More Common Sense

It was long ago, and far away. I was working an extra, part-time job to help keep food on the table. I’ve done so for many years. I don’t remember the discussion that led up to the remark. The rest of the conversation, I’m sure, wasn’t that memorable.

“Shee-it, I hate cops,”my co-worker seethed.

“I hate cops too,” I agreed, as I pushed a board across the table.

“You?! Really, man?”

My co-worker didn’t need to feign surprise. After all, he was black, and I wasn’t. He was in his twenties, and I wasn’t.

I stopped what I was doing, putting a hole in the production line at the risk of getting some personal attention from the shift manager.

“That’s right, bud, me. I have a deeply fundamental problem with anyone who thinks he’s better than anyone else.”

“Right! And that’s the blueprint for a cop!”

I had made a friend.

I’m quite a bit older now, but I still think about that exchange from time to time. The fact that my agreement struck a chord is unfortunate, although I've always understood why it did. I’ve never had a run-in with the police personally, but I’ve had conversations with them, to be sure. I don’t care much at all for condescending personalities. It seems as though candidates for officers of the law are selected based on physical size, and unfortunately, attitude…a dominant one. Luckily, with age has come a necessary change of mind. Cops have tough and very often dangerous jobs. They get to see the ugly underbelly of humanity, and no mere human could do the job and remain unaffected by that. As a group, they know they aren’t well-respected or even well-paid, regardless of the challenges they face. For the most part it's a thankless job. I don’t think I could handle being a cop, and I’m not interested in the least in trying to be one.

But despite my change of mind about police, the problem of people looking down on other people has been a very persistent one, and one that desperately needs to be addressed. I see and feel it on a daily basis, I’ve been judged for my lack of personal wealth once again and quite recently, and I'm damned sick and tired of it. And thus, this piece was born.

It's my observation that people form circles, like wagons in a train. It doesn't matter who they are or where they came from. It's a social phenomenon; it's kinsmanship, but it's also exclusion. Think of it as a precursor to racism, or elitism, or sexism, to name a few of the countless “isms” that plague humanity. On the one hand it seems to be a natural occurrence, something to which we are all entitled. On the other, it perpetuates differences of opinion and amplifies divisions that the family of man could very easily do without.

In the thirteenth century, the first known use of the term "noblesse oblige" occurred. It wasn't a new idea even then, but the French at least distilled it down to just two words. Its basic meaning is that "nobility obligates." It was a step in the right direction, but being just two words it did not address anything specific, just a general idea that the privileged nobility bore a responsibility to those who were, well, not nobility. In particular, it did not advise the privileged to exercise civil, respectful behavior toward the less-privileged, so as not to come off to the rest of the general public like a complete horse's ass. It’s an idea that would have been an extremely helpful inclusion in the thirteenth century. Eight centuries later, the need still isn’t grasped by nearly the entirety of the wealthy, or even the vapid pseudo-rich who are just a bit more well-off than the average citizen.

Recently I had the displeasure of reading just a part of an entire book (I wasn't about to finish it) that attempts to defend elitism. It won't take a book to destroy the notions that book exposes.

Throughout American history, the so-called “elite” have been dragged, kicking and screaming, through each of the reforms that have brought our populace just a bit closer to becoming a civil, democratic society. Elimination of slavery, at least, visible slavery. Ouch. Damn. We'll get back to that one. Labor unions, that at long last provided a voice to the common man. I know nobody alive remembers the “company store” where workers were once required to “spend” their “paychecks,” which were actually only vouchers, given in return for back-breaking, dangerous work. Men who could barely feed their families thus were expected to appreciate the great favor of having a job. “Equal” voting rights. And so on and on. Elimination of discrimination, in employment, education, or housing? It's a work in progress, believe it.

This nation was built entirely on the backs of slaves and underpaid laborers. Its independence was won and its interests have been defended entirely by way of the myriad sacrifices of common citizens become soldiers, while often, the wealthy bought their own way out of the conflicts from which they would profit. If the leaders we have were suddenly and mysteriously to vanish from the face of the earth, others from among our massive, talented populace would step up to lead, and I believe that if it actually occurred it would be of great benefit to us all; for those among us who are most fit to lead just happen to be those who don’t wish to.

