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Tuesday, August 09, 2005
The Comfortably Numb
Mike Straka of Fox News has a punishingly accurate column up today about "Susan Wal-Martian," his archetype for the sort of citizen who can't be bothered to consider the convenience or the prerogatives of others. It's a neat summary of public behaviors from which nearly all of us have suffered at some time -- and some subset of which nearly all of us have committed in our less than thoughtful moments.
Straka has written before on this subject. Among his most memorable constructs, for your Curmudgeon's money, the Left-Lane Vigilante ranks highest of all. This creature seems to regard it as his personal duty to see to it that no one exceeds the speed limit in the leftmost lane of a multi-lane highway. No one keeps track of the number of accidents and deaths he helps to cause by provoking the ire of other motorists, or by compelling them to pass him on his right. This is a tragedy all by itself. It's further noteworthy how often a Left-Lane Vigilante is driving a large, high, vision-occluding vehicle, which bars those he impedes from knowing traffic conditions beyond him.
In all likelihood, Susan, the Vigilante, and their situational colleagues aren't consciously trying to put the rest of us out. They're merely numb from the collar up. The condition doesn't trouble them. They don't recognize themselves in sketches such as Straka's. It doesn't help to try to draw their attention to their inattention. When their thoughtlessness leads to havoc, it doesn't occur to them that they had a hand in its making.
And among them are folks who titter at Jessica Simpson's pretended lack of awareness. It is to laugh.
Well, none of us have responsibility for reforming the world. But defending oneself proactively against the Comfortably Numb is getting harder all the time, because of the packed-in conditions in which many of us live. Our increasing density makes it steadily harder to see them coming, which leaves us with steadily diminishing time to react.
Typically, a Numbster is merely a source of irritation or inconvenience. The exceptions are exceptional indeed. Therefore, since reforming them is impossible, and eliminating them is illegal, we are left with but one recourse: outbreeding them.
No, that doesn't require that you get pregnant with quintuplets. But if you have children, and you're not Comfortably Numb yourself, please consider drawing their attention to the dislocations caused by the Numbsters around you. Children are smarter than we give them credit for. They'll grasp the implications without having to be told. Also, they're naturally more censorious than adults and more vocal about it, which will make for occasional amusing encounters in shopping centers and movie theaters.
As you ponder this, remember that adult Numbsters are busily producing and rearing children of their own. The characteristic is transmissible, whether environmentally or through the germ plasm. Natural selection can only do so much.
This race is most definitely to the swift.
Comments
Good articles (both yours, and the Wal-Martian one your point to).
One disagreement with the latter, though:
I am one of those people who often does not return my cart to the cart return.
I do so not because I am dead from the head up, but because I’ve thought through the matter.
I have three primary reasons:
1) Indeed, it is not my job to return carts. I also do not bus my table when eating out at a nice restaurant (I do when eating at a taqueria, etc.). When, despite my best efforts, I track a bit of gritty water in to a mall, I do not try to find a mop. When I go to Starbucks I do not lean over the counter and empty the grinds from the espresso machine. In all cases, the establishments retain employees for these functions, having made a business decision about exactly where the boundary that contains the basket of services they provide lies. Grocery carts are a bit of a gray area: on the one hand, businesses explicitly ask customers to return carts; on the other hand, all businesses with carts employ people whos job it is to gather carts. There is an attempt at societal renegotiation going on. I stand on the opposite side of the businesses.
2) Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage. I may be better at returning carts than a store employee (in fact, I suspect that I’m equally good at it)...but when one ponders that I am a software engineer, it is more efficient for me to work 1 minute coding C++ and then pay an employee to spend 3 minutes returning my cart, than it is for me to spend 3 minutes returning my cart. By not returning my cart, and paying a slightly increased price because the store must employ a cart guy, I am increasing overall utility in the economy, leading to a (nanoscopically) higher standard of living for everyone.
3) Economies of scale. If I am at my cart, I must walk the cart all the way back to the store, then walk back to my car. On the other hand, an employee gathering up 8 carts does not walk 8 times the distance I do.
None of this is to justify blocking parking spots with carts: I am always careful to park carts out of the way of vehicles (and sometimes, the easiest way to do this is to return the carts to the cart return, in which case, I do so).
If all of this seems overly rationalized and analytical for such a simple matter, recall that I’m the kind of person who justifies acquiring a taste for sushi by recourse to net present value of a future stream of happiness.
Posted by TJIC on 08/09/2005 at 08:21 AMTakes me back to the Paintball solution.
Which, of course, is despised by the people who would be the targets of said paintballs because they drive like morons.
So I have to return to my falback solution of bumper-mounted automatic weapons.
Posted by og on 08/09/2005 at 08:33 AMI’m sorry. You have neither the right nor the license to exceed the speed limit—ever.
When someone is traveling at 30% over the posted limit and you pass them on the right, horns blowing, bird waving, perhaps you should examine your own heart.
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 08/09/2005 at 08:42 AMI’m sorry. You have neither the right nor the license to exceed the speed limit—ever.
To make sure I understand?
If your wife is in the passenger seat, hemmoraging, and you’re going to the hospital, remember not to exceed the posted speed limit.
If you’re employed as a police officer, and a hostage situation is reported, remember not to exceed the posted speed limit.
If there day is clear, the road is dry, your car is in good repair, and the road was DESIGNED to handle 90 MPH traffic, and no one is on the road, remember not to exceed the posted speed limit.
