Tailgating

Tailgating represents such an intense level of impatience that one willingly endangers others in an ineffective attempt to eek out an infinitesimal reduction in commute time.

It is a symptom of the greater Shell of Anonymity and the power it bestows. That freedom from possible (or at least probable) reprisal for one's actions results in a significant dehumanization of others. When in vehicles, we behave in such a way that would be abhorrent were we interacting in a more intimate fashion. We cut in line, we berate, we chastise, we endanger others - all as a result of that Shell.

The Shell of Anonymity is likely the cause of many more societal woes - we do not engage with one another on a meaningful level. Most people are simply faces to be mistrusted and maligned in the moment, and dismissed and forgotten in the next.

The practice I have developed in an attempt to counteract this phenomena in myself is to try to add humanity to a stranger's story. Instead of assuming that the person who is speeding is an arrogant jerk worthy of my hatred, I instead assume that the individual is in some manner of emergency - often something amusing and worthy of pity, rather than scorn. For example, maybe the driver is suffering from a bout of terrible gastric distress, and is racing to a restroom!

The key point here is to assume in everyone a level of dignity that you would expect others to grant you. I would want strangers to assume the best of me, and therefore I should assume the best of them. Unsurprisingly, this is quite similar to the classic Golden Rule, which is always a good starting point (emphasis starting point) for morality.

Art and Judgment

A set of my coworkers had a heated debate recently on the merits of EDM (electronic dance music). One of the individuals, who will be known as Alpha, suggested that EDM was bad music and represented a decline in the music genre in general. He went on to suggest that all music not based in actual instrumentation is of lesser value to society than those that involve what he would describe as "actual musicians". 

This discussion intrigued me, as I have no love for EDM or many other modern, popular music genres. However, saying that one does not enjoy a genre of music is understandable, while suggesting that a genre of music holds little or no value to society treads on unstable ground.

This caused me to reflect on my own biases and opinions in regard to other genres. I have frequently suggested that many modern musicians or singers, such as Taylor Swift or Katie Perry, are crass appeals to the masses and represent a stagnation, creatively, in our culture. The longer I let my thoughts dwell on this stance, which mirrored those opinions that I found abhorrent, the more my own biases were revealed. 

Perspective is what I began to gain. I thought of the genres of media in which I am aloof or elitist; particularly film, books, and video games. I consider myself somewhat of a film buff, but I am confident that my opinions and experiences in the medium would be considered pedestrian and crude in comparison to those who have made that world their life's devotion. Similarly, I am a bibliophile, but I have been known to read books that others might consider silly, trite, or lacking in substance. And lastly, in film, I love the action films from 80s and 90s, though these are considered to be silly, crowd-pleasing films with only the faintest veneer of plot or acting.

For music, I'm sure if we sampled any modern music for a patron of the opera from the 18th century, he would find it all crude, crass, and without substance. He would suggest that music itself seems to have gone down the gutter.

Who am I to tell others what can or cannot bring their lives substance? Who am I to striate a genre or medium into arbitrary tiers of cultural relevance? I am in no way experienced in these genres. My perceptions are simply based off of small sample-sizes, samples that are likely not indicative of a subject as a whole. I am an outsider to the culture I am judging. 

The thought that another group's appreciation of a subject I find disdainful somehow contaminates or diminishes my own sub-set of that subject is the same logical structure that results in people believing that allowing homosexuals to marry one another damages the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. I am not suggesting that these two thoughts are related or identical; simply that there is an underlying structure at work that reads similarly.

"Whatever floats your boat" seems to be an apt adage to apply here. Whatever media or experiential intake brings vibrancy, stimulus, and substance to an individual's life need not have a rubric applied to it by others to judge its validity. Its validity is inherent in the experiences and sensations it provides.