh sure, we’ll miss the minutiae of what long conversation or a fine night of drinking might unearth, but the pertinent stuff is right there.

Everybody judges, and while some take more time than others, at the end of the day, we use the information we have at our disposal to decide our trust level of a person. So, here is the information I had at hand from the newspaper six months ago.

 

Aaron, of the twins fame from earlier, had been arrested back in my hometown. Not a big deal really, small towns with slow news days will pump up any criminal charge to fill column space. However, his crime more than justified the publicty.

Aaron had been caught in a child pornography ring. Owning, distributing, and very sadly, producing.

While disgusting in its own right to know that I knew someone at any point in my life who would do such a thing, there was another disturbing angle to this story: his twin.

Aaron’s brother Dan had nothing to do with it.

Since graduation, the twins had gone on very separate life trajectories despite their identical appearances. One twin worked odd jobs and had a horrific side hobby. The other? He worked for the CIA.

And this was why the twins angle made the story so disturbing.

Apart from the many lives ruined by this pornography ring, a completely outside person was ruined too. Dan the twin, by all accounts, was and is a fine upstanding member of the international law enforcement community. He has passed multiple security clearnances and background checks to get to where he is. But now, until the day he dies, he must share a reflection with a man who has committed some of the most unforgivable crimes a human being can commit.

Now you might be asking yourself “Does this ruined life really make the story that much more tragic? Isn’t it possible, even probable, that Dan shares some of those thoughts with his brother?” Here’s where we face the dilemma of the twins. The dilemma  isn’t theirs, its ours.

Knowing Dan the twin as I did, what conclusion was I to make about him now? I only know information  about his brother and a fleeting memory about a time he dared me to expose myself. Should I extrapolate upon that memory to suggest that more sexual deviancy dwelled in his head? Or should I just chalk it up to vicious youths simply laughing at younger, dumber kid? But, his twin brother was there too, and look what happened to him. That must tell you that even if the thoughts lay dormant, they are somewhere in the man’s psyche.

The truth of the matter is these anecdotes don’t tell us anything. There are myriads of twins across the globe and no two’s relationship is exactly the same, just as no two people are exactly the same, regardless of shared genetics. The only concrete thing we know about Dan is that he has the misfortune to share a face with a sex offender. Anything else we decide to apply to him is simply speculation based on our own experiences.

How do we judge this man? The most liberal of us would love to say that you can’t judge a man by factors beyond his control. But, with a crime so heinous, and a personal connection so profound and unique, to say that you weren’t considering those factors is a lie. At the same time, no man is his brother’s keeper. No matter how similar, each and every person responsible for their own decisions and actions.

There is no right answer to this. It is for each person to make up his or her mind given this very strange situation. I have my experience and prejudices. You have yours. Does Dan get a clean slate upon meeting him, or does he contain the seeds of evil?

 

This would make a great hypothetical question if it weren’t actually a true story.

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