< blink >
Posted by TJIC on 08/09/2005 at 09:39 AMmark:
tell me what you would do, then, in Chicago traffic on the expressway.
I have been driving on Chicago toll roads for twenty years, for fifteen years every single weekday. The speed limit is 55. The traffic travels at a constant 75. Traveling at 55, obeying the speed limit, is incredibly dangerous and you can be ticketed for doing so. I’m interested in what you would do in that situation.
BTW, on surface streets? i’m with you 100%.
Posted by og on 08/09/2005 at 10:02 AMTJIC;
That there are extenuating circumstances does not extend the license. You may take the liberty, but complaining when you get ticketed, or bitching at people who are obeying traffic regulations isn’t on. They have no way of knowing you have an emergency—you’re not an emergency vehicle, granted right-of-way by law and by virtue of universally-recognized signals (lights and sirens). From their perspective, you are nothing more or less than a moving hazard.
For what it’s worth, the advice of EMS professionals is to NEVER drive yourself to the hospital in extremis. They point out that they can take steps on the scene and enroute to aid and stabilize that you are probably not equipped or trained to do—that treatment in effect starts on their arrival at the scene, rather than yours after you’ve been checked in to the ER.
This was given us after SWMBO’s heart attack. Call 911.
<hr >
Og;
I agree about prevailing traffic conditions. And, in fact, in most jurisdictions of which I am aware, if you are NOT driving at the prevalent speed, you can be cited for hazardous operation.
But I repeat: when someone is driving at the prevailing speed, (my example was 1.3x posted limit), passing them (hazardously) on the right, riding their bumper and blowing your horn, or weaving in and out of traffic is not cricket.
You don’t have a right to get there first. And, as far as I am concerned, your urgency—whatever it is—is a personal problem. Don’t make it mine.
There seems to be an attitude I consider highly dangerous of—as Mr. Newt put it—viewing the speed limit as a benchmark of opportunity. As a staunch individualist, I believe that contracts must be honored, or the social fabric comes asunder. Every person who holds a driver’s license has in effect contracted to obey the rules of the road, and the primary one is the posted speed limit.
Yes, driving to the right is generally included in the rules of road. But that assumes that, on a limited access highway, all access ramps will be on the right, which is not the case—especially not inside urban areas. Therefore, insisting on driving habits better suited for inter-city driving on what are effectively limited-access “surface” streets is—IMNSVHO—witless.
Breathe deep, Alger!
Sorry.
M
P.S. Now this has turned into such a rant, I’m reposting on BTB (edited, of course).
Fran—This is something else of value blogs can do—excite discussion. I’ve been trying to formulate this rant forever. Now your post and comments have prodded me into action. (Anent your comment on BTB this morning.)
Posted by Mark Alger on 08/09/2005 at 10:58 AMThen, mr Alger, you and I are in complete accord.
Posted by og on 08/09/2005 at 11:10 AMIf all the laws on the books in America were enforced and obeyed, we’d be a third world country by dark, today.
Posted by on 08/09/2005 at 01:39 PM>>If all the laws on the books in America were enforced and obeyed, we’d be a third world country by dark, today.<<
Really? How so?
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 08/09/2005 at 03:42 PMFortunately, the speed limits in Texas are 70 so the law and I are in agreement on what is a reaonable highway speed.
Posted by Connie on 08/09/2005 at 05:29 PMWe couldn’t even be a third-world country. (Indeed, if all the laws in the country were enforced, there would be no one left to guard the jails, since we’d all be behind bars.)
The fact remains that, posted limits notwithstanding, driving 10mph or more below the prevailing traffic speed in the leftmost lane of an expressway is profoundly antisocial behavior. (But then, so is designing an expressway in such a manner as to place entrance ramps on the left.)
Posted by Matt on 08/10/2005 at 02:40 AMI’m a slow driver, I used to be a fast driver, but I don’t see the value in driving exceedingly fast anymore especially since I drive a smelly old car which I fear would completely fall apart if forced to endure high speeds for any amount of time at all. That said, I also don’t drive in the left lane as a rule, but if I do, I usually have a good reason for it.
I resent people who ride my tail end in traffic, and if I had a rear view mirror they would certainly see me mouth the words, “Bug Off” in it. Generally I just drive a little slower when someone is being overly aggressive in traffic, see I’m passive-aggressive like that. I like to smile really big and wave “HI!” at them too.
I have a friend on the other hand who sees anyone passing her, or one upping her as a personal affront. This makes her very grouchy and hateful when driving the car, and that is contagious.
Posted by Heather on 08/10/2005 at 03:08 AMMatt;
I don’t know about where you are, but I almost never see cars going under the speed limit in the left lane around here.
Mostly what happens is somebody who speeds up to pass—or has to get off at the next left—then can’t get back to the right because everybody is on everybody else’s bumper.
Somebody once noted that any following distance that could be called “safe” is one into which somebody will try to shoehorn their vehicle. Safe following distance being apparently optional.
And then, the person stuck in the left lane—exceeding the posted limit, mind—is passed by an endless train of assholes who just simply have to get there first and can’t wait to let somebody over.
I’m sure that there are those Gordon Liddy describes as “old men with hats,” but they’re not the rule in my experience.
And if you want to know why traffic is so bad, think about this: why do cars back up at stoplights? Is it because somebody’s driving too slow for the timing of the lights?
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 08/10/2005 at 10:31 AM
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