But the great bulk of the more privileged among us still tend to think that anyone who is not so privileged, by definition and lack of means is an unworthy moron, and that of course means that they themselves have the better plan for all of the rest of us. To those of you who believe you are part of the “elite,” allow me to ask you: How are the masses supposed to feel about that fact that in this society, the influence purchased with your money has usurped the guaranteed representation that we as United States citizens are supposed to enjoy? How should we feel about the prevalence of crime, allowed to some degree because it profits you? About the fact that slavery still exists, all over the world, including in this country? That there are still homeless people in the streets, that some among us have gone completely uneducated, and that many are still hungry? If I'm right, you don't feel a lick of responsibility for any of that, or for any other injustice or shortfall of our so-called civil society, at all. None whatsoever.

But, hey. Good job. We should all listen to you.

I do understand, though. If I'm so smart, why am I not rich?

I have an answer. I don't care at all for your fucking money. True, I don't have it. Egalitarian arguments aside, if having money means that I would become like you, then I damned well don't want it.

All of this is a big part of the reason the movie Fight Club is so special to me. It isn't that I want to eliminate civilization and to completely return to an age of hunting and gathering. I love it because this short monologue is part of the script:

“Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not, fuck with us.”

The truth is, there are no “elite” people. There are only those who think they're elite. The surer they are of their special status, the farther from any actuality of it they are. Such persons are not to be feared nor certainly, in any manner revered. They are fooling only themselves, and are only to be pitied.

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Over the Next Rise

     

      I just sat there in my car for for a while, head down. I had ten minutes to go before I needed to start on another ten-minute walk from the parking lot to my destination, my job, but didn’t feel like bothering. I expected I would...but why? Was there any point? In anything?

     I'd reached a place where I didn’t want to be, not physically but emotionally. There was trouble, and I had no idea what to do about it. I hadn’t lost anything, at least, not recently, but the foreseeable future didn’t bode well at all. After weeks of brooding about all of it, it seemed like a tipping point had been reached. It seemed as though I was about to lose control of, well, just about everything.

     And I was all but certain that I just couldn’t do it.

     Do what?

     Go on. Continue.

     I’m well aware that sounds serious. It was.

     For a Monday, the parking was unusually sparse. I've always tried to get the particular parking space I was in, and I couldn’t exactly say why, except that I prefer it. My hand covered my forehead and my eyes as I slowly shook my head. When I finally took my hand away and raised my head and my gaze, I beheld again the scene that now appears with this piece. The photo was taken with a phone camera more than a year ago; the view had just struck me as being picturesque. But suddenly, it was quite a bit more than that, as I considered what I was seeing.

     Work was to my back, and the rising hill before me blocked the view of some unknown area beyond. I had never walked to the top of the hill to see whatever there was to see. I don't want to, at least not yet. It isn't that I'm not curious, it's that I do not wish to remove that small portion of the unknown from my perception of that scene. I knew what was behind me, the means of making the living that supports me. When I leave that place forever, I may exit over that rise, on foot.

     I considered quietly, as I began to feel a bit better, life is like that. It's a process, a journey. We all live through some tough times, and it's possible that if we knew what was coming, we would be unwilling to go forward to meet it. But we don't get to know, and that's key to existence. We dream and hope and plan, knowing that some things will work out while others won't. No one can knock the props from beneath us if there are no props. I got out of my car and stood on the pavement, both feet firmly on the ground. The world may be moving about me but I'm steady where I stand. I'd done nothing wrong, it was the things that others have done or will do that had unsettled me. Yes they had affected my life, and will continue to affect my life; but like money it isn't everything, by any stretch of the imagination.

     Joie de vivre. Appreciation of life. Peace of heart, which eventually should lead to genuine peace of mind. I turned and headed on toward my workplace.

     When I was a younger man, I used to take off and drive, sometimes for a full day, traveling aimlessly and with no set destination. I took no maps along and there was no such thing as GPS. I covered hundreds of miles and then relied on highway signs to get me to some point closer to my home, often getting back long after nightfall. The objective was to learn about my surroundings. How quickly did the landscape change? How did other people in nearby towns or cities live? What did their surroundings look like, and how did those places compare to where I lived? What should I expect from the world, and from my future?

     That was a long time ago. I've traveled much greater distances, knowing where I was headed and how and when I would return. I haven't seen the whole world but I've seen enough to be confident that it's all there.

     But of course, I don't know what the future holds. I don't know exactly how I'll live or how I will die. But I'm confident that my place in the world belongs to me, and that I have a right to it. I'm confident that if I don't have a single thing to call my own, I will still be able to move on and to advance over that next rise. Beyond it, I will find something I've never seen before.

     And isn't it wonderful, not to know what it will be?

     When the next weekend arrives, I'm going for a hike in the countryside.

                                                                *****