Sans Fig Leaf
w
"Better"
4 October, 2007
On the occasion of my 40th
birthday (some years ago), I was advised by an older friend that every
decade of one's life is better than the last. Looking back over my
nearly-five decades I have to agree with the assessment. It's not that
the world is a better place (though in many ways it arguably is). Nor
is it that I'm a better person (though I hope I am). It's simply that
as I gain more perspective, I become better at appreciating the good,
accepting the bad, and laughing at it all.
Which isn't to say that I
don't have my cranky old man moments. There are times I find myself
wanting to yell at people for behaving foolishly--or at least
differently than I think they ought. Which is completely at odds with
my general philosophy that it's better to laugh at life's
disappointments than to throw a hissy fit. I am nothing if not
contradictory.
But I appear to be in good
company. I was amused, recently, to read a nationally syndicated
columnist ranting about how rude it is for people walking on the
sidewalk, in parks, or sitting in a bus or coffee shop, to listen to
music on headphones. He wasn't complaining about people who have their
headphones turned up so loud that it's distracting for people sitting
twenty feet away from the headphone-wearer.No, he was insistent that
when one is in a public place, one is expected to be prepared to
converse with all the other members of the public. Anything less was
uncivil. Listening to music through earphones, therefore, was the moral
equivalent of yelling 'shut up' at every stranger you met.
Why I found this so
amusing is that the same columnist, not many months earlier, had
complained about strangers interrupting him to strike up casual
conversations whenever he was reading in a public place. With the same
vehemence that he would later decry headphones, he proclaimed, "My
decision to enjoy a good book is not a signal that I'm bored silly and
would like to be entertained."
I agree with him regarding
the reading. I just happen to think that listening to music,
particularly in a way that doesn't actually disturb other people, is
roughly equivalent to reading a book. I wondered why someone who is
otherwise an intelligent observer would fail to notice the similarity
between them.
At first I theorized that
it was just a generational thing. The columnist is more than a decade
older than me. I was in my early twenties when personal stereos hit the
market, and I enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon. To someone in
his thirties, with a family, mortgage, and a career well underway, the
pocket-sized cassette player with stereo headphones looked like some
passing fad--a crass toy of interest only to college students and
teen-agers,
who don't have anything better to do with their time. Whereas books are
cultural. The enjoyment of literature is a sign of an active mind.
Except I've heard the
complaint about people being "plugged into" their personal music
players instead of paying attention to the world around them from
people younger than me, as well. One in particular was a person who
told me later how much she loves her commute to and from work--because
every day she has a certain amount of time to just listen to her
favorite music on her car stereo without anyone trying to talk to her
or complaining about the music.
How was that different
from someone sitting in a coffee shop, listening to their favorite
music on headphones, I asked.
"It's completely
different," she explained. "I'm not out in public. I'm inside my own
car!"
I pointed out that she's
usually driving on a public road, but it didn't faze her. If people
wanted to
listen to their iPods or whatever inside their car, or at home, that
was fine. But otherwise you need to pay attention to other people.
Before I could point out
that when driving you're supposed to pay attention to the other cars
and pedestrians and such, someone else asked what about people who
don't drive? To which she replied, "It's not my fault they don't have a
car. Maybe if they took life more seriously, approached it with a
mature attitude, they'd be able to afford a car."
The conversation just got
weird after that, but by then I had decided that I had been closest to
the explanation when
I was thinking about reading being considered cultural, while listening
to music was crass. It was a form of
snobbery.
One could argue that both
of my examples are just very self-involved people, but isn't
self-involvment a key component to being a snob? A snob believes his
tastes, values, and priorities are superior to other people's. What the
snob is interested in is important, worthwhile, and significant.
Everything else isn't.
Both of them expected
other people to be ready to pay attention to them if they decided to
talk. While neither wanted to pay attention to others except on their
own terms.
Both thought that their form of personal entertainment was reasonable
and deserved respect. Neither had respect of other people's choice of
entertainment.
Of course, if I'm going to
call that snobbery, I have to admit to some of my own. Because I looked
down on their choices and expectations. I was feeling smugly superior
for my more enlightened views. And feeling smug isn't much better than
throwing a hissy fit.
And as soon as I realized that, I was able to laugh. Not just at them, but at myself.
Michael Pritchard
.