“Knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.”

– Ludwig Wittgenstein, Austrian-British philosopher

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Hey, no problem,” came the reply along with a smile.

Recently, I was shopping at a big box store in the city – one of those places where you buy furniture and assemble it at home. My wife and I were there on a Saturday so the store was packed with shoppers. As I waited for my wife, I observed something fascinating unfolding. Shoppers were cutting in front of each other and going the wrong way up one-way aisles, but as long as the offenders apologized for their behaviour, it didn’t seem a big issue. An acknowledgement of the inappropriate behaviour was all that most people needed in order to...

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