Item Two of my Perfect Plan is that the People of the Creative Self should be compassionate and understanding of the People of the Responsible Self, in the same way that the People of the Creative Self demand that the People of the Responsible Self be compassionate and understanding of the People of the Subordinate Self.
Put into everyday language, we demand that the educated elite stop beating on the Deplorables as racist sexist homophobes, just as they demand that "the rich" stop exploiting and oppressing the traditionally marginalized. Sauce for goose is sauce for the gander.
You see, I think that the biggest problem in the world right now is the conceit and the sense of entitlement in the educated elite. On the one hand the educated elite is afflicted with the conceit that they are the lions, the movement, the chosen (as in Skip Marley's "Lions") to lead and lift the marginalized out their eternal slavery. And that is to be done by political power, the kindly attentions of the chosen to provide benefits and entitlements to said oppressed and marginalized.
I would say that the record of the last 150 years is that the more that the educated elite succeeds in getting political power to lead and lift the marginalized the worse it is for the marginalized. Oh yeah, it was great to help the working class and give them free education, and union rights, and government pensions. For a while. But now look at the white working class: abandoned by their patrons in the educated elite as Deplorables, and desperately short of the middle-class skills and culture that you need to wive and thrive in the modern economy.
Or women. What has the sexual revolution and women's liberation and careers for women really done for women? The divorce revolution has allowed men to cast aside their wives; the sexual revolution plus abortion on demand has forced women to surrender their young bodies to men, and allow men to love without commitment. Oh and it has pitched many a woman into a life of regret about the babies she "got rid of." What is the point of careers for women? Don't people understand that "career" is a cunning plan to get men to compete for the spoils of corporate office rather than the spoils of war? It is crazy to teach young women that "careers" are the highest and best thing in life. One day, women will discover that the whole women's liberation movement is a crock. And they they will be angry. Oh wait, they already are.
Or blacks. What has the civil rights revolution done for blacks lately? And what did the First Black President do for blacks? No doubt the police have it in for blacks. But maybe that makes sense, given that black men murder at a rate about eight times greater than white men. I dare say that your average policeman is well aware of that. But to act on it is called "profiling" by the educated elite. No doubt that many murders go unpunished in inner cities. But that is because witnesses are intimidated from testifying in court, per Jill Leovy's Ghettoside. And no doubt the police harass the local gangbangers: that's because the gangbangers can only be prosecuted for "breaking windows" when witnessed by a police officer. Meanwhile Latinos seems to be taking over the homebuilding industry. And the educated elite seems much more interested in the plight of the "gender-nonconforming" than the continued marginalization of blacks. One day, blacks will discover that the race politics of the Democrats is a crock. And then they will be angry. Oh wait, they already are.
No, the educated elite should not be leading the marginalized into an orgy of marginalization and a Skip Marley fantasy about being the chosen, the movement to lead the marginalized to glorious vengeance. Sorry chum, the dreadful oppressive capitalist class has just spent 200 years flooding the world with cheap products for the masses. The capitalist Deplorables are in the business of inventing new products and spreading them around for all to enjoy, and they are very good at it. How bad could it be?
Then there is the other war of the educated elite upon the Deplorables, the culture war that declares the cultural norms of the bourgeoisie to be suffocating and patriarchal for the glorious educated elite and their creative spawn. I've been reading Peter Gay's Why the Romantics Matter in the past few days and it reminds me that the war on the responsible middle class has been going on for 200 years, with the various Romantic movements defining themselves by their difference from the awful, dull, patriarchal, rule-obsessed, kitschy, tasteless middle class.
The point of difference between all the Romantics -- and that is why I call them People of the Creative Self -- is the difference between ordinary middle-class individualism and what Charles Taylor calls the "expressive" individualism of the educated creative elite. Call it the difference between responsible individualism and creative, "expressive" individualism. All your artists and writers think that the ordinary middle class stinks, because of what My Fair Lady's Alfred P. Doolittle calls "middle-class morality."
No doubt, from the lordly height of a Lord Byron or various other scions of wealthy families that could afford to become artists and writers, the middle class is rather mean and pathetic. But I think that attitude fails to put itself in the place of the Other. And understanding the Other is the beginning of wisdom, according to Schopenhauer.
