Perhaps the rich, as well as being guilty, are increasingly fearful. Stories about ‘cancel culture’ make these people ever more worried about what they say and do
Good analysis. When I was in my early thirties, about 40 years ago, I was stopped in the street for a survey. One of the questions was to which class did I consider I belonged. I answered Middle Class. I was born into a Working Class home in the early 1950s, so I understood what it meant. Whilst there was no shame to that - most people were Working Class - at that time children were urged: get an education so you can get a better job, do better than your parents, have a better wage and better standard of living, move up socially. Working Class parents were proud of their children who had moved up. I had moved up - my parents were proud. The interviewer said she was surprised, most people answered Working Class. An inverted snobbery had crept in. Being successful was shameful - ‘betraying your class’, as was said by some. And yes, we had just entered the Thatcher era after 35 years of Socialism, the drop-out, anything goes, work is for mugs, hippy years where living in a squat was what ‘real people’ did, living off State benefits, making babies but not getting married and taking responsibility, eschewing home ownership, and not being a ‘wage-slave’ and Mr & Mrs upwardly mobile - which was to be greedy whilst others were poor.. As Thomas Sowell put it: ‘I can’t understand why it is greedy for someone to want to keep their own money which they earned, but not greedy to believe you can take other people’s money to use for your own purposes.’ But that’s where we are. If you have done well, you don’t deserve to be wealthy whilst others don’t have what you have. We are no longer a society, we are an apologia for not being poor or a victim. If you have not been a victim, you haven’t got their ‘lived experience’ so you have no valid opinion and should accept responsibility and pay for being part of a society which oppressed them.
Good article, although I do somewhat resent the bit about Millennials . As a younger member of that generation, while many do identify as socially liberal, very few are actually dogmatic as described. I’ve found that to the the case among people a few years younger than myself.
Good analysis. When I was in my early thirties, about 40 years ago, I was stopped in the street for a survey. One of the questions was to which class did I consider I belonged. I answered Middle Class. I was born into a Working Class home in the early 1950s, so I understood what it meant. Whilst there was no shame to that - most people were Working Class - at that time children were urged: get an education so you can get a better job, do better than your parents, have a better wage and better standard of living, move up socially. Working Class parents were proud of their children who had moved up. I had moved up - my parents were proud. The interviewer said she was surprised, most people answered Working Class. An inverted snobbery had crept in. Being successful was shameful - ‘betraying your class’, as was said by some. And yes, we had just entered the Thatcher era after 35 years of Socialism, the drop-out, anything goes, work is for mugs, hippy years where living in a squat was what ‘real people’ did, living off State benefits, making babies but not getting married and taking responsibility, eschewing home ownership, and not being a ‘wage-slave’ and Mr & Mrs upwardly mobile - which was to be greedy whilst others were poor.. As Thomas Sowell put it: ‘I can’t understand why it is greedy for someone to want to keep their own money which they earned, but not greedy to believe you can take other people’s money to use for your own purposes.’ But that’s where we are. If you have done well, you don’t deserve to be wealthy whilst others don’t have what you have. We are no longer a society, we are an apologia for not being poor or a victim. If you have not been a victim, you haven’t got their ‘lived experience’ so you have no valid opinion and should accept responsibility and pay for being part of a society which oppressed them.
Good article, although I do somewhat resent the bit about Millennials . As a younger member of that generation, while many do identify as socially liberal, very few are actually dogmatic as described. I’ve found that to the the case among people a few years younger than myself.