Unless you’re an out of control
hot head who never lets any affront go unanswered, you’ve likely practised
dumb insolence at least once as a
smart-aleck kid, a
snot nosed teenager or a
piss-and-vinegar filled
twentysomething. I’ll hazard to suggest that most
middle aged people lose the balls and rebellious nature required for dumb insolence, however, if my
grandfather was any example, they gain it back later in life, around early 70s or so.
Dumb insolence is (in general) an act of
defiance through
silent inaction. It can be as little as a glance of the eyes or
a knowing grin. It can be as obvious as
laughing in someones face and then turning your back and walking away,
blowing them off. It can be as frustrating as following every instruction to the letter, no matter how minute or obscure. In any case, as the word "
dumb" implies,
no verbal response or explanation is (generally) ever given.
Since there are different forms of dumb insolence, it’s probably easiest to break it down a bit and go through
some examples.
Civilian dumb insolence
Dumb insolence is an attempt to
frustrate a person who is attempting to enforce
discipline, by not providing the expected reaction, which is to
defend or
rationalize whatever action caused you to be on the receiving end of a disciplinary
chewing out.
Here’s an example from my personal experience. Skipping some details, I was working with a team of
software developers for a client and someone on my team screwed up. The
Napoleonic, self-proclaimed "
web master" for the client came over and chewed me out, in the middle of the office, in front of everyone around. My response was one of dumb insolence:
I just stood there, looking him in the eye and
not saying a word.
You see, he was hoping, as most people do when
jumping on the chance to dish out shit to someone, that I would react by apologising or attempting to defend myself. Either way would provide him with a reason to stop being
proactive (a difficult thing for most people) and start being
reactive and respond to what I said back to him, which is a much easier job.
But by doing nothing but listening and nodding my head slightly, he soon
ran out of gas and couldn’t seem to find a way to end what he’d started. Once he finished telling me what I’d supposedly done wrong, he had nothing left to say and resorted to explaining why he had to yell at me and then regressed further into trying to make it seem like less of an important issue than it was. If I hadn’t finally said "Ok", ending my dumb insolence, I’m sure he would have ended up apologising before he was done.
Military Dumb Insolence
Dumb Insolence is an offence against
discipline recognized by the
British Army and is worthy of a
court martial, although the army’s definition is somewhat different from what I’ve described above.
The charge of Dumb Insolence can be made when a solider refuses to answer questions when caught committing a
violation of discipline. Basically, if an
officer witnesses a solider breach discipline, calls the solider on it and the solider refuses to explain himself or respond to the officer’s questions, the solider has committed Dumb Insolence.
Refusing to respond to questioning or take part in an
inquiry can also be cause for a charge of Dumb Insolence. There’s no
taking the 5th here.
During a time of war, being found guilty of Dumb Insolence could result in
summary execution.
Civilian dumb insolence, pt 2
Dumb insolence can also take the form of ignoring
implied directions or instructions and adhering strictly to the exact
literal directions given.
For example, say you manage a
bicycle shop and you point to a bike and tell
the new employee to clean the bikes. An hour later you come back and only the bike you pointed at is clean.
That’s dumb insolence. So you tell the employee to clean
all the bikes and when you come back another hour later, all the bikes are clean but the seats and wheels haven’t been touched. "
I did exactly what you said." That’s also dumb insolence.