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One of the most significant holidays on the United States calendar took place this last week, and the celebrations were bigger and better than ever. Millions of people observed this almost-sacred day in the traditional fashion, while some favored the newer, more modern twists on the theme. It is a uniquely American practice, and one that unites both families and strangers under a common banner, then drives them apart in a frenzy of wild commercialism. It takes place once a year, on the fourth Friday of November, and is so strenuous that participants have to spend the day before in preparation. The typical method is gorging themselves on protein and carbohydrates in the form of turkey and stuffing, so they can maintain a high level of shopping energy through the next day. It is considered to be one of the busiest shopping days in the US calendar, and is known as Black Friday.

Black Friday is, of course, the traditional beginning of the Holiday Shopping Season in the United States. This is a multi-cultural, multi-denominational occasion that appeals to all, and runs through the end of the fiscal year. Other observances intersect with this high-time of spending - Christmas, in particular - but the meaning behind these days is generally considered less important than using them as opportunities to spend more money. Specific segments of the population note such holidays as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, which also take place during this time. However, these celebrations tend to be more spiritual and less material in nature, so the rest of the country ignores them.

The origins of Black Friday are lost to the mists of time, although the best guesses of modern historians place it sometime around 1924 AD, when the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was first established. Conventional wisdom is that the term “Thanksgiving” in the title of the parade refers to the relief that business owners around the country feel when the Holiday Shopping Season finally arrives. However, recent discoveries have indicated that an obscure, archaic holiday was once practiced around this time, in which medium-to-large-sized family groups would assemble to express thankfulness and gratitude. This “thanks-giving” was highlighted by a grand feast and observing sporting rituals on television, among other traditional events. The participants would eat enormous amounts of food, mostly poultry and harvested goods, which is thought to be the precursor to the customary Gorging of Turkey that has replaced it. Some anthropologists claim the holiday is still celebrated in small, isolated pockets throughout the United States, although evidence to support this is slight.

[Note: A few observers have warned that the observation of Black Friday has lost its true meaning and become too commercial. Merchants are starting to ignore the traditional 5:00 AM openings and moving theirs to 4:00 AM in order to encourage more celebrants to jostle and shove in their establishments. This year, a few shopping malls here in Salt Lake City went so far as to open at midnight, and enticed shoppers with free refreshments. It is even whispered that some stores are considering encroaching on the traditional Day of Preparation and remaining open the Thursday before. What this would do to the Gorging of Turkey celebrations is unclear.]

The weeks following all-important Black Friday will also be filled with shopping and spending on a much higher level than usual. In a country that is noted for both excessive expenditures and disinterest for how that behavior is received in the rest of the world, it is a strange twist that we feel the need to justify our financial outpouring for this occasion. We do this by means of specific and often supernatural reasons. For example, it is not unusual for Americans to invoke anything from the Supreme Being to a magical fat man in a red suit as a basis for budget-busting during the Holiday Shopping Season.

Before long, the holiday-themed advertisements are pulled from the television, the sales at inflated prices are ended, and the exorbitant spree of consuming comes to a merciful end. But the trials are only beginning for the weary public, for at that time, the reckoning must begin. For those fortunate participants who have budgeted for the holiday, the impact may not be as difficult to absorb. Others enmeshed in these grisly rites will find their credit cards maxed and bank accounts completely emptied. The heartbreak of this “most wonderful time of the year” is enough to trigger states of depression in many, and the conclusion of the season is met with relief by almost all. Unfortunately, this is only a temporary reprieve, as it will re-emerge in ten months to greater fanfare. The next year is always bigger, brighter, louder, more aggressive, more excessive, and always more expensive.

The obvious question is: why do we subject ourselves to these traditions? No one seems to have a firm answer, but everyone is afraid to stop. The social stigma of not spending money on someone when they have spent money on you is too great to ignore. Gone are the days when the thought really did count, and it was enough to remember - and be remembered. Now we attempt to purchase affection and friendship with the most expensive (or expensive-appearing) gift our overburdened budgets can handle. We spend, spend, spend, until our accounts run dry, and then we spend some more. Modesty is a virtue for other seasons.

There are always a few apologists who try to reintroduce the old reasons for these holidays, and decry the materialization of our modern society. However, those people still buy as much as the rest of us. We also try approaching the Holiday Spending Season from a different viewpoint, and claim it comes from a place of love. This allows us to define our spending as “giving,” and rationalize the excess as trying to demonstrate our tender feelings to others.

