World Famous Comics: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion
Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion
By: Lewis H. Lapham Publisher: Grove Pr Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Grove Pr Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 244 Publication Date: 1988-02
The Rich culture, the consumption, the pilgrimage, the remaking oneself Observation 1: The rich believe schools serve the social order and, quite properly, promote the habits of mind necessary to the maintenance of that order. What does it mean to graduate from Harvard or Yale? Graduation from Yale is the ticket too a high paying career. The student is expected to parrot the language and opinions and ideas of the professor rather than introduce his own ideas, analysis, and language.
Observation 2: The children of the rich will comfort themselves with the dreams of power, innocence, and grace. The rich are not "materialist", instead, they are dreamers on a journey to the promise land, "pilgrims". First, the materials are used to remake their lives. "All status is temporary, all states of being are conditional." The desire is to be accepted in the "exclusive party". "The fear of sinking in the world drives consumption, "maybe the weight of their acquisitions will prevent them from drifting off into the void, or relieve them of their anxiety, or buoy them up to the sufferings of job", says Tocqueville. Second, American believes movement in itself means something. They are not convinced that settlement is desirable. About 20 percent of the population shifts its household every year. Money attaches itself to velocity, to the changing of occupations every six to seven years. Third, "Without a deal or a business relation held in common, Americans discovered they have little to say to each other."
Consumption, greed, opulence, and sexual conquest form the nucleus of a high society. The rich associate with the rich, yet they despise each other hoping for the others death or bankruptcy. The rich value themselves above all possessions. The rich believe their personal value above moral law and human decency and so they find opportunity to slander people and break laws, disgustingly buy women for pleasure, and criticize the dinginess of the poor and middle class. The rich have souls empty as space. The rich put on the appearance of concern and friendship but rejoice in the misfortune of all those they envy. The rich do not believe in charitable helping the poor rather they despise the poor and block them out with expensive security system, amour cars, and body guards. The rich view the poor as the enemy and look down on them with harsh adjective criticism.
Observation 3: Your never poor until you have $10 million. The price of membership for the rich lifestyle has its costs: unbridled competitive animosity, illusionary reality, and the voracity of consumption that is all encompassing taking in exclusive communities (rolling hill or Jupiter Island), cultured oriented private schools, expensive lawyers and accountants, high visibility golf club membership, plurality of toys and gadgets for the children, and complex taxes. The rich believe they are the world's gift - success, beauty, happiness, and fame. The illusion of unlimited means has done its damage. "All respondents say that if only they could accumulate fortunes of sufficient size and velocity, then they would ascend into the empyrean reflected in the best advertisements; if only they could quit the jobs they loathe, quit pandering to the whim of the company chairman; if only they didn't have to keep up appearances, to say what they didn't mean , to lie to themselves and their children; if only they didn't feel so small in the presence of money, then surely they would be free- free of their habitual melancholy, free to act and have, free to rise, like a space-vehicle fried straight up from Cape Kennedy, into the thin and intoxicating atmosphere of gratified desire." The rich believe money is freedom. American values wealth more than any country in the world and these individuals of wealth are worship. Wealth has no competition because there is no competition when everyone in the club is wealthy. The wealthy unduly create unbearable expectations to "remake" themselves with their money. The rich find meaning in the prices paid for their clothes, furniture, and real estate. They talk about marriage being broken up, divorces, and infidelity with amusement and impartiality. The incredible illusion of rich is that they live in fantasy. The fantasy world of the rich is supported by the unlimited wealth accumulation which generates sufficient capital gains. "The rich American Bedouin live not so much in a world of thought and imagination as in the world of fantastic dream, a golden horde traveling on golden credit cards in search of the soul's pasturage like the search for El Dorado. The wealthy have learned not to yield to the temptation in losing a few million in high tech or bio tech.
Observation 4: "In a rich man's culture the wisdom of the rich consists of what the rich wish to hear and think about them. American's prefer beauty and the wonder of property. The rich pay too much homage to the sum of money in the room; profit takes precedence over life and art and love; the freedoms of property tae precedence over individual liberties.
Observation 5: "With respect to criminal cases, the sociological studies show that the judgments align themselves with a hierarchy of cash value." "If the offender is likely to be imprisoned if his or her status is lower than that of the victim-then the offender is likely to be punished with a fine"
Observation 6: "The people who earn the most money are never those who advance the frontiers of knowledge or extend the reach of the sympathetic imagination. Financial brokers and financial house received the lion's share of profits by handling the commodity of money for the rich.
Observation 7: "The desire for exclusivity is as American as the sentiment in favor of democracy." "Among the world's peoples, none other belongs to so many clubs, associations, committees and secret societies. The obligation to invent themselves prompts them ceaseless manufacture of class distinctions, as if the collection of emblems, membership, insigna, keys, passwords and club ties somehow make the weight of an English title."
All You Need Is Cash Written in the 1980s when Reaganmania ruled, this book is just as apt for today. Lapham comes from the moneyed class, but he does not take their side. Instead, he offers insights into The Inheritors and The Parvenu from a perspective the rest of us will never attain. The chapter titles alone are worth the read:"The Golden Horde", "Social Hygiene", "Coined Souls". His wit is wonderfully displayed whether he's taking on the bored and clueless trust fund babies or the so-called poor who spend as if they actually have money. America's infatuation with wealth and material accumulation is indeed our civic religion.
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