By “elitism,” I mean thinking you’re better than other
people – for whatever reason. You could call it snobbery, but then I’d have to
shove it more than halfway down the alphabet and I’ve already got a topic for “S”
anyway. Bet you just can’t wait to find out what it is.
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| I'll give you a hint, it starts with S. |
I’ve met my share of entitled people who never had the same
kindergarten class I had about how you’re not better than anyone else. I remember
when I lived in Chamonix, where everyone is wealthy whether they know it or
not, I was not-really-dating-just-sort-of-hanging-out-with this guy there, and
then one day he was telling me about his father’s factory and how his dad kept
having problems with the working class people who, you know, worked in his
factory. I can’t remember the details of the story, something about how they weren’t
working hard enough and appreciating the opportunities his dad had given them
or something. I wasn’t really listening because who f*^kin’ would. But I clearly
remember him saying, “I keep telling Dad those kinds of people are no good, but
he just won’t listen.”
“What kinds of people?” I asked.
“Well, the people who work in his factory.”
“What kinds of people are those?”
“Well, you know, the kinds of people who work in factories.”
“And what kinds of people are those?”
“Well, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, please elaborate.” (I’m the sort of
person who says things like “please elaborate.” That’s who I am. Deal with it.)
He didn’t elaborate, he just frowned like I was making some
kind of impossible request, so I still don’t know for sure what it was he was
getting at, but it really sounded like he was getting at “Dad shouldn’t hire
working class people to work in his factory because they don’t work very hard
because they’re only working class,” which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as
a theory, because if they didn’t work they wouldn’t be called “working class,”
but whatevs. Suffice it to say I stopped sort-of-dating the guy at that point
and started not-dating-the-guy-at-all instead.
But I told you that story so I could tell you this one. I
also knew a woman (I’ll call her Pizza because she worked in a pizza shop), and
she was utterly obsessed with Daddy’s Factory, to the point where every time I
saw Pizza I’d have to listen to her talk about Daddy’s Factory for at least ten
minutes. They were friends and she seemed to think that was just the best, EVAR.
So, one day not long after I’d stopped sort-of-dating Daddy’s Factory, we were
all over at his place – me, Pizza, some of his other friends, him – and it came
out that Pizza had used to work in a factory when she was young and living in
North America. (He was still going on about the factory thing.) To Pizza's credit, she stood up for the factory workers, announcing that, yes, she had
been wary of them at first, but after she got to know some of them, it turned out
they were regular people, with homes and families and plans for their holidays,
just like you and me!
And everyone just kind of looked at her. Speaking for
myself, I was baffled because I couldn’t imagine not knowing that the factory workers were regular people. Who knows about some of the others, but at least one of
the people in the room that day was wondering if his new friend might need some
medication.
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| If she had said she'd found out they were trolls who lived under bridges, she might have gotten a warmer reception. |
