Atheism

Politics

Memes

Mind

Matters

String

Interact

Feedback

Email

Links

Debate

Home

The Civilized States of America and Jesusland

How to Beat Speed Cameras

History Lesson for Rednecks

Unilateral Armament

The Right to Bare Arms

The American Dream

Why is it that in America you can boast about anything and have the blue collar workers slap you on the back, except your intelligence or education?

The 'good luck to them' attitude to millionaires and billionaires is endemic, greed is good, ambition is good, yet envy is seem as the worst kind of evil. Expressing any kind of redistributive sentiment is seen as treason against the American dream. Also any hint of a redistributive agenda is declared to be motivated solely by spite, bile, envy and personal inadequacy, not sympathy for the poor or a sense of justice, as if only failures would ever seek greater material equality and they would only be seeking it for themselves. It seems charitable sentiments are only available to those who can afford to buy them. People should be free to be obscenely rich and while you're free to wish it was you any hint that you want to redistribute some of that wealth, even in the most extreme examples, is seen as evidence that you wish to stifle all enterprise, burn down all churches, abolish all human rights, end private property and open up gulags, because you are a bitter and twisted failure. They will call you a communist and tell tales of Vietnamese and Cuban refugees as if that was proof that any form of redistributive taxation system destroys all forms of enterprise and makes governments totalitarian. That is as absurd as suggesting one joint will turn you inevitably into a heroin addict. And this is when you threaten the money earned by people who earn hundreds or thousands of times more than they will ever earn.

Of course inside they each know that they will be billionaires one day, when they have that smart idea. How much would it cost to get a large slice of the population to believe something that was so patently absurd as the idea that each and every one of them will one day share the same interests as a tiny handful of the mega-rich? Capitalist propaganda is amazing, isn't it? The most amazing part is that this incredible story is put about largely for free, it's viral propaganda!

You can boast about how much money you earn, how many women you have had, how fast your car goes, how many cars you have, how much you spend on clothes, how fast you can run, how many men will not fight you, how much weight you have lost or can lift and even how pure your bloodline is. People will applaud you. Good on you. But if you boast about being smart or well educated suddenly things change. That kind of boasting is rude and obnoxious. Are you trying to suggest you're better than somebody else? How dare you? They will be lining up to see your comeuppance.

You can be talented, you can sing, you can play sport or music and they don't feel threatened, you earn more money than them and they're even willing to wish you luck but you suggest that you're smarter than they are and they start to resent it.

Is that annoying or endearing? In America inequality is for outcomes, not for potentials. Suggest somebody is simply better than somebody else, smarter, better educated, more generally capable and somehow it is offensive. Despite all the rhetoric of freedom to excel Americans want to believe everybody starts out equal, that way differences in outcome are down to differences in application, work, faith, belief and effort. The explanation for this is simple, if everybody is equal and they live in the land of freedom and opportunity differences in outcome are down to differences in character, this way the rich deserve to be rich and the poor get what is coming to them. And to question any outcome is to demand the system be destroyed and turned upside-down, turning the US of A into Corruptcommiestan overnight. The system is a single thing, you can't tinker, you can't pick and choose, love it or leave it. Wave that flag harder.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

mwillett.org: Debate Unlimited