Back some years ago when I lived in Pennsylvania, my ex-wife and I asked an artist friend to create a piece reminiscent of a Midwestern evening. He returned with a simple painting: an empty corn crib silhouetted against an autumn sunset.

It seems the thing we missed most, living in the quiet green shadow of Mount Nittany, was the way twilight lingers over the flatlands. Everything is just a matter of perspective.

Yeah, yeah—not much of a revelation there.

But many of us forget a couple of important things. First, the life of a community is made up of perspectives—issues understood from many sides, with few concrete rights or wrongs.

Granted, there are a few moral absolutes. Murder, fraud, the music of Mariah Carey, the films of Jim Carrey, the New York Mets and Oprah--all wrong.

Secondly, not all perspectives count the same.

From an expert’s point of view, the work of art created by our buddy hardly bears up to scrutiny. His brush expressed nothing more than an old crib with a day waning behind it. There’s no allegorical depth, no real meaning—except to those who longed for a reminder of their own past.

From a resale perspective, the experts would be right.

If I wished to fight about it, though, I might dig in my heels and spout some ready lines about American primitivism, some spurious ties to Grant Wood’s American Gothic or whatever—I’ve been involved in enough pointless debates to wing it for awhile.

Writing about the art of war, Sun Tzu admonished military leaders to know themselves as well as their opponents. He believed success was, in part, a matter of brutal honesty. Too often, though, we hear from those who refuse to budge from a personal or partisan perspective. Politicians with little real expertise in some complex issue will dismiss options that differ from their own desires.

As Groucho Marx’s character Rufus Firefly said, “whatever it is, I’m against it.”

So if honesty with oneself is a guide, I must confess that Carrey isn’t such a bad actor. In fact, he carried Man on the Moon. The 1969 Mets inspired a nation. And Oprah...no, I can’t do it.

The point is, by clinging hard and fast to ill-informed positions, some people willingly mislead themselves and others.

Why are the County Commissioners opposed to a drag strip? Certainly it’s not because of unclear language on the petition—that’s just a legal matter. Perhaps they’re digging in their heels, perhaps they have sound fiscal reasons. But if the commissioners (and those in favor of the track, for that matter) aren’t honest with themselves about the source of their opposition, it’s bound to be a poor decision.

Granted, a strip of asphalt is not enough to fill Kimball’s storefronts. But a community hears, appreciates and tries to understand its citizens and all of their opinions. An honest community puts its faith in informed perspectives, above the stubborn.

Then again, it’s always possible to wing it.