As a pedestrian, I find it amusing how impatient drivers will sometimes use their vehicles as vessels for expressing their frustration at having to wait for me to cross the street. Mostly, this happens with drivers who are going to be making a right turn, as illustrated in the picture below, where the blue line is the pedestrian path and the red line is a trace of what the vehicle will do.

Until I’m halfway across, there’s an unspoken understanding that drivers can make the turn, even as I approach, without feeling moral guilt; the distance between metal and body is great enough that my safety isn’t questioned. When I reach the double yellow line, however, drivers hesitate in the name of respect, and then, seeing me only getting closer, opt not to make a daringly tight maneuver. From their moment of hesitation to my reaching the curb there may be as many as seven seconds, which feels like a long time to people sitting in an idling vehicle who would have the green light if it weren’t for the obstruction of my person.

And then comes the part to which I referred in the opening sentence: they will as often as not vent their displeasure at having had to wait by accelerating with greater fanfare than is really necessary, perhaps even initiating the rolling of wheels before I’ve stepped onto the sidewalk.

I think it’s an example of a larger phenomena: the idea that it’s easier to take out your frustrations on others when you’re separated from them by an abstraction layer. “No, I’m not angry. That was just the engine roaring.” Nevermind that it roared because you slammed your foot on the gas.

Another example: internet discussion boards are notorious for being chock full of foul language and deplorable manners. It’s much easier for people to insult one another when their only knowledge regarding each other’s location is that they’re spaced all around the earth, and when they communicate in as impersonal a way as through a computer interface. It’s laughable that many of the same people who accuse each other of being reincarnations of Hitler would go out for a drink if they met face to face, getting along just fine, due purely to the amicable quality that develops as a result of virtual and real worlds intersecting.

The abstraction layer need not be physical, either. A crane operator swinging a wrecking ball is entitled to do so by virtue of it being his job, a very non-physical concept. And yet he can fall back on it as justification when taken to court.

“Your honor, the debris from the wrecking ball impact fell dangerously close to my parked SUV. I have a mind it was the intent of the operator that I should be forced to buy a new vehicle!”

“Nay, ’twas only doin’ me job.”