Of "Conspicuous Callousness"

So far as I can tell "conspicuous callousness" is not a usage--but it should be.

Of course, that claim raises the question--just what do I mean by "conspicuous callousness?"

Let us take it one word at a time.

The term "conspicuous" is an adjective indicating that something stands out so as to draw attention, with its use in the term "conspicuous consumption" telling. Such consumption--like someone's driving a flashy sports car when a much cheaper, lower-maintenance car would be a far more practical way of getting around--is typically on some level intended to draw such notice.

"Callousness" denotes, in the words of Oxford Languages, "insensitive or cruel disregard."

Conspicuous callousness is a display of callousness in a conspicuous, meant-to-be seen way.

Consider, for example, a person who sees a homeless person holding out a cup for spare change--and, even though they have change with which they can well afford to part, pretends not to see them. One may say that they are behaving callously. But in pretending they do not see the homeless person are attempting to not make their callousness evident.

By contrast, someone who yells at the homeless person "Get a job!" is manifesting their callousness in a way calling attention to it. This is all the more in as there is no practical advantage in their doing so (just as there is none in that flashy sports car), only whatever psychological satisfaction they get from being seen inflicting verbal abuse on someone vulnerable to it, by the victim and perhaps others.

Given that satisfaction's being the motive it seems to warrant a word. At the very least in acting this way the person displaying this callousness revels in a sense of their power in relation to that other person. Conspicuous callousness says "I don't have to care what you think, because you simply cannot do anything to me," such that they can rub in the other person's face a complete lack of sympathy, empathy and respect for them--and are doing it simply because they can.

Conspicuous callousness is, of course, vile--and ever-present. Indeed, the Internet is awash in it--so much so that it can seem mainly a vehicle for expressing that one exceedingly mean sentiment, the web access-enjoying scum of the Earth using that access to scream their callousness at the heart of the world. And we are all the worse off for it.