COLUMN ONE : Class (Cont’d )
Posted on Sunday, September 7, 2008
Dear Fan It was wholly a pleasure to hear that you liked my column about class in Americaeven if we’re not supposed to mention the subject in our oh-soequal society. But no society can exist without a hierarchy. Indeed, that’s just about the definition of a society. Even a system that claims to be egalitarian requires leadersthough they may deny they are. “I stand here as a servant of the people,” as Juan Peron sings in Evita. And anyone who doubted it, at least out loud, could always be shot.
Whether an elite is chosen on the basis of merit or on less appealing grounds, like wealth or family or the sheer ability to terrorize a whole nation, an elite will always exist. Call it what you will: The Party, old money, or a Nomenklatura, as they used to say in the now defunct Soviet Union. Or an Establishment, as we still say here. For a rough idea of its composition in this country, just look over any list of Barack Obama’s advisers, or the tenured faculty at Harvard.
To govern there must be a governing class. At least as long as we live in an organized society. Rather than a Hobbesian state of nature in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” On balance, I’d prefer structure. Anarchy can be dangerous to your health.
Besides, a society without distinctions would be one without distinction. To quote William S. Gilbert, he of Gilbert & Sullivan fame, if everybody has to be somebody, nobody can be anybody.
But who dares say such things, especially in an election year ? Politicians must be especially wary of such candor. Their role is to pander, not point out things as they are or must be. There are some things everyone senses but no one must say. Certainly not if you’re in politics or otherwise a public figure. Our leaders must be careful lest they offend the great god Demos, the ruling deity of this old republic that continues to morph into a mass democracy.
Nowadays we’re all expected not only to be equal—in a procrustean way—but the same. Diversity is constantly being preached, but its advocates seem unable to deal with the kind of diversity that’s more than skin deep. Genuine, deeprooted, intractable differences over ideas and ideals must be elided. As for the kind of differences that can’t be bridged by a round of kumbaya around the campfire but need to be tolerated... that kind of real diversity upsets the merchandisers of purely cosmetic, capital-D Diversity. So they pretend such differences don’t exist.
Hey, we’re all really just the same, aren’t we ? Like hell we are. Which is why tolerance, the rule of law and the Bill of Rights are so important, so we can be our different selves without bullying others or being bullied by them. Save your smothering love, true believers, I’ll take tolerance any time. And be happy to extend it, too. If class is one of the continuing themes of American society, it’s also a subject fraught with taboos. Like that other underlying theme of our culture, ethnicity. Such topics may be raised only with the greatest care. Which may be why we tend to discuss the influence of class in American society only with members of our own. Ironically Inky Wretch Paul Greenberg is editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. E-mail him at: pgreenberg@arkansasonline. com
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