“It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty delta day.” And so begins Bobbie Gentry’s haunting nation ballad, Ode to Billy Joe. The music rose to #1 on Billboard’s Top 100 in 1967 and gained three Grammy awards.
Years later, a film based mostly on the music introduced a doable clarification of the connection between Billy Joe McAllister and the unnamed lady within the music. The movie supplied a motive as to why Billy Joe dedicated suicide and a solution to the thriller of what he and the lady threw off the bridge. However, Gentry has all the time maintained that the “why” and the “what” are irrelevant to the music’s which means.
Unconscious Cruelty
Born Roberta Lee Streeter in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, Bobbie Gentry (1942- ) has throughout her life been a swimsuit mannequin, singer, songwriter, and Las Vegas headliner. She recorded her personal unique compositions at a time when few feminine artists had been in a position to take action. Gentry studied philosophy for some time at UCLA however didn’t graduate. Later in her profession, she booked, staged, choreographed, and carried out in her personal Las Vegas exhibits. She has been married 3 times, together with to William F. Harrah, the founding father of Harrah’s Hotels and Casinos, and to nation music artist Jim Stafford.
Gentry as soon as said that Ode to Billy Joe is “a study in unconscious cruelty”—the unwittingly heartless detachment of the relations as they talk about an area boy’s suicide and their failure to note the impact their dialog is having on the lady. I grew up in Georgia in the course of the Sixties when the South was nonetheless largely segregated and principally rural. I’ve identified Southerners just like these within the music, characterised by a poverty of emotional intelligence and restricted capability for conceptual thought. But that form of unconscious cruelty isn’t restricted to at least one geographic area or to a selected interval of historical past. Look round and you can find it, minus the cotton fields and Southern drawl.
Born of ignorance, unconscious cruelty happens with out volition or malice. Consider the outdated joke wherein a socially incompetent boy makes an attempt to flatter his date: “You don’t sweat much for a fat girl.” That’s a mixture of cluelessness and failure to understand the impact of such an announcement on the opposite individual. But there is no such thing as a indication of meanness. It’s extra silly than merciless.
Unconscious Cruelty vs. Casual Cruelty
Compare unconscious cruelty with informal cruelty, which additionally could come up from incompetence or stupidity, or which may very well be a deliberate and premeditated act. Someone behaving in a casually merciless method is aware of what she or he is doing. That individual could intend to be hurtful or simply could not care by hook or by crook. Here are some examples:
- A bully could also be ignorant and silly, however bullying conduct is willful.
- An organization could interview you for a job, and if another person is employed, you could by no means get a name or e mail informing you that you just weren’t chosen. Leaving you hanging is extra handy for them than delivering disagreeable information to rejected candidates. They are detached to the impact of their silence.
- Apartment dwellers shall be accustomed to the neighbors from hell who’re power noisemakers with no regard for others, even after being notified that they’re making a disturbance.
- The “non-apology apology” is one other form of informal cruelty. If an individual says one thing offensive and is requested to apologize, she or he could say, “I’m sorry if you were offended by what I said.” Not solely is the unique cruelty not retracted, however the blame is slyly shifted to the opposite individual for having the audacity to be offended.
Both unconscious cruelty and informal cruelty point out indifferent callousness towards others. If it’s unconscious, the cruelty-enabling detachment most likely stems from ignorance and incompetence. But within the case of informal cruelty, detachment signifies a cussed indifference to the rights, emotions, or private boundaries of others. Whether it originates from ignorance or malice, emotional detachment is a trait shared by all three Dark Triad persona sorts—psychopaths, narcissists, and Machiavellians.
“Human compassion is equal to human cruelty, and it is up to us to tip the balance.”—Alice Walker
Unconscious Cruelty and Casual Cruelty: Two Toxic Twins
Unconscious Cruelty and Casual Cruelty: Two Toxic Twins
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Unconscious Cruelty and Casual Cruelty: Two Toxic Twins