Charlie Todd Is a Thoughtless, Arrogant Pr**k

This evening driving home I was listening to This American Life on npr; the show generally is interesting even though it tends to be more than a bit too precious. This evening the show included a long segment on an outfit called Improv Everywhere which is the brain child of a fellow (pictured above) called Charlie Todd.* The feature was included under the theme "Mind Games." And I have to say that Charlie Todd is a thoughtless, arrogant prick. He recognizes that his "pranks" - which the npr segment makes clear, often are directed at individuals [1] [2] - can be construed as cruel. But since Charlie sort of feels as though people need to loosen up, he basically is willing to overlook his own manipulative mean-spirited-ness. What I mean by that is that Charlie and his chums are perfectly content to have a good time (and, of course promote themselves) at the expense of others. I am not sure which is more obnoxious, the fact that Charlie puts his mind to thinking up pranks or that he seems to have no problem recruiting minions to collaborate with. Where I come from there is a frank description for people like that; I've already used it.

There are improv outfits that do things resembling what Improv Everywhere does - think Yes Men or Reverend Billy. But they aim their mockery and irony and sarcasm not at individuals, but at corporations and religious institutions and government officials or agencies. Sure, there are real people who occupy roles in such structures. But not only are they not their jobs, they are being paid to do those jobs and so are at least partly responsible for what they do. And the Yes Men and the Reverend and his congregants are making fun of the employers not the employees. The people who Charlie selects are just trying to live their lives.

The philosopher Avishai Margalit defines a 'decent society' as one that does not go out of its way to humiliate its members. If that is close to being so (and it seems to me that it is), Charlie Todd (along with his minions) is the poster child for indecency. Someone please give him a dope slap.
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* The description of this segment on the This American Life web pages reads: " A group called Improv Everywhere decides that an unknown band, Ghosts of Pasha, playing their first ever tour in New York, ought to think they're a smash hit. So they study the band's music and then crowd the performance, pretending to be hard-core fans. Improv Everywhere just wants to make the band happy—to give them the best day of their lives. But the band doesn't see it that way. Nor does another subject of one of Improv Everywhere's 'missions.'" There is just enough ironic detachment there to avoid passing judgment.