Pieter van den Berge: Disgust (1675 to 1737)
A man, and face, sitting on the ground, his legs and arms rejecting to the left.

"We bring the conversation around to less upsetting topics before the dessert course gets served to aid digestion."

I feel odd mentioning this, but I’ve been noticing Disgust being expressed whenever Decent people gather these days. I’d never before closely associated Disgust and Decency, but upon deeper reflection, I suppose it makes sense that they might commonly appear together. You see, the Decent possess a palate capable of sensing the sorts of dysfunction capable of producing Disgust. Some seem to be able to engage in most any lowlife activity without turning their stomach, while others find revolting displays entertaining. Those who find cage fighting diverting, for example, probably aren’t the same ones who attend symphony concerts. I understand that the standards by which audiences judge performances have changed over the generations; nobody gives a second’s thought these days to watching a bloody murder mystery over dinner.

Some core discerning Decencies remain. The rapid descent of our presidency from Decency into perversion has rightly shocked much of the polity. We might have thought we’d seen the worst, or if not personally witnessed, we felt we might have at least imagined it, but we hadn’t. Each morning, a fresh perversion of justice emerges. Each night, another batch of incoherent ramblings gets posted. Every damned day, another public embarrassment intrudes. Decent people refuse to acknowledge his authority to violate our Constitution with such impunity. It’s, frankly, beyond me to believe that anybody finds the least of his stories believable. I understand that he’s probably presuming that feeding his constituents a steady diet of horse shit will mollify their concerns, but he seems to turn more of his base into his opponents with each new shenanigan. The Decent seem to grow ever more Disgusted.

Back when Nixon thought he was king, it was considered de reguier to revile him whenever gathering with colleagues or friends. We’d renew our common bond by acknowledging our shared Disgust with what was happening around us in our otherwise good name. This was a slight rite of passage intended to confirm our common association. We were declaring ourselves members of an In Crowd, those who hadn’t been fooled into complacency, ones who sincerely desired for him to no longer hold our presidency. When visiting more conservative territory, we’d grow stealthy. We wouldn’t be quite so enthusiastic about disclosing our Disgust. We didn’t want to put off our parents, who, for whatever reason, had not lost faith in his incumbency. We were also self-preserving, for everybody had at least one Deliverance-quality story about what had happened after they’d disclosed their Disgust in the wrong company. We had all been accused of being hippies and communists by those who clearly didn’t understand what either designation meant.

We went on to become those the current conservatives revile as “elites.” In truth, there’s damnably little elitist about us, other than that nagging sense we haven’t been able to leave behind us. Perhaps our sensibilities are delicate. Maybe we are snowflakes or canaries in a coal mine. We can’t seem to help ourselves when we see what’s happening in our steadily eroding names. So, the dinner table conversation, at least once each evening, turns toward a subject that turns our stomachs. We seem to innocently stumble into that mousetrap again. No evening can seem complete until we’ve savaged the idiocracy and sealed our identity as opposing the present perversions. I sometimes feel like a persecuted Early Christian drawing a fish shape with my toe in the dust, disclosing an otherwise deep and dangerous secret. I’d prefer to be waving broad red flags from the paraphet, but I almost secretly share my Disgust instead. We bring the conversation around to less upsetting topics before the dessert course gets served to aid digestion.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Decency, #PureSchmaltz