The Arrogance of Power

That's what one of my colleagues in the water aerobics class called it, this afternoon, and she was right. The whole incident of Dick Cheney's quail hunt just demonstrates an attitude which, I'm sorry to say, isn't restricted to the present administration, although the present administration is certainly full of it. Among other things.

The attitude I refer to can be summed up as, "I'm really important and the rules don't apply to me." Messrs. Bush and Cheney are the most blatant examples of this attitude; but it exists in other places:

It's playing hell with our international relations, because the administration acts like that on behalf of the United States, and therefore the United States projects the arrogance of power and annoys the crap out of everyone else. We're going to regret that one of these days, maybe in Iran.

It exists in executive suites, where CEOs insist that they themselves are soooo important that they must be paid 431 times as much as their average production workers (see my post, Executive Pay, for more scary numbers).

It exists on the roads, every time anyone runs a red light or a stop sign. I sometimes think I'm the only person left who waits for the light to change before crossing the street; everyone else is too important.

It's everybody who drives an SUV around town, so they can be safe, and high up, no matter what it does to the environment, or the ability of other drivers to see around them (ever try to get out of a parking lot when the view of oncoming traffic is blocked by a parked SUV?).

It's "me first", all the time every time; and the scary thing is that it isn't even restricted to people who have power. Everybody does it, and they use that as an excuse to continue to do it; and it's destroying civil society.

How about a little humility, people? How about a little bit of "Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you?" We all put our pants on one leg at a time. As Bobby Dylan once wrote, "Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." As a country, we need to Get Over Ourselves. Common sense and common courtesy will get you through most situations smoothly; but they've both become so rare that we almost can't call them "common" any more. But oh, boy, do we need them.