That is the way most Americans like to view the upcoming season: I love my family and friends so much that I am going to empty my bank account and strain my credit to buy them stuff. The holes in that logic are obvious and plentiful, but here in the United States, we try to maintain the pleasant fiction. If you ask us, we are simply thinking of others. In fairness, it should be noted that donations to charities and food banks are generally highest during this spending spree, materialism notwithstanding. Besides, in spite of the drain on financial resources it may cause, we are still giving gifts to others, in general.

I suppose there are other things associated with the holidays, which have little to do with money. The whole “Peace on Earth” thing is nice, although certain Americans are not exactly contributing to that goal. It is a great concept, though, and even if we only give it special attention once a year, at least that’s a start.

So, that is my brief description of the Holiday Season here in the United States. It may be much the same in other countries around the world, but I wouldn’t know. I am an American, which means I don’t really pay attention to what happens beyond our borders (with the exception of big international sporting events). We spend more money than we should, we eat more than we should, and we celebrate more than we should. This is only different from the rest of the year by the volume in which we behave excessively. However, we also give gifts, think of others, and sing about “joy to the world” and “bringing good cheer, to young and old, meek and the bold” (or however that song goes). Now if we could just somehow decrease the former while we increase the latter, we could really make a difference.
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Now playing: Sarah McLachlan - In The Bleak Mid-Winter
via FoxyTunes

Several years ago I was lounging my way through a movie when it occurred to me that I was seeing a superior example of an oft-used plot device. This particular story twist is used as a solution to a very difficult problem, and it works so well that it makes the viewer wonder why somebody didn’t apply this solution in the very beginning.

The story went like this: A young college student with a taste for English literature became infatuated with her professor — who just happened to teach that subject. The handsome professor had a fiancée, but found himself attracted to the student, anyway (she was dropping hints like a little kid at Christmastime). A moment came when the student finally threw herself at the professor, and after an internal struggle, the professor told her he couldn’t do it. He said that he liked her, but he had a fiancée. Besides, she was much too young for him.

Being rejected by her professor was too much to bear for the young student. She decided to prove that their age difference was not a barrier to love, and set out to do it the only way she knew how: by brutally murdering some of her classmates, en route to the professor’s fiancée (it was not quite a “Citizen Kane” caliber film).

[Note: I’m sorry to say I can’t remember the title of this movie, mostly because I was watching it for simple amusement. I stumbled upon it one evening on a standard cable replay, meaning it had been edited for time and content. This tends to place awkward cuts in crucial scenes and use very amusing replacement words for profanity. Formatting a movie for television also does a nice job of breaking any storyline momentum by inserting commercials for Viagra or Denny’s within a few minutes of a fast-paced action/drama/love scene. Most people find this irritating (and it is), but there is definite humor value to be had.]

The movie reached a crucial point when the very disturbed student came to the professor’s home and managed to get his fiancée in a choke hold, then held a big kitchen knife to her throat. The professor tried distracting the student by talking to her, in desperate hope that he could somehow save his fiancée. The dialogue went something like this:

Professor (trying to remain calm): Come on, Angelica. Just put the knife down.

Student (frantic, almost screaming): No, Eric! Can’t you see she’s just in the way of us being together?!

Fiancée: Let me go, you psycho!

Student (screaming in fiancée’s ear): Shut up, you witch! I’m going to flipping kill you! [Note substituted profanity in bold]

Fiancée: Aaaaaaah! Nooooooo!

Professor: Wait, wait! (Visibly calms down.) You are right, Angelica. She is in the way.

Student (clearly taken off balance): Huh? What did you just say?

Professor (very calm): We can be together. Just the two of us.

Student (visibly shaking now from the craziness coursing through her): You’re lying! You told me I was too young for you!

Professor (gently): That was before I really understood how wonderful you are. But there has already been too much bloodshed. Just let her go, and we will be together.

Student (desperate hope gleams in her eyes): Really? Do you promise?

Professor: Yes, I promise. But you have to let her go.

Student (releases fiancée, who scrambles away): Oh, Jonathan! I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say—

BLAM!

(Professor shoots Student with a .357 he had hiding behind his back. Fiancée rushes to his side and they embrace. Movie fades to a commercial for Pepto-Bismol.)

This sort of problem resolution – where the protagonist draws the antagonist off-balance by telling them something they really want to hear – is common in movies and television shows. I have noticed it several times since the first identification, and not always in bad action/thriller movies. Sometimes it’s also used in less-climactic situations, or for comic effect. I have since come to refer this as “Crazy Talk.”

