Moving up the ladder
Carlin, David R. Jr.
DAVID R. CARLIN, JR. MOVING UP THE LADDER How equality reinforces inequality Throughout the long course of human history, systems of social inequality have run into trouble because of...
...They devote their very considerable energies to exposing and denouncing what they say is history's oldest conspiracy, the patriarchal conspiracy of all men against all women...
...Once you enter the privileged classes, your loyalty switches...
...As long as we can keep the privileged classes worried about whether American society is being fair to (let's say) the Pakistanis in our midst, we can prevent them from having a bad conscience about how brutally unfair our society is to its native-born lower orders...
...But what affirmative action has done, and done very effectively, is to co-opt talented blacks into the higher classes...
...By focusing on racial and ethnic divisions, we draw attention away from class divisions...
...Likewise affirmative action for women has done little to help women generally, as the deteriorated life of women in the lower half of society demonstrates...
...your talents and education at the service of the higher classes...
...By way of objection it might be pointed out that affirmative action in the academic world has led to a profusion of feminist scholars who have quite an insurrectionist tone about them...
...One of the most effective ways of keeping attention away from class divisions is by jumping aboard the mul-ticulturalism bandwagon...
...In fact, among blacks in the lower classes the quality of life has deteriorated badly in the decades in which affirmative action has been in effect...
...But affirmative action has assured that talented women will get better jobs and higher pay, thereby removing any temptation they may have to become leaders of the modern equivalent of a jacquerie...
...As it is, these rejected talents have been forced to remain in the lower classes, providing leadership, organization, and ideas...
...Bulk orders (five or more) $1,50, For information call 212-732-0800...
...You now belong to the new class, not your class of origin...
...MOVING UP THE LADDER How equality reinforces inequality Throughout the long course of human history, systems of social inequality have run into trouble because of self-defeating prejudices...
...Yes, but antipatriarchalism doesn't really offend anyone (except a few Tridentine Catholics...
...This was all explained nearly a hundred years ago by the Italian economist-sociologist Vilfredo Pareto in his theory of the "circulation of elites...
...Oh, you may retain some nostalgic attachment to that original class, which is all very well at the level of sentiment...
...Indeed we encourage you to do so, since the patriarchy thesis has the merit of drawing attention away from the long and embarrassing history of how the upper classes have tried to find a formula for keeping the lower classes under control...
...They lack leadership, they are unorganized, they are inarticulate...
...but at the practical level this means little or nothing...
...Were your parents poor...
...When it is finally perfected, half of all Americans will live in decrepit inner cities while the other half will live in very expensive homes in exurban subdivisions...
...In the United States we may congratulate ourselves on having solved this problem at last...
...As long as you leave that alone, you are free to blow off steam about other conspiracies...
...Now, we are not supposed to mention any of this in public...
...But our higher classes have arranged things so that these folks will stay at home and confine themselves to slitting one another's throats...
...all of which adds up to this: that they are powerless...
...for if patriarchal notions continue to thrive anywhere today, it is among them...
...This is because they had not developed a system for co-opting the peasant elite...
...for if they had co-opted the talented few from below, these talents would serve the interests of those above...
...Do you come from any group that has a history of social inferiority...
...whereas under the guise of promoting equality we reinforce our system of inequality...
...Consequently our higher classes are free to live very comfortable lives-good jobs, good incomes, good neighborhoods, good homes, good cars, good clothes, good travel, and (most important of all, since this is how privilege is passed on to the next generation) good schools for their kids-without having to fear that the lower classes will someday rise up in fury and take it all away...
...Your job, your income, your lifestyle, your social respectability-all these depend on putting Available "The Exercise of the Primacy," by Archbishop John R, Quinn, Commonweal July 12,1996...
...No matter...
...We are supposed to pretend that we are terribly interested in promoting equality in America...
...For instance, affirmative action for blacks has done little to improve life among blacks generally...
...In the Middle Ages the lords of the land had to worry about an occasional jacquerie...
...As a result, eventually the lower classes become formidable rivals to their social betters...
...Please burn this essay as soon as you read it...
...and if anything is a universal truth it is this, that an oppressed peasantry provided with internal leadership will eventually burn a few manor houses and slit a few throats...
...Focusing on racial and ethnic divisions also exacerbates them, especially among the lower classes, thereby creating a further obstacle to lower-class unity...
...Individual orders $2.25 plus $1 postage...
...This is foolish of the higher classes...
...As a result our lower classes are drained of their best talent...
...Are you black...
...The chief conspiracy today, as always, is that of the higher classes versus the lower...
...and from time to time raiding parties from the subdivisions will descend on the inner cities and kidnap all the promising ten-year-olds.promising ten-year-olds...
...Talented members of the lower classes have been refused admission to the higher classes...
...It has the further merit of underlining the moral inferiority of our lower classes...
...The conspiracy of men against women is old hat...
...The rest of us have moved to suburban enclaves, where we are distant from the shabbi-ness, the disorder, and the violence of lower-class life, and therefore relatively safe...
...You can denounce patriarchy to your heart's content and you won't ruffle a feather in the higher classes...
...Are you female...
...Of course our lower classes, or at least the lower grades among them, are quite capable of slitting throats...
...As long as you've got what it takes to function at society's higher levels, the door is open to you...
...Their rates of criminal violence are absolutely appalling...
...Since our higher classes are largely devoid of irrational prejudice, they welcome talented recruits no matter where these may have come from...
...Our system isn't perfect yet...
Vol. 123 • August 1996 • No. 14
