Part II: Equality

Ok guys, I think this miniseries is about over unless you REALLY want a post on polygamy. As the Beatles so adequately put it, there's nothing you can say that ain't been said. In fact, I recall writing a paper about the illusion of democracy or something similar.

First things first--let me clarify what I mean by "equality" here. I don't mean equal standing before the law. That's a whole 'nother ball game. I'm talking about the "we're each as good as the next guy" ethos promoted in democratic societies.

The other day I was again cornered by my friendly Orthodox circulation clerk. We began our conversation (well, he began his soliloquy to be more exact) on mystery novels (I was checking out a Wilkie Collins) and ended on the leftist prejudices of the ALA. Somewhere in between we discussed the illusion of democracy.

You see, someone somewhere once said that the reason readers like mystery novels is because they impose an order on our universe that doesn't exist. More specifically, the reason we like British mysteries is because they take place in a world with a social order that we lack. Wimsey and Holmes are both amateurs--i.e. gentlemen. The second upstairs maids and the village inspectors all know their places.

Emily and I often lamented that we weren't destined to be farm laborers. She said I would make an excellent oppressed pheasant [sic], and I could see that her feet tickled to trod Italian grapes. Today on NPR an East German woman was reminiscing about the lack of job stress and uncertainty in communist times. I completely understood. Maybe I don't deserve freedom, but it seems that one would need to be clairvoyant to confidently choose a life path to follow at twenty.

To further complicate matters, equality, or lack of hierarchy is, in fact, an illusion. We all look up to and down on people based on what we value. I tend to judge people based on literacy. In my world, I am firmly middle-class, and I have no desire to rub shoulders with the unread masses. I may not "get" Derrida, but at least I culturally outrank the political head of state. Other measurements include status in civic/religious institutions, wealth, or, I suppose, the amount of tattoos on one's body and chrome on one's Harley. Because we don't have a uniform measure of status, each of us can choose the world order in which we believe ourselves to be reflected in the best light.

There seems to be a human need for some sort of aristocracy (this is not a new concept). People magazine and its ilk prosper from this need. But somehow the democratic aristocracy seems to lack, well, class--a knowledge of what is fitting. And people in small towns who consider themselves "the gentry" are unbearable--think Hyacinth from Keeping Up Appearances. Even the token royals in European countries seem to have been "corrupted" by democracy.

Has freedom contributed to our fractured reality? Would an aristocracy of birth possess more mystique and gentility (hence the word "gentle") than sports heroes and movie stars? Would you rather live in a modern suburban ghetto or be a servant in a well-ordered aristocratic household?