I can remember as a kid what a great comfort it was to live on the same street as a legendary neighborhood ne’er-do-well. Whatever my transgressions, they always paled in comparison to the misadventures of that wild kid down the block. And this convenient reference point always made it much easier to inflate my self-worth and go on to claim at least partial immunity for my own comparatively minor misdemeanors. Over the years, most of us have retained and even improved on this sort of self-serving, peripheral vision.