Essential Snobbery 101: Leaving the village people in the village

A fear of the imagined

Village People, and this is not the American disco group from the 1970s; rather, it defines a state of mind, the foreboding that any adversity or misfortune is an extension of the negative influence of people from your homestead on your circumstances.

The idea of village people is retrogressive, a concept of people limited by a frame of reference governed by malevolence and envy: detractors who cannot bear to see others succeeding, whose sense of joy is derived from the downfall of others.

Whether the concept of village people is imagined or real, we find ourselves caught in the paranoia of being watched and afraid to stumble. Everything becomes a premonition towards ill. The danger is that we become ensnared by mental constraints we have imposed on ourselves, borne of the irrational yet significantly impactful on our mien.

Leave them in the village

Yet, I aver that village people should be left in the village and not be given any semblance of influence beyond the village limits. They cannot walk where we have walked, nor can they see through our eyes.

Why, then, do we believe that village people have the ability to impact our lives so profoundly that they have such a hold on us? How can they divert not just the course of events far removed from them but also define our destiny? The truth is probably a battle we are engaged with, in our heads rather than something external to us.

To paraphrase Hanlon's razor: "Never ascribe to malice (of village people) that which is adequately explained by incompetence (of ourselves)." If we took more responsibility for some things that have happened to us, the village people might just become the music that gets us on the dancefloor.