People often get confused between the stocks and the pillory – two medieval forms of corporal punishment for crimes like drunkenness. Your feet are locked in the stocks but the more recognisable image comes from the pillory, where your neck and wrists are slotted into a wooden contraption as rotten vegetables are pelted your way.
The punishment hasn’t been used since the late 18th century but was never formally abolished; it should make a comeback for a certain type of public nuisance.
How often have you got on a train only to be greeted by an indistinct racket, supposedly music, blaring through a speaker? Nobody wants to hear it apart from the person playing it, and nowadays, even if confronted, they don’t relent. Martin Lewis, the moneyman, recently found himself asking a woman to turn down the serial killer documentary she was playing out loud on a train. Instead of apologising, she huffed and said: ‘It’s a public train, for heaven’s sake.’ Exactly! It is a public space – have some manners.
The only time I have ever felt some real fondness for the Liberal Democrats is when they suggested tougher action for ‘headphone dodgers’ who play loud music and videos on public transport, with fines of up to £1,000. But perhaps that is too soft when rotten veg is available.
Playing videos out loud is only one example of a nasty public trend: you might call it the selfish gene. It is built around therapy speak that encourages you to ‘put yourself first’ and live ‘your truth’, phrases that leave out a rather important consideration: other people. Small interactions in day-to-day life have been mutated by this selfish gene. You will often notice on the Tube people sitting down, drawn into the blue light of their phone, desperately avoiding looking up to see if anyone needs the seat more than them.
‘Protect your peace’ is another of the mangled phrases being used to develop the selfish gene. If you cannot be bothered to acknowledge another human being, now is the time for you. Self-checkouts mean we don’t need to disturb our world by talking to the person scanning our shopping. Driverless cars are being introduced, cutting out the short conversation you might have with your cabbie as they take you across town – when using the test cars, the human supervisors that watch over it are ordered to ignore the person getting in to provide the full driverless experience.
Even ‘silent haircut’ appointments exist so you don’t have to put in the effort of asking your hairdresser about their holiday. Most of us will have had these sometimes awkward conversations and been annoyed about discussing the banal, but even if you found it frustrating, it is basic decency.
The selfish gene reached its most extreme mutation last month when athlete Joanna Wietrzyk posted a selfie on her Instagram with the caption: ‘Go hard or go home they say… a win is a win.’ The 24-year-old Australian had just come first in a Hyrox race in Beijing but in the process, had – let’s cut straight to it – soiled herself, leaving an extra obstacle for her competitors to navigate.
Hyrox, for the uninitiated, is ‘a global fitness race’ – a punishing course of unappealing activities like sandbag lunges, sled pushes and burpee broad jumps, alongside an 8km running track. Wietrzyk, as well as finishing in an impressive one hour, one minute and 23 seconds, hit the burpee broad jumps about halfway and had a problem, but this didn’t stop her. She didn’t mind leaving a health hazard for every competitor behind her. She came first. Screw the rest of you.
Car headlights are one of my bugbears and a perfect nightmarish representation of the modern kind of selfishness. The LED lights of new cars are so bright they make the driver’s view clearer, but show no consideration for the driver coming the other way. I love driving, and I especially love driving my little Mazda 2 when it is dark. But whenever I come across a big SUV, the glare from its harsh LED headlights is about as direct and dazzling as the sun, momentarily blinding me and leaving the glow of a pair of white-hot rectangles burnt into my retinas.
Earlier this year, Dame Jenni Murray crashed her car and died just a few days later. At the inquest, the coroner recorded that the 75-year-old had died of bronchopneumonia caused by fractures to her ribs and sternum sustained in the collision. A statement from a Royal Free consultant said she had been dazzled by vehicle lights when she crashed.
We are doing harm by constantly thinking about ourselves first – selfish motivation pairs with poor psychological well-being, physical health and relationships. Research shows that interventions of even 15 minutes can increase prosocial behaviours and decrease selfish behaviours in as little as a week. The more a person exposes themselves to prosocial norms, the more they demonstrate them. So those people blaring their music on a bus aren’t just being supremely selfish, they are causing harm to themselves and everyone else around them.
You might ask if these are just trivial interactions being lost and wonder if it is the worst thing in the world. But it begins with smaller relationships and selfish acts, before bleeding into the things that really matter.
We are living in the ‘Me Century’
A study of more than 90,000 people by New York University’s Stern School of Business revealed that prioritising one’s family is no longer a core American value. It found only 48 per cent of those questioned ranked family as a top-five value, and only 11 per cent said family was their top priority. Family was actually a bottom-five value for nearly one in five respondents while the vast majority ranked values centred on the self as their priority. This is American research but it has a familiar ring. Past generations have encouraged living by ‘family first’ but now it is putting yourself first – consider how few people now look after their parents as they go into old age.
Tom Wolfe in the 1970s dubbed it ‘The Me Decade’. It has extended a while beyond that – we are living in the ‘Me Century’. But unlike Wolfe’s read on it, ‘polishing one’s very self… and observing, studying, and doting on it’ – obsessed with improving and talking about yourself – we have descended further. We are not even focused on improving ourselves, only indulging our worst selfish habits, because they are now deemed as ‘your true self’. Considering others is expecting too much ‘emotional labour’. ‘I’m setting a boundary’ has become the socially acceptable way to dodge a hard conversation or cut off anyone who asks too much of you.
People used to feel guilt about their selfishness. At New York Fashion Week this year, one designer released a T-shirt reading: ‘Bring back shame.’ Let’s. It worked on Wietrzyk. She has since apologised, saying: ‘I know my actions had an impact beyond myself.’
Perhaps it can work on the rest of us too. Otherwise, there’s always the pillory.
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