October Blog: The Upper Class

It seems that one of the defining qualities of a society is division. For people to be considered united as one people, they must simultaneously be separated by class. In history, classless societies have been imagined, but never truly realized; there have always been those in power and those not. I wonder why this is and come to the conclusion that I have no idea.

In America, we are all considered equal. Our equality is one of those things that politicians and patriots love to talk about when they call America the greatest country on Earth. While I admit that America is my personal favorite country, I have never been to another country, which seems to diminish the value of my opinion. Despite our claimed equality, within America we have a class system. This is one of those things that politicians and patriots love to ignore when they call America the greatest country on Earth. For some, particularly those in the lower classes, the upper class is considered villainous. In America today, many people worry that America is headed toward a communist state due to the alleged vilification of the rich. I don't think that the rich are villainous. However, in a capitalist nation, those with all the money have all the power, which contrasts sharply with the tenets of a democratic nation. Due to the fact that the rich are able to have power through undemocratic means, it is not unwarranted for people to worry that they may abuse their power.

Criticism of the upper class is something that has existed for many centuries. Often this criticism is hidden within satire, which we have read some of in class. Both The Importance of Being Earnest and A Modest Proposal are satires of the upper class. The fact that their targets are the same is no accident. The nature of societies seems to be that the upper class oppresses the lower class. It is this oppression that prompts authors to satire the rich. I've never really felt like this oppression was completely intentional. What I mean by this is that I don't think that the rich are sitting around maliciously plotting how to keep the poor down; at least, I hope not. It seems to me to be more that there is just a massive misunderstanding between the two classes. Neither is a member of the of the other class, so they don't understand their respective natures. In Earnest, the upper class is portrayed as superficial and contradictory; they don't seem to understand the world as it actually is. It is this perceived misunderstanding that keeps me from hating the upper class. As long as I believe that most people do not carry ill will for their neighbors, I don't think I'll ever see the rich as evil. We'll see how that turns out. Stay tuned.