Yet Another Barking Rant
John Currin, Park City Grill (2000)
There is an inbred,
genetic-template look for these people.
This post feels incomplete; unconnected observations thrown up at the wall -- spitballing, as it were -- about the omnipotent, they-are-always-with-us Rich. You may think this is low-hanging fruit, but it's not. It's a reminder.
If this blog's observations had any impact in the public discussion of serious issues, then this post might be seen as having more meaning. But, it's just unsourced opinion by one individual with no agency beyond their own existence.
I am as singular, and no more important than, any of the dead discovered at Pompeii whose names we'll never know. We can see what their last moments must have been -- but all the events and actions and experiences in their lives are unknown, lost.
Some of my observations offered will, in all probability, cause the few readers of this blog to say yeah okay, Boomer; eyeroll, whatever the fuck, but this is life here in downtown Earth. Be well.
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Bring My Car And Be Quick, You Dirty Little Proles
Amazingly prescient: If you haven't read this novel (1986), please do so.
I'll just say it: American and Western society is essentially owned by a vicious, arrogant layer of wealth. Call them the 0.001 % -- principally Old Wealth, maintained in the same families for generations. I have been around these folk (almost married into a branch of one of those families) and they are just as stereotypical as characters from a comedy-of-manners film, dropped into Real Life. It's uncanny.
They do not know how to build a fire, use basic tools, make coffee, set up a tent or cook a filet of sole; they hire others to do that sort of thing. They scream at domestic servants or gardeners as things, barely even human. They are inbred, culturally; they are cruel and voracious, and they truly exist.
They own multiple homes, in neighborhoods which, if you don't live in them, you'd better have a verifiable reason to be there. They move in a cyclical progression from home to home, with seasonal vacations at resorts and private hotels.
John Currin, Stamford After Brunch (2000)
Most of these families know (or are at least aware of) each other. They are supported by the same circles of accountants, financial and investment advisors, personal assistants, tax and estate attorneys, physicians and surgeons, tailors, gardeners, chefs and valets. They walk in comfort and anonymity along the same private, manicured paths as their families have done for generations.
Their children attend a tight circle of preparatory schools, and enter certain European and American universities as Legacies. Eventually, they will slide into sinecures at law and investment firms. They are members of clubs we wouldn't be allowed to join. Typically, these children intermarry.
Within their class, maintaining their family's financial fortunes is the critical priority. There's also a certain amount of competition between players, a jockeying for position: It's Edith Wharton and John Cheever with a touch of Voltaire, an essence of films like "The Discrete Charm Of The Bourgeoise", The Ruling Class, or 'Reversal Of Fortune'.
That competition plays out in odd ways -- like, bidding against each other to possess a specific, classic piece of art, or owning the largest yacht / private jet / media company; or, building a family bunker and compound in New Zealand, or purchasing a Hawaiian island.
Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close as Claus and Sunny von Bulow
In "Reversal Of Fortune" (1990)
They tolerate the Zucks, the Musks, the Jobs' and Bezos' and Thiels and Andreesens; all the Tech Bro billionaires, as nouveau riche arrivistes; pool boys, waiters and office workers who somehow struck it rich. Not the right sort -- no history, no breeding- -- but, they can afford to live well, and, if the past is any guide, within a few generations their money will disappear. Or, they'll eventually become accepted, part of the Class.
And they have serious class solidarity: depend on it. Even when Claus von Bülow appeared to have attempted to murder his wife -- members of his class might disapprove, but they would never show that to the rest of society. They would "support the side" against a greater mass of humanity: We are the Owners, and Fuck You Peasants (see 'The Draughtsman's Contract').
Our Fabled Wealthy don't wait in line, don't submit to passport control or customs checks. They aren't required to appear in court for all but the most serious charges (if they appear at all, even then). They are not accountable under any law in the same way, or to the same extent, that you or I are.
Collectively, they believe that they own us -- whether we accept it, or not. They believe in the age-old Puritan assumption (as fundamental to the beginnings of America as slavery), that their wealth is proof that they are the Elect of god. They will rise to heaven on the Day Of Judgement and spend eternity in a wonderful softness, with many Treats: Of course.
They also believe in the corollary to that assumption -- that poverty, people who are poor, are disfavored by god. God made them poor. And because of that, on the Big Day 'O Judgement, they will burn in Hell.
Our Fabled Wealthy believe this (or some version of it), as surely as they accept the basics of Newtonian physics. It is axiomatic for them. Oh, ayuh.
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You Are Pwned -- A Dream Coda
Years ago, I had a dream which stands out in memory -- because I don't often dream with details that I recall so completely.
I was some kind of mountaineering guide, taking wealthy persons up ... not Everest, but some similar peak. I was "inside" myself in this dream (sometimes dreams allow you see yourself in 'camera view'), looking out on a snow-covered slope -- a right triangle of pure white, from upper left to lower right -- against a sky of deep Cobalt blue.
A man in his late twenties / early 30's stood a few feet in front of me, wearing an orange parka with the hood pulled back. He had a light stubble of beard, curly, reddish-blonde hair, and wore a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. He was completely at ease, smiling, and spoke with an accent (French, I knew, in that telepathic way of dreams). He wasn't arrogant in his delivery, but matter-of-fact, as if describing the weather.
"I will tell you how it is," he said. "My family is thirteen hundred years old. One of my ancestors was knighted by Charlemagne. We've survived plagues, wars, financial collapse, revolutions, occupation. We've had our black sheep, our idiots -- but mostly, we have made fortunes and passed them down to the next generation. We've been good at it, and lucky. We live very well.
"If you can't trace your family back more than a few generations? I don't care. You've always worked for pay -- but maybe you get lucky, win some lottery, and your children inherit that money? I don't care. In one, maybe two generations, it will be gone, absorbed into banks, financial houses, and by taxes. Perhaps my family owns some of those financial houses.
"We own forests and mines. We own companies" -- he waved at me with one hand -- "Maybe you have even worked for us. But some day, you will be dead, and that will be the end for you. Your name will be forgotten, as if you and everyone in your family line before you had never existed. My family will still be here. Many recognize our name. No one knows who you are.
"If that's unhappy for you, or if it makes you angry, I don't care," he said, and smiled again. "And that is how things are."
Fantasy Singalong With Big Bird At End Of Blog Rant
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