What is a lawyer?

During my interview with Ben, he said that he favors the havenots of the world, and practices law only to travel. From what I've seen, however, all his out of work activities involve the practice of law. For example, when he goes to lunch, it is either with some other lawyer or to some law school lecture. He's on several Bar committees, and participates in some sort of Bar theater project, which produces plays starring lawyers. Ben usually plays the part of a lawyer. The only acting that takes place, I imagine, is that Ben appears competent. He's also a member of a book club, another bar group. I don't know how often he comes home, but I don't think he even recognizes his wife's voice. She calls him sometimes, saying, "Hi Ben, this is your wife, Veronica." I wonder, would he know it's her if she didn't say it was?

Ben does like to travel--to far off, remote places of the world. On his bookshelves there are pictures of him with his family in various settings--some sort of jungle, desert, huge mountains, etc. My interest in the pictures, besides a juvenile circus sideshow fascination with ugliness, is how the photographs are composed. Ben and his family crouch or stand in front of an assembly of the region's indigenous people slightly in the background, wearing traditional or tribal garb, or nothing at all. It's as though Ben's at the zoo or the Natural Museum of History, with these people behind as an exhibit.

I don't know if these people are haves or havenots, if they're paid to pose or do so willingly, but it's extremely insulting. The worst part, for me anyway, is that Ben's probably not even aware of it. That is, if the pose were done on purpose, with Ben trying to show that he and his family are better than the natives, that the natives are just background scenery on his glorious adventure, it would certainly be offensive but not that bad. It would say Ben's audacious and full of himself. Hiring a photographer to go on trips with him would add a touch of class.

My problem is that Ben is completely oblivious to it. His denigration of these people is entirely by accident. An educated person with absolutely no sense of decency. That is a lawyer. People hate lawyers, a known fact. This is part of the reason. While being a blood-sucking leech has something to do with it, it's the indifference, the sheer obliviousness of doing something terrible that really makes one abhor lawyers. Here is another trait of the ugly American. No coincidence, I think, that the US is the most litigious country.

And the havenots? I've already mentioned the Ramierezes. Other examples and complaints to follow soon.