Not long ago I found myself in one of those conversations where I just didn’t like the other person. Not only did I struggle to find common ground with him, but I had trouble finding any redeeming qualities in him.
Our conversation started out innocently enough. We’ve seen each other at the bar a few different times. He said he’s more of a day drinker, I made a joke about being on the closing shift. We talked a little bit about sports. Football and basketball games were on the TVs at opposite ends of the bar. We talked about the neighborhood. At least twice he asked if I lived in the neighborhood (he either forgot or was drunk or wasn’t paying attention the first time I said I lived down the street). We talked about living in the city. He asked what brought me out here and what I do. I told him what I tell everyone: better weather, better vibes, vibrant and accepting city – and nonprofit guy. He bought me a drink and a shot and in light of the work I do, he said it’s his charitable contribution. That probably should have been a clue on how charitable he is.
As the conversation turned to some of the people who are unhoused and living in the neighborhood, he said he wants them all arrested or shipped off somewhere. I took my normal position of trying to convince him (and anyone who will listen) to soften up and be more compassionate. When he said they all have mental disorders and most of them are drug users, I talked about what lack of sleep does to the brain. I pointed out that a significant number of the people who are unhoused did not start off with mental disorders or drug problems – but that being homeless caused (or at least contributed to) those issues. I refrained from pointing out the hypocrisy of tolerating drug use when it’s done in a bar bathroom or behind closed doors – a culture I know he knows exists. Instead, I tried to point out that the leading causes of bankruptcy and financial distress (which can lead to depression and drug use) in America are medical debt and job loss – things that any one of us could experience and would be devastating to most of us without strong supports or a significant bank account.
He wasn’t buying it. His take was that he pays too much in property taxes to have to see this… and by “this” I presume he meant filth. I pushed him on this. I asked him why he hasn’t moved or built a compound or hired private security. I asked him if he thinks people should be able to buy their way out of participating in society – ignore suffering? When he suggested shipping people off to Bakersfield or some other place, I wondered but wasn’t quick enough in my thinking to ask if the people in Bakersfield don’t pay property taxes – or is it because they pay less than he does that this should be their problem? He got flustered and walked away – half-shouting, “I fucking hate bums.”
He stood near one of the TVs looking sour and mad. I sat there a little dumbfounded by how little compassion he had. I sat there thinking – “the fucking rich – because they have money, they think they deserve more and better and different than everyone else.” They want to buy their way out of everything, build walls, denigrate others – quick to judge and seldom caring about the collective good.
After about ten minutes, he came back. He started talking about sports again. By this time, I was talking to the guy on my left. “Sympathy for the Devil” played on the jukebox. The day drinker who was quite inebriated, started to shout the woo woo part of the song. He tried to get the patron on my left to join in. A few of my friends showed up. I floated in and out of several conversations. Seemingly out of the blue (because I wasn’t paying attention to what led up to it), the day-drinking man who hates bums started talking about women’s breasts. He started asking the guys around the bar, if they liked big breasts or petite ones. Do they like them floppy? What do they like to grab onto when they’re behind a woman. Most people ignored him. He was being crass.
This encounter happened a few weeks ago. I wrote about it (above) and then sat on it. I wasn’t sure what else I could say. Men like this seem to represent some of the worst characteristics in humanity. Not only do they lack compassion, but they have a… and I’m struggling to find the right term (colonizer’s, rapist’s, extractor’s) mentality. There seems to be this belief that the world revolves around them and is theirs for the taking. There’s very little tolerance for diversity (of thinking or beliefs) and there’s very little understanding of complex systems much less nuance. They position themselves at the top of the food chain and claim full credit for having gotten there through sheer determination and hard work. They fail to see the societal factors that may have given them a leg up (or several) and they assume anyone who hasn’t achieved their level of success isn’t working hard enough or has inherent character flaws.
But I don’t think the problem is limited to men (though it seems far more concentrated among men). I think it has far more to do with privilege and power (again, historically concentrated among white men). I think what I’m really struggling to come to terms with is that I was hoping to find less of this out here in liberal, hippy dippy, peace-loving San Francisco… that I was expecting to encounter more community-minded, and less selfish, self-absorbed, and self-aggrandizing people in this bastion of progressive ideals. Of course, I have no way of testing whether my expectations were off, or if the negative encounters stand out more here, or if I’m experiencing confirmation bias, or if my distaste is being fueled by the current political climate – one in which we’re increasingly under the influence of a bunch of white, tech-bro, billionaires trying bend our society to their whims – billionaires who behave a lot like this guy and seem to be a model for bro culture and bro behavior.
