The Demise of Pettiness? Ha!

There was a time when I believed in everything I read: gullibility is inversely proportional to age, or perhaps it's just me. The editorials of my adolescence promised wonders to come; it seemed that we would catapult to a state of being where they'd be wealth, convenience and of course happiness. And so I came to believe, perhaps prodded by the soothsayers, that there will also be a demise of pettiness.

The logic seemed infallible- with wealth, comfort and wisdom (borrowed or not) why would we perpetuate petty thoughts? Isn't pettiness strongly associated with a lack of well-being?

My land was also going through an interesting social dynamic. Joint families were breaking down, matrimonials stepped outside the boundary of caste, community and sometimes even religion. The need to get marriages "arranged" also fell out of fashion. Though nuclear families were pretty common in Kolkata (this is "my land", social relaxations observed in Kolkata are yet to be emulated in other parts of India, including a few metros), the nineties saw the emergence of such a family unit as a dominant force.

Having been exposed to joint families (one cousin's family stuck to the old way) as well as nuclear families (mine), I noticed the remarkable lack of pettiness in the latter. The husband and wife squabble over little things, but such conflicts are more out of either ego tussles, differences in attitudes or opinions, or simply out of boredom. Pettiness as defined by narrow (or flimsy) interests are rare. On the other hand, I watched the strifes of the joint families, which are probably less regular than husband-wife quibbles (or I hope so), and they seemed to emanate from a mindset of pettiness. Characters become caricatures in this race to the bottom.

In my musings, I had ruled out professional lives. Little as I was, the domain of work did not invade my thinking space and hence limited the conclusions I can draw from my ruminations. Today, when I have entered the hallow portals of the "job life", I realise "pettiness" is alive and well. It has manifested itself in newer forms and perhaps become even more vigorous.

Take schadenfreude. If you were to find case examples of the worst kinds of sadists, look no further from the maze of cubicles. Recently, a few people were asked to leave from my firm (officially they resigned- maybe they did, but rumours suggest otherwise). I'll take the case of one particular lady. Though I was not very fond of her (not many were either, as it was alleged she had attitude problems), but if she was asked to leave, then fact is she got a raw deal. But on her last day, we have our grand old daddy (a fiddly diddly PhD who knows squat) and one of his acolytes engaging her in the Yahoo Messenger. I thought no more of it- maybe curiosity has got the better of them. But it turned out the old man and his lackey were in for some fun. Her replies, sober as they were, somehow filled their hearts with glee.

I am not taking specific cases. I noticed quite a few smiles when the investment banks fell. Though I do not deny that the practitioners of "high finance" may have onset the new recession, but the uncertainty surrounding their careers are hardly just compensation.

All these are not news to the seasoned. There are hundreds of anecdotes one can share and they are shared- some do it over pints, some give vent by blogging. But what troubles is that my theorisation failed. If money, success (professional) and education cannot make us shrug off our pettiness, then is it endemic to us?