On Insouciance

Wonderful word, insouciance, I first became aware of it, long ago, among the writings of the inimitable Ogden Nash:

Introspective Reflection,
by Ogden Nash

I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance.

Illustration: Felix the Cat being insouciant.

Then again: (source lost, sorry):

Some prefer their musical idols to be insouciant, seeming not to care what their fans think or want. Others like them more eager to please, happy to take requests and engage. The two obvious examples are Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. Armstrong would smile and encourage the audience to participate, while Davis was the insouciant master who showed no concern for or interest in what his listeners might prefer: some people found his insouciant manner irresistible.

And more recently:
From: America, Land of the Lost by Paul Craig Roberts:

Insouciant Americans are undisturbed that alleged terrorists are tortured, held indefinitely in prison without due process, and executed on the whim of some executive branch official without due process of law.

Most Americans go along with unaccountable murder, torture, and detention without evidence, which proclaims their gullibility to the entire world. There has never in history been a population as unaware as americans. The world is amazed that an insouciant people became, if only for a short time, a superpower.

The world needs intelligence and leadership in order to avoid catastrophe, but America can provide neither intelligence nor leadership. America is a lost land where nuclear weapons are in the hands of those who are concerned only with their own power. Washington is the enemy of the entire world and encompasses the largest concentration of evil on the planet.


Where is the good to rise up against the evil?

And:

Perhaps as an old man I will take great comfort in pottering around in a lab and gently talking to students in the summer evening and will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them.
― Julian Assange