To my knowledge, the Crazy Talk defense has never worked on an actual, living human being. People are manipulated with words and emotions all the time, of course, but Crazy Talk is less a psychological battle and more a lazy way out of a story. It’s not Iago convincing his friend Othello that fair Desdemona was being unfaithful to him, in other words.

It would be easy to dismiss this entire idea as simple fiction, acknowledging that lots of fiction (perhaps even most fiction) is untrue or impossible in the real world. But it is still the human element of the story line that makes us want to read a Fantasy novel or watch Star Wars movies. The story can involve dragons and/or robots (or commandos, or Victorian era detectives, or German thieves disguising themselves as terrorists), but the characters will still act and react in a basic human fashion.

If there was only one movie where a significant problem was solved using Crazy Talk, we could dismiss it as one writer’s unorthodox idea; and the anomaly would not be worth mentioning (the jury is still out on whether it’s worth mentioning in this article). However, it shows up as a plot device on lots of different movies and television shows, and the only real life equivalent would be something like a hostage negotiator – and that is stretching the point.

Short of dismissing the idea of Crazy Talk as a quirk of fiction (and there are plenty of those), I think it is symptomatic of our society’s desire to find instant solutions to significant problems. Everyone knows what it is like to be burdened with difficulties, whether they are personal worries or deep concern over global issues. Each of us has thought how nice it would be if these problems could simply disappear, all at once. That is where the human element to Crazy talk appears, and why we don’t dismiss it when we see it.

I don’t think it’s fair to label the desire for instant, simple solutions as laziness; we all grow aspirations in that same fertile ground. Nobody wishes for hardships, after all, even though they are an unavoidable part of life, and provide growing experiences. Instead, we all seek the path of least resistance.

Winning the lottery is an example of this principle, because everyone wants to find a get-rich-quick scheme (the simple solution impulse). But, if you asked an average group of people why they wanted to win the lottery, I would be surprised if the majority of their reasons had anything to do with accumulating material possessions. People like the lottery because it’s a quick solution to a daunting problem. They want to be rich because that eliminates the problems that come with being poor. Nobody considers the effort and sacrifice it takes to reach financial nirvana, even though that path to wealth is open to all. They are just interested in their problems going away.

The same simple solution impulse contributed to the bizarre circumstances surrounding U.S. Senator Larry Craig. This blog is not intended to be a forum for political conversation, and that is not why I am mentioning this. Suffice it to say, a very public figure committed an embarrassing indiscretion and chose to pursue a path that he believed would make the problem disappear: he pleaded guilty. Of course, the fact that a very public figure pleaded guilty to a potentially embarrassing crime was seized upon and reported widely. I am not passing judgment on whether or not Senator Craig is guilty, and he was bound for problems from the moment the police officer waved his badge under the stall. But when given the choice between facing the inevitable and trying to make the whole thing disappear, he took the latter. And unfortunately for the Senator, it seems to have been the wrong decision.

On a larger scale, two things are weighing on the minds of Americans right now, whether they would like them to or not. First, the United States of America is embroiled in a terrible, irresponsible war, which the world (including American citizens) wants to see ended. In fact, we hope, and pray, and speak out against it, so that it might end. Second, we are also embroiled in a terrible, irresponsible Presidential Campaign; one where every social problem is transformed into a slogan and every cultural contribution exploited to the fullest extent.

Again, my intent is not to discuss these situations from a political point of view or promote any particular political action. No matter where personal ideological lines are drawn, it can be discouraging to watch infighting replace problem solving. Energy that might be spent crafting important proposals and debating their merits is wasted in meaningless finger-pointing. Outrage at the negligence of other politicians (and entire political parties) is both high and can seem manufactured. We are left feeling surprised that anything is ever accomplished in the halls of government.

There is a scenario where both of these problems benefit from an instant solution, and uses the Crazy Talk defense as well. The setup involves the President and the First Lady giving a tour of the White House to a national journalism personality (perhaps Diane Sawyer). The three of them are walking with the camera crew down one of the many grand hallways, when Osama bin Laden jumps out from a doorway and seizes the First Lady, holding a big kitchen knife to her throat. The dialogue would be familiar:

Osama (evil chuckle): Hah! Now at last I have won, you imperialist swine!

President (rips off coat, shirt, and tie, revealing massively muscled and glistening upper body): What kind of beachsand are you trying to pull? Unhand her at once!

