As
Thorstein Veblen contends in his landmark Theory of the
Leisure Class (1899), of the many aspects of their existence
the well-heeled want to make conspicuous, none is more satisfying
than sitting tall in the saddle and riding the high horse for
all it's worth. As for the rest of us that have to live in the
shadows (or worse) of the resented rider, our universal inclination
to consume alcohol and drugs is perhaps in part explained by
the fact that we know where we aren’t, and that getting
high, whose end game is to obliterate that recognition, helps
to compensate for our mundane station in life. That an unholy
percentage of our disposable income is dedicated to downsizing
the awareness of our mediocrity is a telling indicator of just
how unpleasant it is to be self-consciously unaccomplished,
run of the mill, john doe average.
Beyond
the material perks and privileges that go to the winners, the
supreme pleasure of being high on the horse is the vantage point
that allows the rider to look down upon and gloat over the failings
and follies of the multitudinous ordinary. The math is simple.
Positive gratification indices are a function of increasing
disproportionality, meaning the more I have, the more I can
make conspicuous equals greater gratification.
The
laws that govern the hierarchical arrangement of all groupings
of people, both large and small, are as absolute as they are
self-perpetuating because there is no final fulfillingness;
every increment of gratification asymptotically implies the
next and then the next to infinity. Happiness may indeed be
a warm gun. It is debatable whether the incessant jockeying
for position that characterizes human enterprise, raising callousness
and cruelty to unprecedented distinction, viewed from afar,
is a formula for madness or the guarantor of man’s purpose
in life. From pole to pole, it seems to be the favourite game
in town.
Cultures
and nations, no less than the individual, are prone to the chest-thumping
that comes with pre-eminence and superiority. The West smugly
looks askance at the technologically challenged Third World;
Christianity and Judaism routinely scoff at what is barbaric
in Islam. And almost everybody holds in utter contempt the Indian
caste system, in theory banned by Nehru in 1947, but still a
going concern in especially rural India -- less those faceless,
dowry-challenged
brides shamelessly burnt alive by their inconsolably
shamed families. But even among the most
obnoxious, die-hard aristocrats, for whom rank and title are
as essential as water is to marine life, the argument for untouchability
-- where the Brahmin regards himself as polluted for having
come in contact with only the shadow of an untouchable -- incites
disgust and revolt. Or does it?
Are
we in fact that far removed from the spirit of the caste system
if, as Veblen argues, we not only delight in the perspective
offered by the high horse, but are forced to acknowledge that
all the major and minor decisions we make over a life time are
taken in order to acquire the means to purchase and ride?
One
only has to reflect on what we wish for ourselves and our loved
ones to know that class shares the same conceits and aspires
to the same disparities and discriminations as caste. Who among
us wouldn’t rather our sons and daughters marry someone
rich as opposed to poor, professional as opposed to unprofessional,
admired and respected than not? Who among us wouldn’t
rather sit in the best seats in the house than the worst, or
travel first class than economy, drive a Ferrari instead of
a Fiat, wear the latest styles, meet and mix with the rich and
famous? Do not all of these together constitute the trappings
of class? If the answer is yes, we subscribe, at a very minimum,
to an equal opportunity caste system. Our enlightened version
allows for mobility which the Indian caste system, based on
the luck of the draw, did not: the caste into which you were
born was for life. But whatever the system, in both East and
West, the rider will defend and cherish his top ranking not
only for the privileges but especially the envy it induces in
those without.
In
the deepest (and darkest) reaches of our being we are hierarchical,
and there shall be no finessing the king and king’s counsel
despite our purported embarrassment over the unsightly world
we have confected: a two-tiered travesty where the rich get
richer and the poor get wretched.
Enlisting
language to beg your pardon, we blithely wax indignant over
the caste system as if immune to its beguilements, but the facts
on the ground tell a different story, whose pages we refuse
to turn, turning us into a brotherhood of deniers. To appease
our conscience, we have successfully reworked the original meaning
of class --disassociating it from its natural affinity with
caste -- so that it now means something kinder and gentler.
We admire and approve of someone who is classy. Someone who
does the right thing is a class act. To declassify is to make
available once privileged information. Class consciousness refers
to the struggle to eliminate unacceptable economic inequalities
between classes. We have the class room as a place of learning;
a classic refers to the highest quality of literature, art and
architecture.
But
dress it up as is our wont, class is but a stone’s throw
from caste, and shares with it the tempered-in-steel disposition
to promote and defend the principles of inequality.
Class
is one-upmanship; class is exclusion; class is making judgments
about people who are strangers. Class is the reduction of friendships
and relationships to an expediency, a category of purchase.
Stripped of its veneer, class is prejudice after a shower, shave
and change of clothing; the same in kind that deemed blacks
3/5 human, that stoked the ovens at Auschwitz and made turkey
out of the Armenians. And since there is a part of it in everyone,
the only way to get the better of it is to look it straight
in the eye of the mirror and then smash it to bits with a lifetime
of deeds that answers to the calling of conscience, which is
simply doing what we know to be right, which will always be
conspicuous to those who, unlike the rider high on his horse,
have their feet firmly planted on the ground and whose self-valorization
is work in progress that seeks to make man equal to a hierarchy
of values that does him proud.
Class
is ugly and venal and counts among those sins of the species
that would be blessed that left any shame. [1]
![Canadian Tire Repair Scam [2211 boul Roland-Therrien, Longueuil] = documents-proofs](../2010_v9_n5/images/mapleleaf.jpg)
