“Feeling guilty or not feeling guilty—I think that's the whole issue. Life is a struggle of all against all. It's a known fact. But how does that struggle work in a society that's more or less civilized? People can't just attack each other the minute they see them. So instead they try to cast the shame of culpability on the other. The one who manages to make the other one guilty will win. The one who confesses his crime will lose. You're walking along the street, lost in thought. Along comes a girl, walking straight ahead as if she were the only person in the world, looking neither left nor right. You jostle one another. And there it is, the moment of truth: Who's going to bawl out the other person, and who's going to apologize? It's a classic situation: Actually, each of them is both the jostled and the jostler. And yet some people always—immediately, spontaneously—consider themselves the jostlers, thus in the wrong. And others always—immediately, spontaneously—consider themselves the jostled ones, therefore in the right, quick to accuse the other and get him punished.”

-- Milan Kundera, “The Festival of Insignificance: A Novel,” 2015

The novel, such as it is, is bare-bones late Kundera, but he's still talking about stuff that matters. I love the above because I've thought about it, too. In a way the people who get ahead aren't those (like me) who buy into the etiquette but those who are always looking for an edge and using it. Except now, in the social media age, the etiquette is condemning those who found an edge and used it. I'd be in favor of this if I felt it were making us better people, but it's not. The edge is now condemning those who have used outdated edges, despicable edges, and how dare they. It's too much “The Lottery.” And we're all gathering stones along the edges of the crowd.