I came back to what I had written about this encounter because of two recent pieces of media I’ve come across.
Today, in my morning news feed, I read an article about the coyotes that live in the city and what they’re eating. It’s estimated that there are 100 coyotes in San Francisco and according to recent research, a considerable part of their diet is human food. The article begins by talking about the researcher who studied the diets and how she recently set up a booth at Crissy Field, not far from where I live, to answer questions people have about the coyotes. Over 100 people lined up to talk to her, most of them residents concerned about the risk the coyotes pose to their kids and their dogs. As the article states, “Some of the residents were frightened. Many of them were angry. And all of them had questions. Was the coyote population skyrocketing? Were they developing a taste for their canine peers? And why didn’t the city relocate the carnivores — or get rid of them entirely?”
… Get rid of them entirely? I can’t understand this way of thinking – whether it’s towards our homeless population, towards the coyotes whose presence predates humans being in the city, or towards immigrants who have come here looking for a better life. It hurts my head and my heart. It’s a form of selfishness. It’s an example of the myopic thinking that seems to be chipping away at our ability to compromise and connect with our neighbors and our world. Selfishness is nothing new. What I don’t know is if it’s getting worse, if it’s been supercharged, or if my tolerance of it is growing thinner. Framed slightly differently, my appreciation for our world and its diversity has grown with every walk or bus ride I take, with every hour I spend sitting on a bench by the water, with every cloud or bird or human gaze I study… and I would love for more people in the world to have similar appreciations – to be less callous and cruel in their dismissals of anything they find to be uncomfortable or a nuisance. To be a little more curious and little less self-assured.
When I contemplate these things, I feel out of place and I get the sense that something (on a global level) seems to be failing and failing quickly. It feels easy to pin the blame for what feels like a rise in selfishness on social media, a lack of common arbiters of truth, and our venerated yet crumbling institutions. It feels easy to pin the blame on capitalism which has prioritized expediency, usefulness, and profitability in every sector from education to healthcare to housing to politics. Perhaps this was to expected as the selfie generation assumed a greater role in society and as the older generations (including mine) adapted and became selfie obsessed as well?
The other recent article I came across that got me thinking about selfishness was in Columbia Journalism Review and carried the subtitle, “Plenty to worry about—but some are looking forward to the press having better access.” In it, a reporter is quoted as saying, “I think it’s important for people to understand the context, that we’re coming out of four years of Biden and things haven’t been great. There’ve been fewer eyeballs on the press briefings and less attention than under Trump, so people just don’t understand some of the very frustrating things that we’ve dealt with and that we hope are going to be rolled back.” Fewer eyeballs… in other words, fewer clicks, less sensationalism. This seems to be what the attention economy has wrought and demands.
I’ve long-suspected that one of the greatest shifts that tech has foisted upon us (and we’ve eagerly gobbled up) is the customization of everything. Our GPS puts us in the center of the map – thus obliterating our understanding of our place in the world. Amazon, YouTube, Google, Spotify, Twitter – have all curated our feeds to the point that we live in our own bubbles and echo chambers. CNN, Fox News, ESPN have trained us to expect 24/7 action and access. Reality TV has taught us that every episode is the most shocking episode in history (without the context that the show’s only been on for three years and history, world history, is a little longer than that). We’re blasted with everything everywhere all the time, and with every experience and news feed being curated at the individual level, we’re not only losing our sense of commonality and context, but we’re priming our minds to be more easily manipulated by misinformation. I’d have to imagine that the reporter quoted in the Columbia Journalism Review article can’t remember a time (or is unaware of a time) when there weren’t as many press briefings and we didn’t live in a world of constant access – a time when truth and doing things right mattered more than the algorithm and ad sales. And the fact that this opinion (that greater access to a president who lies nonstop is somehow preferable than limited access to one who tells the truth) is made credible by one of our most prominent schools of journalism seems indicative of how deep the click-rot has gone.
As usual, I’ve punched myself out on a topic that seems entirely too big and tangled and exhausting. I don’t know that the asshole at the bar’s uncharitable attitude is somehow related to the fearful people who want to eradicate coyotes or to the hack journalist who prefers access to sensationalistic liars over measured and honest responses. More importantly, aside from trying to build real connections out in the real world, I don’t know what the antidote to this selfishness is – much less how to frame the problem.