That Particular Stony-Faced Expression . . .

I have observed time and again that a certain sort of person--usually of very low intelligence--responds to any remarking of the ills of the world, and especially those of society, with a certain stony-faced expression, in which the lower jaw tends to jut out in a rather simian fashion. No one ever asked anything of this person--but they compulsively reacted as if someone had just come to them for a large handout which they were refusing, often as merely the beginning of a display of conspicuous callousness.

The very low intelligence of such persons cannot be emphasized enough. But that is far from being the whole of the issue. There is what that low intelligence led them toward--a narrowness as well as weakness of mind that leaves them uninterested in anything they cannot eat, a deeply neurotic intolerance for any reminder that all is not well with the world as some completely unacceptable attack on their own personal selfishness, and frequently an idiot desire to swagger combined with an alertness to any opportunity to do just that by showing how much they do not care.

Bad enough as this all is, it goes further still with some--an ingrained contempt for the disadvantaged as such, and equal contempt as such for those conscientious about such matters, and the combination of raging conformism and self-importance that makes them think it is their duty to police others' statements and punish anything that they register as the scent of dissent.

Of course, dealing with such is loathsome--and the Internet is crawling with them.