The center of gravity of the middle class is the merchant class, people who live their lives trading goods and services, and this way of life goes back to the founding of cities, 3,000 years ago. The whole point of a merchant is to be trustworthy and responsible, so that people will trade with him. It obviously is a Big Thing, because the religions of responsibility -- Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity -- started their emergence about 3,000 years ago. The idea was and is that humans are responsible individuals, responsible in particular to God, who will judge them at the end of days. In my view Christianity is most particularly the religion of people just entering the middle class from rural idiocy and the rough comfort of the village and the blood kindred. I have a quote that I like to use to illustrate this, the words of a preacher in the Great Awakening of the mid 18th century.
Now, the People of the Creative Self are always tempted to regard this experience of people just learning how to make it in the city as rather small beer, a thing for little people, Deplorables really, that lack the courage and the fortitude to step out into the uncharted waters of a creative life.
OK, then why is the same not applicable to the People of the Subordinate Self that want to live by handouts from their political patrons? Get a life, kid! Stop gang-banging and get a job!
I have been dipping into Jungian psychology recently, and touched Jung's idea of "individuation," which means the difficult process of getting to understand yourself, in a gradual process, as an individual person with your own particular character and history. What Jung is not saying is that creativity is the only thing, and that a refusal to use the means appointed to be creative is a damning sin of the patriarchy.
It's a sad thing, to me, that everyone seems to be attacking the middle class. It is a difficult row for the middle class to hoe, because, as I insist, the defining thing about the middle class is that it is not that interested in power, and yet, beset by the educated elite on one hand and the underclass catspaws of the educated elite on the other, it looks like the middle class is going to have to take up the weapons of power in order to defend itself and its responsible culture.
I would tell our liberal friends in the educated elite that they really don't want to get the middle-class Deplorables angry. That's because the culture of responsibility and trust has the potential to be more powerful than anything the creatives or the victims are capable of doing.
I say, Peace be unto the Deplorables, if you know what is good for you.
Put into everyday language, we demand that the educated elite stop beating on the Deplorables as racist sexist homophobes, just as they demand that "the rich" stop exploiting and oppressing the traditionally marginalized. Sauce for goose is sauce for the gander.
You see, I think that the biggest problem in the world right now is the conceit and the sense of entitlement in the educated elite. On the one hand the educated elite is afflicted with the conceit that they are the lions, the movement, the chosen (as in Skip Marley's "Lions") to lead and lift the marginalized out their eternal slavery. And that is to be done by political power, the kindly attentions of the chosen to provide benefits and entitlements to said oppressed and marginalized.
I would say that the record of the last 150 years is that the more that the educated elite succeeds in getting political power to lead and lift the marginalized the worse it is for the marginalized. Oh yeah, it was great to help the working class and give them free education, and union rights, and government pensions. For a while. But now look at the white working class: abandoned by their patrons in the educated elite as Deplorables, and desperately short of the middle-class skills and culture that you need to wive and thrive in the modern economy.
Or women. What has the sexual revolution and women's liberation and careers for women really done for women? The divorce revolution has allowed men to cast aside their wives; the sexual revolution plus abortion on demand has forced women to surrender their young bodies to men, and allow men to love without commitment. Oh and it has pitched many a woman into a life of regret about the babies she "got rid of." What is the point of careers for women? Don't people understand that "career" is a cunning plan to get men to compete for the spoils of corporate office rather than the spoils of war? It is crazy to teach young women that "careers" are the highest and best thing in life. One day, women will discover that the whole women's liberation movement is a crock. And they they will be angry. Oh wait, they already are.
