I’ve always found the term defiant to be mostly negative. Now, I know that the United States of America was essentially founded on principles of defiance against King George III, and that defiance in literature and pop culture is often celebrated, whether we’re talking about the rebels in Star Wars or Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. We like to celebrate “the defiant ones” as noble souls standing tall in the face of injustice, holding firm for what’s right while their opposition defends the indefensible. And as a literary trope or a plot device in a movie where the hero has to fight against all odds with barely a shred of hope against the evil antagonist, it usually works. Truth to Power. David vs. Goliath. It makes for compelling stories. But the trope also breaks down in the real world, because the real world isn’t the black & white, good vs. evil setting that our simpler emotions crave. The world is filled with many shades and iterations of gray. As a result, I have found myself, more often than not, being a rule-follower. Because the rules are there for a reason, not because some tyrant seeks to control everything or destroy our country or our religion or our way of life or something else we hold dear. The rules, the laws, the guidelines, the norms, have all been developed and have evolved over time through careful consideration, through testing and adjustment. Often through scientific trial. Most of all, through learning.

At a certain point, there really is a fine line between defiance and stupidity. People think they’re engaging in some nobly defiant act that is either counterproductive or has no effect at all. I unintentionally learned this first-hand from observing my father’s own behavior as he aged. I’m not calling my father stupid by any means. He was one of the smartest people I knew in my early life, and he was always reading and seeking to learn about the world. That’s a character trait I’ve tried to embrace. Yet despite that willingness of learn, he was always kind of a defiant personality in the face of, shall we say “more modern,” ideas. Some of my earliest memories are of him praying the Tridentine Mass in Latin while we were at church, defiant in his belief that it was somehow superior to the “Novus Ordo,” the Mass celebrated in English. That’s just one example, and it’s related to religion, so I suppose I could understand. But the older I got, the more I noticed he was defiant about other matters in ways that were possibly detrimental to him. He kept a pair of early-1990s cars in the garage literally until the day he died, pouring money into getting them fixed despite the fact that fewer and fewer mechanics were even willing to look at them. He purchased literally the last CRT television that Sears ever sold because he somehow “didn’t trust” flat screens. (My parents only owned a flat-screen television after that one from Sears broke, no one would repair it, and I personally purchased them a new one.) He outright refused to use a computer of any kind at home, despite the fact that it kept him from maintaining closer contact with his grandchildren. Honestly, I suspect he would’ve still used a rotary-dial phone if he could have. His defiance became sort of an arbitrary, individualist mindset that I believe bordered on ridiculous, and it really undermined a lot of what I had seen of him growing up. Here was someone who taught me at a young age that learning new things mattered immensely and that adapting to change was key to thriving. Yet as he aged, he actively resisted accepting new things that might’ve improved the quality of his later life. He even came to resist the advice of doctors — outside of obvious things like blood pressure medication — and that likely damaged his long-term health. It nearly cost him his life after a fall in 1993, and I think his avoidance of medical advice probably led to a stroke in 2019 and ultimately, his passing in 2020.

At the core of my disappointment in what I was seeing wasn’t so much the defiant attitude that I had seen literally my whole life. It was the “arbitrary, individualist” aspect of it, especially in opposition to medicine, to technology, and to common sense. That’s something I see among American society as a whole these days, and I’ve written about it before. More than once. It bothers me deeply. Heck, I remember visiting a friend (now departed, RIP) back during college days and discussing the growing culture of toxic individuality and ignorance. We saw it in the 1990s. Our society has been descending into a valley of victimhood and entitlement for decades now. If you think one man is the cause, think again. He’s only the most visible symptom and emblem of it. Look around you, and you’ll see thousands, even millions, of people who are angry, self-centered, individualist souls who are arbitrarily defiant about, well…everything. You see them on the road, speeding around you because their destination is apparently more important than yours. Often driving a giant vehicle that they cannot park or even keep between the lines. You see them at food and drink establishments, treating the servers and other employees terribly, usually over something minor. You see them (or videos of them) in airports and on airplanes, engaging in fits of rage over minor inconveniences, or just crazed because they’re on (or off their) drugs. You see them at the mall, at sporting events, in movie theaters, at the park, at the grocery store, in schools, and at events of all types, “behaving badly,” for lack of a better phrase. And in every case, at the root of it, is a sense of entitlement. A sense of toxic individuality. A sense that “I am more important than everyone else.” Call it main character syndrome if you wish. It’s often couched in the phrase, “I decide what’s best for myself / my children / my family,” but at the end of the day, it’s born of a notion that this individual somehow knows better than the rules, than the law, than the experts, than civilization itself, despite the learning that has been amassed by all of humanity over the course of time. Despite the fact that each of us occupies a tiny fraction of this planet for a microscopic amount of time in the course of human history. Despite the fact that the only way humanity will continue to survive is together. And despite the fact that the core of every major religion is essentially “stop being an a**hole.” The self-absorption is mind-boggling.

Blame social media, blame the internet in general, but as time progresses in this day and age, this culture of toxic individualism rolls on in service to unfettered ignorance. Google warriors “do their own research” and decide they know what’s best about pregnancy, about governing, about child development, about international diplomacy, about vaccines, about medical care in general, about legal matters, about curriculum and other school-related topics, and even about death itself and its aftermath. Except that when you’re not very smart, and certainly when you’re not trained in a given discipline, Google is not your friend; it’s merely the enabler of your ignorance, giving you just enough information to be a little informed and a lot dangerous. It’s the kind of thing that can convince people that doctors and the FDA are merely stooges for pharmaceutical companies, yet at the same time convince them to consume a wide array “herbal remedies” and other substances that are basically untested and unregulated. Skeptical but gullible, all at once. Now, I know you reading this are probably nodding in agreement, but take a moment to realize that you probably also know someone who absolutely views Google as “research,” as a primary and unimpeachable source of information. For real; I’m not kidding. They walk among us. And this is why we have a measles epidemic. It’s why we have “flat-earthers” somehow making a comeback and actually gaining converts. It’s why there are people who believe schools have litter boxes in classrooms, teach Critical Race Theory, or actually perform gender reassignments without their parents’ knowledge. This Friday, I have very little doubt you will come across some “9/11 Truthers” out there spewing their particular brand of idiocy. Apparently one can find community through stupidity online.

For my own part, I prefer to stand in…defiance…of this pervasive attitude. “In defiance of defiance?” Sure! Seriously, I stand in defiance of the kind of toxic individualism that ultimately leads to stupidity. In defiance of resistance to technologies and medical advances (the kind backed by actual science) that can improve my life and lifespan. In defiance of entitlement. In defiance of rudeness – to other drivers, to the server, to the referee, to the cashier, to the teacher. In defiance of behaving badly. But I stand in support of learning, of cooperation, of helping one another, of realizing that society really can produce win-win outcomes that benefit us all. The world could truly be a better place with a small dose of humility and a large dose of willingness to learn and grow. One of my favorite lines from 2025’s Superman is “Maybe that’s the real punk rock,” Clark’s perspective on his own positive view of humanity. So in that spirit, I hope that my own willingness to avoid the stupidity and seek out something better — learning all I can, trusting my doctor and other experts, taking a realistic view of my own place in the world and within the span of history, and most of all, showing some basic kindness and empathy — maybe I am the defiant one.