Take, for example, the situation that occured to me today. I was at the grocery store, ready to leave and selecting a checkout aisle. As I'm approaching an aisle, I notice another guy walking toward me doing the same thing - looking for a checkout aisle. As I'm eyeing the nearest aisle, he sees me considering it, and immediately launches into a jog so he can beat me to the checkout lane. As he trots into the lane he looks at me with a look on his face that says, "And what are you going to do about it?"
So I acted like it didn't bother me, because it didn't. In fact, the only thing I really felt was a great deal of sympathy for someone who is apparently not too bright. I walked down to the next lane - one this fellow passed up so he could run in front of me into the lane he chose, keep in mind - and purchased my goods. I gathered my bags and started walking out. And as I was leaving, I walked past the other checkout lane, and saw said mentally disadvantaged fellow still standing in the checkout lane he had worked so hard to obtain.
So what is my societal and moral obligation here? I'm not sure what I should be expected to do. And this has really been bothering me ever since because I'm not sure I left that situation the way I should have, the way I am obligated to because of my superiority. What I actually did was to grin a bit smugly at him as I strutted by, but I'm not sure that was enough. Should I have laughed out loud? Should I have pointed at him and told others around him what a dork he was? Should I have asked him what his problem was, or taunted him mercilessly? Will my actions be enough for him to realize his foolishness, or should I have done more to help him realize his lameness?