Or blacks. What has the civil rights revolution done for blacks lately? And what did the First Black President do for blacks? No doubt the police have it in for blacks. But maybe that makes sense, given that black men murder at a rate about eight times greater than white men. I dare say that your average policeman is well aware of that. But to act on it is called "profiling" by the educated elite. No doubt that many murders go unpunished in inner cities. But that is because witnesses are intimidated from testifying in court, per Jill Leovy's Ghettoside. And no doubt the police harass the local gangbangers: that's because the gangbangers can only be prosecuted for "breaking windows" when witnessed by a police officer. Meanwhile Latinos seems to be taking over the homebuilding industry. And the educated elite seems much more interested in the plight of the "gender-nonconforming" than the continued marginalization of blacks. One day, blacks will discover that the race politics of the Democrats is a crock. And then they will be angry. Oh wait, they already are.
No, the educated elite should not be leading the marginalized into an orgy of marginalization and a Skip Marley fantasy about being the chosen, the movement to lead the marginalized to glorious vengeance. Sorry chum, the dreadful oppressive capitalist class has just spent 200 years flooding the world with cheap products for the masses. The capitalist Deplorables are in the business of inventing new products and spreading them around for all to enjoy, and they are very good at it. How bad could it be?
Then there is the other war of the educated elite upon the Deplorables, the culture war that declares the cultural norms of the bourgeoisie to be suffocating and patriarchal for the glorious educated elite and their creative spawn. I've been reading Peter Gay's Why the Romantics Matter in the past few days and it reminds me that the war on the responsible middle class has been going on for 200 years, with the various Romantic movements defining themselves by their difference from the awful, dull, patriarchal, rule-obsessed, kitschy, tasteless middle class.
The point of difference between all the Romantics -- and that is why I call them People of the Creative Self -- is the difference between ordinary middle-class individualism and what Charles Taylor calls the "expressive" individualism of the educated creative elite. Call it the difference between responsible individualism and creative, "expressive" individualism. All your artists and writers think that the ordinary middle class stinks, because of what My Fair Lady's Alfred P. Doolittle calls "middle-class morality."
No doubt, from the lordly height of a Lord Byron or various other scions of wealthy families that could afford to become artists and writers, the middle class is rather mean and pathetic. But I think that attitude fails to put itself in the place of the Other. And understanding the Other is the beginning of wisdom, according to Schopenhauer.
The center of gravity of the middle class is the merchant class, people who live their lives trading goods and services, and this way of life goes back to the founding of cities, 3,000 years ago. The whole point of a merchant is to be trustworthy and responsible, so that people will trade with him. It obviously is a Big Thing, because the religions of responsibility -- Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity -- started their emergence about 3,000 years ago. The idea was and is that humans are responsible individuals, responsible in particular to God, who will judge them at the end of days. In my view Christianity is most particularly the religion of people just entering the middle class from rural idiocy and the rough comfort of the village and the blood kindred. I have a quote that I like to use to illustrate this, the words of a preacher in the Great Awakening of the mid 18th century.
When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings, and that a refusal to use the means appointed was a damning sin.This is exactly the point of the People of the Responsible Self, to experience yourself as a responsible being for whom the abdication of responsibility is a damning sin.
Now, the People of the Creative Self are always tempted to regard this experience of people just learning how to make it in the city as rather small beer, a thing for little people, Deplorables really, that lack the courage and the fortitude to step out into the uncharted waters of a creative life.
OK, then why is the same not applicable to the People of the Subordinate Self that want to live by handouts from their political patrons? Get a life, kid! Stop gang-banging and get a job!
I have been dipping into Jungian psychology recently, and touched Jung's idea of "individuation," which means the difficult process of getting to understand yourself, in a gradual process, as an individual person with your own particular character and history. What Jung is not saying is that creativity is the only thing, and that a refusal to use the means appointed to be creative is a damning sin of the patriarchy.
It's a sad thing, to me, that everyone seems to be attacking the middle class. It is a difficult row for the middle class to hoe, because, as I insist, the defining thing about the middle class is that it is not that interested in power, and yet, beset by the educated elite on one hand and the underclass catspaws of the educated elite on the other, it looks like the middle class is going to have to take up the weapons of power in order to defend itself and its responsible culture.
I would tell our liberal friends in the educated elite that they really don't want to get the middle-class Deplorables angry. That's because the culture of responsibility and trust has the potential to be more powerful than anything the creatives or the victims are capable of doing.
I say, Peace be unto the Deplorables, if you know what is good for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment