By Robert
Levin
August 16th, 2002
It’s time to take punitive
action against an insidious and rapidly proliferating menace to our
emotional well being. I’m speaking, of course, of “service industry”
people who are embracing the dumbing down craze too enthusiastically
and who, doubtless incapable of even masturbating by themselves any
more, regularly perpetrate nerve-rattling, mood-curdling, faculty-numbing
and spirit-withering indignities against us.
Let me hasten to say that
I value stupidity as much as the next man. I do. Stupidity is, after
all, the best solution we've come up with to the mother of all problems
itself, the problem of being mortal. Enabling us to recast the grimmest
of existential givens-- making it possible to genuinely believe that
we've seen the image of John the Baptist on two separate taco chips
and that our sightings are proof-positive of a Second Coming and the
prospect of salvation and eternal life--stupidity is, hands-down, the
most effective means available to reduce terror and panic (the human
default condition) to a relatively tolerable disquietude. So I respect
stupidity. Okay? I think, in fact, that stupidity has been, since the
origin of consciousness, a marvel of human resourcefulness. Indeed,
as a response to the human condition, I think that stupidity is rivaled
in its genius only by schizophrenia!
But while my regard for
stupidity is equal to anyone’s, I also think it’s important to remember
that (if for no other reason than simple decency) the ancient Greek
admonition, “anything in moderation,” has application even here.
I mean for all of its utility
as a buffer against existential dread, stupidity is an unruly thing
that can have—when it’s exercised intemperately, when no effort is made
to confine it to its purpose—a very negative impact on people who are
subjected to it. Yes, it’s crucial to our ability to function at all
that we not always recognize too clearly that death is both inevitable
and final. But if you’re a bank teller it can pose a major challenge
to your customer’s medication when you’ve truncated your brain so drastically
that you can’t be certain if it’s Ben Franklin or Tom Snyder who appears
on a hundred-dollar bill. (Hold this last thought for just a moment.)
Now to illustrate my point
I could discuss the conduct of innumerable emotional shitheels who,
in just this past month, used stupidity irresponsibly and, to grievous
effect, tracked their slovenly handling of the problem of living into
my life.
I’m thinking of clerks,
counterpeople and company representatives—AND NONE OF THEM FOREIGN BORN—who
reduced my own circuits to flakes of carbon when they obliged me to
restrict my vocabulary to the dozen or so English words they were able
to comprehend.
And remaining vivid in my
memory are two cashiers, one of whom insisted that $42 for a quart of
orange juice HAD to be correct because it was “right there on the register,
and the other who demonstrated an appalling literalness.
In the case of the latter
individual: After I placed some half-dozen items in front of him and
was reaching for my wallet, he asked me (rhetorically, I assumed) if
I was taking them. When I joked that no, I wasn’t, that I liked to go
into stores and move the stock around, he became irate, bellowed that
I must be “some kind of weirdo” to do such a thing and demanded that
I leave.
The orange juice jerkoff
caused some nasty chemicals to spill in my brain that still haven’t
stopped flushing through me. The second bastard triggered a twenty-four-hour
period in which I experienced a profound reluctance to leave my apartment,
answer the phone or take any kind of nourishment.
No, I didn’t make those
people up.
But of all the recklessly
moronic lowlifes I encountered in this brief time frame, the one that
best personified the scourge I’m addressing was the aforementioned teller,
who, when I asked her to make smaller denominations of a large bill
SHE'D just slid toward ME, took a long look at it, said, “Wait a minute,
something’s very wrong here.” Then said, “No, it’s okay.” Then said,
“This CAN'T be right—I don’t think he’s even on the air anymore.” And
then announced that the bill was counterfeit and that she’d have to
confiscate it—without compensating me. (Apparently, having touched it,
I’d technically been in possession of the bill—and no, I SWEAR, I didn’t
make this dirtbag up either.)
Since I’m focusing here
on the behavior of a specific person, I’ll let pass the fact that no
one at this venerable bank—THE SOLE FUNCTION OF WHICH IS TO HANDLE MONEY!—was
able to prevent blatantly bogus currency from infiltrating its stock.
As disappointed as I was by this circumstance, I’ll keep to my teller,
who (her immediate triggering of a hideous psychosomatic rash on my
chin, notwithstanding) had still not committed the most egregious and
damaging of her offenses.
Hardly. When I protested
her action and was, for a solid hour, left to watch her engage in round
upon round of whispered phone conversations and huddled meetings, she
had the temerity to come back and tell me: “[The bank] has ELECTED [emphasis
mine] to reimburse you.”
Now I‘ll concede that, in
the matter of punitive measures, the antics I’ve described prior to
this point may not justify penalties more severe than a modest fine
and several weekends of community service. But, in my judgment, when
you add condescension to rampant imbecility—AND CONCOCT, IN THE PROCESS,
AN ESPECIALLY PERNICIOUS MIX THAT CAN MAKE A PERSON'S PENIS COMPLETELY
DISAPPEAR FOR ALMOST A WEEK!—you invite the most terrible of consequences.
Working for a great financial institution, spending her days not just
behind a bulletproof shield but in a hallowed realm of miracles like
compound interest, this teller’s come to feel invulnerable—she actually
believes that she’s in all ways protected from harm. To be sure, so
neat a self-deception is worthy of admiration. But given her failure
to curb the arrogance her delusion has engendered (let alone her excess
of witlessness) I think she should be disabused of said delusion forthwith.
In fact, I don’t think it would be in the least draconian to lie in
wait for her after work, rip off her face and shove her smug countenance
up her ass.
I’m sorry. I really didn’t
mean to suggest that we resort to violence and open ourselves to a potential
penitentiary situation. But if I had a lapse there, it was due to the
cumulative toxicity of the experiences I’ve reported and it only makes
my argument. Exposure to undisciplined mindlessness can compromise the
most splendid of nervous systems in a trice, and people dealing with
the public who abuse stupidity must be discouraged from persisting.
Collected now, ready to take a sensible approach, I’d say that legislation
making gross stupidity in a public context a quality of life violation
(and gross stupidity aggravated by a superior attitude a Class A Misdemeanor)
ought to serve the purposes of deterrence and remedy quite sufficiently.
Of course, should Bill of
Rights fetishists thwart the writing of such statutes, there’s a step
I’ve been pondering that we could take on our own. Though it might require
us to keep a bottle of Spirit of Ipecac handy (and would obviously be
most effective when we’re sitting across a desk from phlegm-flecks like
that teller), we could, just suddenly, throw up.
I’m not talking about pinpoint,
or “smart,” vomiting that’s directed at a specific, limited target,
but vomiting which, fashioned after the carpet bombing techniques developed
in Vietnam, permeates everything in your immediate vicinity. It may
not fix the problem, but delivering the remnants of the Chili Surprise
you had for lunch to the clothing and workspace of a creep who’s making
your life a roiling sea of excrement, would at least return the favor
somewhat in kind and figures to be immensely gratifying.
Plus, you’re not as likely
to provoke the interest of a criminal justice person as you’d be if
you abruptly introduced an Uzi into the proceedings. Quite the opposite:
you could be reasonably confident that law enforcement officers would
keep their distance.
Robert Levin used
to write for The Village Voice and Rolling Stone, and is the coauthor
and coeditor, respectively, of two collections of essays about rock
and avant garde jazz in the '60s: "Music & Politics" and "Giants of
Black Music."