Osama: Not a chance! You will transfer all control of the United States to me, or I will kill your wife!

First Lady: Don’t do it, Mr. President! I am not worth it!

Osama (hissing in her ear): Shut up, you uncovered prosthetic! Or your blood will be the first spilled in defense of the new Islamic States of America!

President (calming down): But this country has just accepted Islamic rule. That’s why these cameras are here.

Osama (suddenly off-balance): What? Whose lies are these?

President (gently): It’s true. Congress just passed legislation requiring all Americans to be Muslims. We decided there been enough bloodshed.

Osama (shaking from the craziness): It can’t be! I would have heard about this…

President: It just happened a few minutes ago. Now, you have to let the First Lady go so she can go change into her burqa.

Osama (releasing the First Lady, who scurries away): So long I have hoped for this day! I can now embrace you as a brother-

BLAM!

President: How’s that for diplomacy? Good luck on those 47 virgins, monsterfalcon.

(The First Lady and Diane Sawyer both rush into the President’s arms. The newscast fades to a commercial for the latest Will Farrell movie.)

Now, besides being altogether ridiculous and the product of a bad screenwriter’s imagination (and, possibly, the President’s imagination), this presents a very quick and simple solution. The war ends with the death of Osama, and the grateful American public watches the video replay for the next three months. The President is declared the first King of America and everyone pretends to be happy for a while.

Of course, the real solutions to our problems will only come at the end of a long road. There is never likely to be a decisive moment of victory for any of our most pressing problems. The Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s was four decades ago, and we still haven’t erased racism from this country. Will there ever be a time when it truly is a thing of the past?

The lesson we can all learn from this is to hold ourselves responsible for our actions, and understand that quick, easy solutions don’t apply to complicated situations. In addition to ourselves, we must also hold our public figures responsible for both their actions and their promises. We should expect them to address our significant problems, and not just use them as sound bytes in their next campaign or fund-raising speech. Finally, if we find a candidate who promises what we want and keeps his or her word, then we must put our weight of support behind them. After all, we the people have our part to play in solving the problems, as well.

Protecting the environment has become a major cultural topic in the United States during the past few years. Whether we have made any sort of significant strides in this arena is debatable, but it has become very fashionable to “be green.” Big companies are taking every opportunity to show the public how eco-friendly they are, most of the proof accomplished through advertising. It reminds me of how cutting edge companies in the mid-to-late ‘90s would stick a great big website address on everything they produced. If you had the savvy to create a presence on the ‘net, you made sure everyone knew about it.

Popular culture is a great vehicle for accomplishing significant things in the United States. This is one of the great ironies of American culture. We sometimes have a hard time seeing the significance of something like global warming until famous people explain it to us. Watchdog groups can work for twenty years generating interest in a cause, and not reach the same audience as a single thirty-second commercial with the likes of Paris Hilton. But that sort of attention comes with a price.

[Note: I can see the Paris Hilton global warming commercial now. It starts with a shot of Paris wearing something typically scanty, and with a coy little smile on her face. She says: “You know I’m hot, but do know what else is hot? The Earth. In fact, because of people driving cars and flying airplanes, it’s too hot.” Then cut to a picture of a polar bear balanced on a tiny sliver of floating ice, looking depressed because of how many fossil fuels you burn each day. I think it would work.]

Concern for the world around us is not new: the environment has been a topic of discussion for years. Theodore Roosevelt, who was President of the United States from 1901 to 1909, is widely considered to be the first person in that office concerned with long-term needs for environmental conservation. He has been followed by many executives and legislators who have fought for the same cause. It is a frequent subject in the American political realm, in other words.

Nor is this a new thing in the scientific community. After pooh-poohing the concerns of possible global cooling in the 1970s, most scientists in the field have been promoting the idea of a warming trend, most likely accelerated by an increase of greenhouse gasses. The world at large has marginalized or misunderstood this information. It doesn’t help that the warnings don’t sound very frightening (imagine if it was called “global death heating” or “evil choking gasses”), but information from the scientific community is often taken as alarmist. We are not used to scientists being figures with any real authority.

With all of this in mind, it’s easy to ascribe the recent rise in interest to more attention in popular media. Al Gore’s well received movie “An Inconvenient Truth” is one of the obvious examples of this (along with his promotional tour of national talk shows), although things like celebrity magazine photos of movie stars driving around in hybrid cars contribute as well. Now we can find eco-aware characters spouting “green” dialogue in popular television shows, and high-visibility companies promoting their environmental efforts.

