Harlequin wrote:was rather astounded by Giles Brandreth's definition of 'plutocracy'.
You do know that Giles Brandreth was a Tory MP for the City of Chester, right?
But, yeah, it is telling when someone says "superior" when they just mean "wealthy". But luckily the show is now hosted by a Dane, who knows the difference to insert the needed correction.
It's actually fascinating how cultural memory works. In that you'd think all this 19th century quasi-religious "deserving poor" bullshit should be long dead by now, but the "superior" classes, in which Giles mingles, have been holding onto their delusions of grandeur all this time, it would seem.
I call the obsession with class in the 19th century quasi-religious because it is all wrapped up in old religious notions that the rich are rich because God favours them, and the poor are being "punished" for their laziness and sinfulness. That "Protestant Work Ethic" and the idea that "the Devil makes work for idle hands".
There was a dimension, in early centuries, that displaying your wealth and status was more than showing off. It was proof positive of currying God's favour. Of being of "superior" stock and moral character.
This dimension is often overlooked in the feminist narrative, as they misconstrue the true origin of the "kept woman". The well-to-do husband prohibited his wife from working, as a demonstration of his wealth and, thus, "superior" social status. Poor women absolutely did work. Typically, their fingers to the bone. They had to do so, in order to support their family. It might have been menial work, as a maid to a rich home or a seamstress or whatever, but you did whatever you could to keep the family afloat.
It was the middle classes and above, who "kept" their women. As a display of wealth and, thus, "superiority" and social status. The husband being so wealthy that, no, there was no requirement for all the family to pitch in. His great wealth could happily "keep" them all indefinitely.
All this stuff was intertwined with each other. It was not simply a vulgar brag to ostentatiously display your wealth, it was a qualification into the "superior" social circles, who curry God's favour. The poor are poor and in misery, because God looks down on them as undeserving.
You absolutely still hear, amongst Americans, the notion that blacks are poor because they are "lazy". That God helps those who help themselves.
Whilst the Europeans mostly threw off a lot of this shit - Giles Brandreth and his ilk to one side - because the World War made very clear that God was not really favouring anyone, in the ruins and destruction it left behind, America never really had that experience and a lot of these quasi-religious notions of how wealth and "moral character" are supposedly linked persists in that God-fearing streak of America.
The Mormons have officially dropped the notion that black skin is "the Mark of Cane", the heritable sign of their irredeemably sinful nature. But, ah, they still believe it deep down. They just know it's bad PR to state it openly.
A characteristic of American Christianity compared to its European counterpart is that it's a lot more cruel and judgemental. It still has some true belief left for the idea that God must curry favour for Trump, because look at his wealth. And have no empathy for the "undeserving poor", as this is only God's rightful punishment of their "lazy" idle sinfulness. American employment law offering almost no vacation time at all, no maternity leave whatsoever, not even some compassionate leave for a funeral because "the Devil makes work for idle hands". The Protestant Work Ethic.
In fairness, the constant refrain of "hard-working families" in British political rhetoric still harks back to these notions. After all, consider the "as opposed to...?" implications, that hard-working families deserve a break and a hand up... but the "undeserving poor" - the chavs resting on benefits - can drop dead, for all we care.
I still remember that the first thing the Tories did, with Cameron taking over from Blair, was rush to Parliament to "punish" the disabled. To change the basis of benefits from ensuring that every disabled person was cared for - and accepting that some fraud would take place - to ensuring that no fraud occurred, and accepting that this could leave some disabled people to fall through the cracks.
Rushed through as a special first order of business, before they'd even settled in as the new government. Ensuring not a single penny of their taxes went to "the undeserving poor" was a priority, over making sure that the most vulnerable didn't starve to death.
Churchill noted that the way to judge a civilisation is how it treats its poorest and most vulnerable. His focus was on prisoners - if criminals are treated cruelly, with vengeance, not justice, as the forefront of policy then this is a society showing its true face. But I'd extend it in agreement with him that the true test is how a society treats the disabled. Also, its minorities too, of course.
But the litmus test is the disabled. Because this cuts right into the notions of "the deserving poor", as these people have been crippled by God. These "children of a lesser god" have been stripped of some of their faculties, in God's infinite wisdom. Their "punishment" is all the more severe than simply being left to the squalor of poverty alone. They have to do so without sight, or hearing, or legs by which to walk.
God must truly loathe these people with the greatest passion to inflict such "punishment" upon them. So I find this to be the true "litmus test" of a civilisation - how we know we're headed to Hell in a handbasket - when it shows no empathy whatsoever to its most vulnerable.
Who are already suffering, through no fault of their own whatsoever. Because, come on, there is no God "punishing" people. We know how this actually works - people lose sight or hearing or their limbs through disease and accident, not "God's plan". No-one "deserves" disability. But shit happens in a chaotic universe. And, crucially, it absolutely could happen to you tomorrow - in fact, as we all lose our faculties with age, it almost certainly will be coming, if accident nor "natural causes" don't take you first.
Such an unnecessary and preventable cruelty. That serves no purpose - because you can't be "redeemed" if there was no sin, and sight doesn't magically come back, if you labour hard. Because these things are, in fact, not connected and never have been, but in perfectly silly delusions of religious belief.
There is no "superiority" or "inferiority". The universe doesn't work like that. Genetically, we're 99.9999% self-similar to each other. We're attuned to spot the differences so we recognise each other as a social species, but there really are almost none, biologically speaking. To an outside alien eye, we really do all look the same to them.
Even within our species, if racism has kept you from becoming "attuned" to spotting the differences, by never actually meeting sufficient numbers of a race to learn to tell the difference, the internal "alien" eye also can't tell us apart either:
It's all so desperately tragic. Because the whole thing is and has always been complete bollocks. Yet man inflicts cruelty onto man - or woman, "keeping" her as a display of "superiority" that our women (our property) need not lift a finger, or the poor and disabled, left to rot in a damp dark corner - over absolutely nothing whatsoever.
I've heard it from Americans themselves, that MAGA voted to "punish" others. To enact a cruel revenge on the most vulnerable - the poor, the disabled, minorities, people suffering gender dysmorphia, etc. - those who need and deserve it least, for there is no "God's plan" being enacted here. It's just random tragedy that you're compounding with deliberate tragedy to no useful end, as it makes you feel "superior". A feeling that's never justified, as there simply is no such thing.
I like Giles, honestly. Even as a Tory MP. He's not like that through malice, but generations of "cultural memory" that still infect far too many. He wouldn't want to be consciously cruel, even if he'd happily vote for a blind man to starve to death, on the off-chance some "undeserving poor" fraud might slip through the net, when his actual personal tax bill wouldn't be changed one iota.
Seriously, it wouldn't be. As I'll go on to address.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
