Reflecting on legislators sneering that people with diabetes don’t deserve health insurance, coming out against emergency care for people with drug overdoses, declaring that people with debilitating medical conditions just need to get second and third jobs, mocking the very idea of pre-natal care, and so on, I am forced back to a conclusion that I first had shortly after attaining adulthood, to wit: the true danger to the well-being of the world has never been flying saucers firing destructo-beams, or the dead crawling from their graves, or invasive human-duplicating seed pods.
It isn’t even Nazis; they were terrible, of course, but they were like any other extremely virulent disease in that the symptoms were so terrible, so immediately destructive, that they could only reach a certain threshold and no farther before the rest of the organism reacted to contain and wipe out the infection.
One could say the same thing of terrorism. It’s a pox, but the primary distinguishing trait of any pox is that it puts up a billboard and says, “Hey, everybody! I’m over here!”
No, people; the true danger to human civilization is now and has always been smugness, the aggressive attitude that the problems of other people don’t matter, that we can mock them and ignore them with impunity because they will never touch us. Vindictiveness exists and does its damage, but it would never get away with even one tenth of what it does without the dismissive mockery of the smug, the proud declaration, “That’s not my problem.”
Similarly, global warming denialism is not so much the problem as the smiling declaration of those who believe it but say things like, “Ha, ha, ha! All it means is that we have a few less beaches!” Dennis Miller, mocking concern for polar bears, saying, “I don’t care!” to the cheers of his audience. The pieces of shit who drive around in trucks jerry-rigged to belch extra and blacker smoke, because the people behind the wheel are wired to derive self-satisfaction from aggressive unpleasantness, are in the end a minor problem, less a trend than line noise, but the people who can see environmental degradation happening but still think your concern is hilarious, because concern for anything is hilarious, are the true malignancy and always have been.
Smugness is, “Why should I address this injustice? I’ve got mine. Why should I feed you? I certainly had no problem getting to food today. Why should I care that you’re suffering? I’m over here and feeling fine. I can make matters worse for you if it offers me even the slightest advantage, because nobody’s stopping me and I see no particular reason to care. It’s funny that you would think I care. It’s funny that you think I’m doing this out of any particular meanness. This smirk you see on my face is an expression of my existence as a closed system that does not include you. You’re not my problem. I could not care less, and I have absolutely no difficulty with painting this as a virtue. When you react to my attitude with aghast horror, I not only have trouble seeing why you’ve gotten so worked up, but I think you’re funny, like Curly of the Three Stooges having the pointless fight with the water-spitting oyster in his soup.”
Smugness is the failure to recognize that other people are just a subset of “people.”
Smugness is also, “What you’re worried about doesn’t affect me YET.”
Until, all of a sudden, as the concerned have been warning the smug all along, it does; at which point the attitude always transforms into,
“WHY DIDN’T SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING?”
Comment By: Samuel John Klein
June 27th, 2017 at 10:19 am
I’d toss those who feel that politics is too vulgar to care about … and then condescendingly lecture you on it … on that pile.
Comment By: Virginia Galloway
June 27th, 2017 at 11:19 am
You know, I was reading an article this morning about the Big 10 food brands who essentially own everything else foodish, and my take on it was more “Hmmm–interesting” until I got to the very last paragraph: “If youâre looking to avoid contributing to the Big 10 world takeover, try shopping at local farmersâ markets and maybe skip out on soda and highly processed foods altogether. Your body will thank you for it in the long run anyway.”
Really, it was the last sentence that set me off because I am so exhausted by the “We know what’s best for you” smug mindset. The author might actually be correct, but I am SO tired of being patronized this way.
https://food.good.is/articles/food-brands-owners?utm_source=ATTN&utm_medium=FB&utm_campaign=Share
Comment By: Russell Handelman
June 27th, 2017 at 12:18 pm
I’m reminded of various right-wing politicians who’d been on the record as anti-gay, but then announcing how they’ve “changed” once it’s their son or daughter or grandkid comes out. Everybody’s expected to congratulate them and praise them for becoming “woke” on the issue, while conveniently forgetting that it was only when it was in their own household that it mattered to them, not when it was a bunch of strangers (including their constituents) suffering discrimination and abuse.
Comment By: Antonia
July 14th, 2017 at 10:13 pm
Empathy is lacking in many of these individuals. Reading fiction seems to awaken empathy in a lot of people. You write fiction. Ergo, the answer is all these smug people should read your fiction and improve the world by becoming empathetic.
Seriously, I often wonder how the empathy gene is missing in their DNA…