The trend trickles down. Politicians have realized that people are now interested in their environmental record, and are either bragging or controlling the damage. The scientific community has been infused with new authority, and every new finding is reported on CNN. Clever publicists are coaching their celebrity clients on how to ride the latest wave of interest. It’s a slow process, but the wheels are turning.

This brings us – as Americans and as world citizens – to a crossroads. The attention is finally there, the sense of importance has been established, but what will we make of it? The new-found interest in the environment has a vague sense of being very trendy, and we are not long-suffering to trends in Western Culture (remember the Macarena? Break Dancing? The Pet Rock? Ugg Boots? The Atkins Diet? Kaballah? Mullets? Disco? The Spice Girls?).

Global warming is a much more serious subject than off-beat entertainment phenomenon, but we still tend to lose interest in things if they are subject to big, initial pop-culture saturation. The famine relief efforts in Ethiopia during the early ‘80s are one example of this. Between the Live Aid concert, the music singles (“Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, “We Are The World”, and “Tears Are Not Enough”), and the media coverage, there was a great deal of attention and help brought to a horrific problem. But there are still droughts and famines in Ethiopia, along with massive deforestation, corrupt government officials, and an frighteningly bad economy. Some good things have happened, and progress has been made, but the problem is not solved.

We must figure out how to bridge the gap between fashionable water-cooler talk and genuine concern. It hasn’t happened yet. We have not seen a drastic increase in use of public transportation, or a constant stream of angry letters sent to Congress demanding higher fuel economy standards. Sales of the Hummer SUV remain solid. There is a lot of rhetoric, plenty of promises being made, but not much action.

Americans are enduring the opening moves of a Presidential election right now, and all of the leading candidates are on the record about the environment. I’m not certain that’s a good thing, particularly if the environment becomes a big subject in the campaigning. Not only would that emphasize global warming over other equally important subjects, but if there is ever a point of declared victory (like the election night acceptance speech of an environment-minded President), the momentum will be lost and public attention will disappear.

The goal may be to keep generating excitement and continue to build passion for change, but never let the interest reach a climax. I am not trying to say that Ethiopia would be a world power right now if there had never been a Live Aid, and I certainly don’t think the efforts in 1985 were wasted. But imagine what good could have come from 25 years of sustained interest, rather than one big, shining moment.

The National Park Service in the United States was established in 1916 with the goal of conserving properties with natural or historic value. However, this landmark organization came to fruition over seven years after the first environment-friendly President left office, and 44 years after the creation of the first designated national park (Yellowstone National Park). Can our collective attention span hold out long enough to endure seven years of political debate (not to mention 44)? If it’s important enough, most certainly we can.

There are questions still to answer. How can the believers convince the doubters that environmental conservation is important, even if the situation turns out to be less dire than predicted? Are we all willing to sacrifice some of our conveniences in the process? Will the zealots be willing to listen to all the other voices, so everyone is represented? Of course – can we change this from a political stance/activist soapbox/celebrity cause to a globally acknowledged concern?

If we find the correct answers to these questions, we may be able to change the world. Only, really change the world this time, not just get a bunch of celebrities to sing about changing it. (Hey, no disrespect intended. I bought the single, too.)

[[author_nate]]

I was born and raised in a traditional American middle-class family, which meant that we lived in a nice, average house, drove reasonable, well-kept cars, and bought clothes when the old ones were either worn out or too small. My mom and dad raised us to be grateful for what we had and understanding that our way of life would be considered more lucrative in other places (including many parts of our own country). We did not summer in Europe or wear trendy brand names, but my parents always put food on the table and clothes on our backs.

I attended public schools and had an excellent learning experience. There were the usual cliques and groups at my high school, but everybody seemed to get along well enough. If one person refused to acknowledge another, it was not a question of social status: we were all on the same general plane. It just meant the former was either an arrogant jerk or had seen too many “teen angst” movies where the popular kids didn’t speak to the nerds.

I bring this up not as biographical information (although it serves that purpose, so… you’re welcome), but to illustrate the point that I was raised to believe I can be successful in life – even though I do not have certain social advantages. In other words, I was not born rich or in a prominent family. In the United States of America you don’t need either of those things to succeed.

To a point this is true. In America, and many other parts of the world, a person can choose the path of their life with a little bit of luck and a great deal of effort. A street-corner pauper might be a board-room millionaire given the right opportunity. This is one of the great things about Western civilization: free and open economy. Old World concepts like landed gentry and caste systems are nonexistent.

