During your first day of “Intro to Philosophy,” the professor surveys the students’ motivations for enrolling. A few students casually mention that the class is required for their Epistemology major, one guy likes its meeting time, and a tall brown-noser relates recommendations of the professor (omitting his grade inflation tendencies). He assesses these reasons and concludes that they’re “good ones,” but wonders whether anyone else differs. In the first row, a bespectacled man stands up and says, “I desire to learn truth, Sir. I will settle for nothing less than truth. Justice. Passion.”
Assuming that the respondent isn’t being ironic, the students laugh at him. Even the professor chuckles once he returns to his office. No student has said anything similar in ages; the student, it seems, has overdosed on bad Congressional hearings.
When I worked at a call center as a college freshman, I fought brief attention spans. Once people realized that I was soliciting donations, they excused themselves, or curtly hung up. One evening, my calling card contained the name of a Judge in Southern Jersey, and I tried a different tactic: when he answered, I asked whether I could speak with the “honorable judge forthwith.” It worked. He chuckled at my diction and listened to me.
Pomposity can be used to your advantage. It’s a risky last-resort tactic, but also a harmless and attention-grabbing one. When someone won’t listen to you, it’s one thing to attack them, but another to drop “pusillanimous.” There are many cinematic moments in which the protagonist’s pomposity induces cringing while setting up the rising action, like when Elle says that she prefers the innocent defendant in Legally Blonde, or when she uses legal mumbo jumbo to fight for custody of her friend’s dog. Pomposity distinguishes us from the more modest.
A week ago, my parents were trying, unsuccessfully, to get a local official’s attention. I agreed to write an e-mail for them, which began, “As a steward of this town’s hopes and aspirations, an official elected to represent this noble, exalted place, I am disappointed in you.” I followed that opener with a Federalist Papers quotation.
He called the next day.