This week we're running a small package of essays on the topic of nuisances. Why? That's an annoying question.
You are at the supermarket. You push your shopping cart up and down the aisles, filling it as desired. You are making good time, especially in a crowded store, but suddenly you need to stop, because you need to reach something on a high shelf, or because you want to compare a few different items, or perhaps because you ran into a friend you haven't seen in a while and want to chat. So you pull your cart over to the side. What you do not do is leave your cart smack in the middle of the aisle while you go about your business, because there are other people in the world besides you, and several dozen of them are in this supermarket right now, and by stopping your cart in the middle of the aisle, you would block them going about their shopping—inconveniencing them for no real reason. It's pretty basic situational awareness, but you have it.
Some people do not, and I am open to the idea of lengthy prison terms for them.
Pay attention to the things around you! Be aware of the space you take up, and the space other people take up, and when those two things might come into conflict! ["We live in a society" voice] We live in a society, a thing that comes with both benefits and responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to not needlessly be a dick to others. One of the most common methods of needlessly being a dick is people who do not pay attention to those around them, and move through the world without care for their surroundings. You know these people. They are the ones who walk slowly, three abreast, on a narrow sidewalk, forcing you to step into the street or shoulder your way past them.
What is going through these people's heads? I cannot say for sure, because I have never been one of them, but I suspect the answer is: nothing. It is not spite, or a power trip that motivates them to monopolize public space. Rather, it is a guileless, empty-headed selfishness. It never crosses their mind that there are other people among them, with the same rights to the same aisles or sidewalks, and that the most utilitarian way to conduct oneself is to follow the agreed-upon rules for sharing that space: Walk on the right, do not block other people trying to pass you, etc. In this sense it is not quite a lack of spatial awareness, but of social awareness.
You may think this is a small thing, and it is. But small things matter. How we handle the small things are indicative of how we handle the big things. A society where it is increasingly commonplace to use your phone in a darkened movie theater, because you believe maintaining your personal comfort justifies causing unpleasantness to people around you—a society where people unironically degrade others as "NPCs"—is a society where it is accepted and even encouraged to get yours while everyone else can go get fucked. It is a society of grift, where a willingness to take advantage of others is a cheat code, or a campaign platform. Whatever happened to shame? Bring back the natural, useful emotion of feeling even just a little bit obligated to other people that causes us to act in ways that do not fuck other people over. Shamelessness is a 21st-century plague, and even the uninfected must suffer.
It is not even necessarily generosity that should guide your actions. It's fine if you hold a door for someone not because you want to be "nice," though that's always welcome. It is a matter of reciprocity. You do the little things for other people because you'd prefer they do the little things for you, too. That's all society is.
I don't know how we combat this. I don't know how we build a world where it never even crosses anyone's mind to blare music from their phone, without headphones, in a crowded subway car. If you're reading this, you're an internet user of taste, and likely not the problem. But still: Drill it into your children's heads that they are not the protagonist of reality, that there are other people, and they should be aware of those other people. There is a time and place for solipsism, but it is not while coming to a dead stop just after stepping off a crowded escalator.
Alternately, we could criminalize "being a dick" and round them all up and shoot them into the sun.