That’s a nice concept; but unfortunately, a bit naïve. I recently had the opportunity to observe our societal divisions at close range, and found it a bit startling.

I would like to say I had taken the time to explain the whole economic freedom/open society thing to some of the upper crust luminaries I encountered in Sun Valley, Idaho. I didn’t, of course, but I would like to say that I had. Not that they would listen to someone from the bourgeoisie, but it would have made me feel better.

For those who may not know, Sun Valley, Idaho is a winter playground for the rich and famous. I always personally associate it with Ernest Hemingway, who helped put it on the map, so to speak. There is a ski lodge and a town full of overpriced brand name stores. The streets are lined with BMWs and Cadillac Escalades, and the sidewalks are populated with Baby Boomers wearing North Face jackets. My $15.00 pants and $9.00 shirt from Wal-Mart didn’t exactly blend in.

My wife and I went with my mom and dad, who were there to attend a business conference. The how and why we were there isn’t necessarily important, just that it was where the conference was taking place, and we built a vacation around it.

Because this destination caters to the wealthy (and because I, too, have been influenced by movies) I expected the shopkeepers and workers to be unbearably snotty; sort of like the scene in “Pretty Woman” where Julia “Prostitute” Roberts tries to buy some clothes in an uppity Beverly Hills place. In fact, it was just the opposite. Every single person at work – food servers, clerks, hotel staff – was friendly, helpful, and professional. We even wandered in some fairly pricey places to look around, but there were no cross glances or upturned noses. It was great.

In contrast, the well-moneyed people were brusque, demanding, and short-tempered. They were not satisfied with any level of service, and apt to snap at the slightest delay in their gratification. In fairness, I am very certain some of the rich people in Sun Valley did not behave in this fashion. I believe that because I happen to know some wonderful, kind, and down-to-earth rich people. But some people just love being rich; they seem to get a kick out of watching people scurry about to satisfy their every whim – and are rude and demanding, even when the people around them are very accommodating.

It occurred to me that I was observing a sort of symbiotic relationship. The workers provide the high-level of service and indulgence that the rich people need, and the rich people provide the demands that motivate the workers. The money is secondary to the relationship, because there is no question whether the rich people will pay. They will spend, and well. That is the catalyst that entitles them to make demands.

That is a vastly different experience from my usual shopping forays. I can just imagine going to my local Wal-Mart (where I bought my clothes) and presenting any demand, with absolutely zero gratitude or courtesy, and have the employees fight over the opportunity to accommodate. The very thought makes me laugh out loud. Most of my experiences shopping with the “regular people” have involved disinterested, unmotivated employees and me not caring about it much, beyond a vague irritation. I think if my rich friends in Sun Valley were somehow obliged to do all their business where I shop, they would probably choke on their foie gras.

I don’t think this means we should overhaul any of our free economic systems, and we certainly have bigger problems than rich people acting like arrogant snots. But our permissiveness and acceptance of people wielding their wealth like a club can’t possibly be a good thing. We complain about wealthy celebrities getting preferential treatment and professional athletes being overpaid. But we watch their movies, buy their CDs, attend their sporting events, and ask them for autographs.

We have established a culture where a person’s relative value is most easily assessed by how much material wealth he or she is able to accumulate. This seems backward when presented in that fashion – and I can’t imagine anyone actually thinking it is a good thing (aside from the snobbiest of the elitist rich, of course). But perhaps this is just the nature of our species: that our noteworthy or notorious people are conquerors in their many forms. We are simply measuring success, in other words, and money is the measuring stick of our times.

Ultimately, our free trade society draws caste lines just like any other culture. In Western culture a person can easily cross from one group to another, depending on their opportunities, but the lines are still there. What is the fundamental difference between a feudal landowner and the primary stockholder in a mega-conglomerate company? Not very much, aside from the swordfights and castle sieges, of course.

The biggest difference, I suppose, is that our system is supposed to blur and erase societal lines, because everyone has the same voice. Unfortunately, the privilege of wealth leads people to forget certain things like courtesy for their fellow citizens and responsibility for their own actions. That’s where the legal system comes into this mess, and I don’t have the energy or desire to continue on that subject.

I guess there is no clear moral to this story, other than suggesting we don’t assign so much value to material wealth. That way, we could avoid some of the problems that come from our delusions of entitlement. Also, we should encourage those fortunate few who become wealthy to avoid turning into arrogant rich people. But I think we already knew that.

[[author_nate]]