So, on from Socrates and Aristotle. Or rather, back from them. How were they revolutionary, what were they proposing that was any different than what had gone before? It seems they were talented men, born into a culture that didn’t have ways of acknowledging them for what they were, meritocratically, so, desired, Brutus like, to kill the King and be celebrated for the killing. “I have rid you of this meddlesome monarch so you will recognize your better interests are served by us, not him, we few Senators, scions of our glorious ancestors, or, Aristocrats.” A cut above. This is a repeat but each time I repeat I say it a bit better. I hope.
As I insist on asking, what changes did the American Revolution make? To the lives of whom? Which three people? Apart from insuring that poor Europeans could become solvent and in some cases rich, on whose land and by whose labor nobody dared ask. For which, I am sure, well heeled Europeans are very grateful. Imagine if there had been no where for the starving and truculent Irish to go during and after the famine? Maybe, therefore, the “special relationship.” But generally good. Good…. for male Europeans and their families. Those who mattered. At what cost? We are a reaping.
Was Periclean Athens a brash rejection of the Kingdoms of Asia? Hereditary to a fault. Did Cyrus produce an equal? Were the Greeks really saying the best should lead, or the slightly tweaked first among equals? And then their eggheads got together and made schools to train their best and brightest? The Academy was the Oxvard of the day, toga parties and all. Looks that way to me. In my heart they did reveal their non revolutionariness with the philosopher Prince/king. No problem with monarchs in fact, just want to be sure they are indoctrinated properly. And…. whose job was that going to be? Tadaaaa!
I look at it and gratefully realize that this is exactly the tradition I am sick of. The mind set the groupthink. That slunk in in the shadows and dark corners while Jefferson scribbled away and Adams rationalized. “Keep up the good work Thom, I think they are going to buy that all men are created equal bit as long as off script you tell them who you really meant. They’re gonna love it!” We should have known who he meant. We did know. Just denied it to make the jingle jingle. And i think, without a good wash and rinse, the Western experiment will keep on failing.
One simple allegory: If Capitalism and equality were a match, toilet cleaners would be in the one percent. Without a class myth the jobs no-one wants to do would be among the highest paid. Without a strong and metabolic myth of inequality the West would have arced inevitably towards economic justice but, it has not, no sign of it.
Merit was a fine upstanding notion until some idiot invented meritocracy for all the jealous people and advertising to paint the picture of merit, available now at websites everywhere.
Alastair Campbell, of the Rest is Politics, asked Kate Raworth about her vision of a sustainable planet requiring that rich countries tighten their belts and live, on average, on 25% of what they currently do: what about aspiration and ambition? She didn’t but might have retorted, “I know, to what could we aspire if Audis and palaces were off the list?”
A shame she didn’t. Look at all the unambitious unaspiring Olympians Al, and think. Highest reward, a gold medal that is 92.5% silver.
I would, I do suggest, that real merit is it’s own reward, like an Olympic medal, or multis that Usain Bolt won. Riches might come with it, but the work was done for the fake gold medal. He ran the races, thrilled us all, paused an interview while (someone else’s) anthem played and has moved on to other efforts. That is a winner, and deserves as much as the toilet cleaner. Who knows, he might be the marvelous chap he is even if he’d won silvers or come in fourth. The training is the same. The talent is the difference, which he didn’t earn, it’s luck. He used it well, didn’t cheat, so far as we know and believe, probably because we need to believe, and he, they, Frazer Pryce, o my! are all inspirational to us slow folk.
So Alastair, with a little study of history, an understanding of Athens as greater than the egg heads we have chosen to coopt and adapt to fit our own meaner Protestantism, and, if, hopefully, your ambitions and aspirations are less vacuous than they seem, and assuming a future where you will be challenged on that answer, we might inch forwards a tad more.
I have often wondered when journalists talk about folks, do they mean themselves. Is Alastair projecting his own unexamined opinions onto everyone when he says: real egalitarianism is impossible in a democracy, real people are too me me. Is it thee that is me me? Is me me the nature of grown ups or is that childishness that culture has insisted on for grown ups not grown?
All these guys, these ancients and enlighteners, can be seen, the picture does deepen, as profound egotists. Who else gets up in the morning, bolts a glass of wine and heads off to the Agora to tell other people how they should live? They claim to be rationalists. Haha. There is no such thing. Rational argument is a tool but we are not rational. Selective facts are useful to back up our subjectivities. It is always fun to run down a popular youtube where some Oxfordian with peach fuzz beard and a tux brandishes his newly minted rationality. There was a very popular retort to wokeness recently
. Konstantin Kisin, not a student. Please watch. “The speech that everyone is talking about.” Nice Tux. Totally subjective defense of a culture that placed him and people like him at the top. As such no harm done. But admit it. And those who find it the most important are people big on importance, and whine fulsomely that their supremacy is being challenged. So so King Lear. Lets go back to when pallid men were in charge eh. And the rest of you kept to your crofts. It only matters to whom it matters: the used to be ruling class. Remember the Alamo!
After the Caesars Julius and Augustus, the Aurelius, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, the Kants and the Trumps, young Jesus sure does stand alone. But we, species like, do not imitate him. We much prefer the others.
By all means go to University and study your brains out. (Be aware btw, that we outside, are doing the same with out the monastic trappings and Ivied walls and we dont do it for evidence that we did it) And when you step into this world what if we say only “she studied at University.” Like we say she is a hairdresser or a plumber. No distinction. Just yeah. Graduate, or not. Would we still go?
If someone had said to me, when I went to acting school, you will never win an Oscar, should I would I have quit? Or did I know that I was looking for authenticity like an anthropologist, and was not sure what the the little gleamy phallic thing meant. And the prospect of all that phoniness made second nature might have made me run to a life of Racine only, what a prospect!
There is a moment, trust me, when you know you are in the grip of the God. It is sad to see so many ungripped so sad at Oscars. But once gripped, it can be done in a forest, unseen, or more usually in the bath tub where I gave my greatest Creon.
Alastair will say, I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I will say “Yes, you don’t.”