On Valentine’s Day, I Hate to Notice This, but…

Hey, I don’t like this.  It is a sociological fact, at least my undergraduate sociology professor said so, that humans need to stand on top of other humans.  A man always has to put another man down.  We know this, because it is the source of bigotry and prejudice.  Geez, humans have been practicing one-up-man-ship since property ownership came into being.  The point has always been to preserve the wealth of the man on top.  All the humans underneath get into a panic and start standing on each other – so as not to be the person on the bottom.  Simple human dynamics, yeah.

When you experience it on a personal level, it’s ugly.  Yeah, yeah, bigotry and prejudice are ugly, but how do you feel when you are in a situation when folks can condescend to you?  It’s not like anyone gets away with it, it’s more like an ugly disease, when you spread some, it just keeps on going.  Condescension, one-up-man-ship, it is all stuff that thrives in America.  The reason it thrives in America is because our capitalist society idolizes wealth.  People can do the most horrific and dishonest stuff, but if they are wealthy, they will get away with it – only in America.  This is the country where wealthy banks rape the average American consumer, but cannot be punished because we think wealth is a ‘higher good’.

It is a hierarchy that requires that someone be on the bottom of the pile.  In the meantime, everyone who is in the middle must fight to survive.  The way to fight is to stay on top of those who are below.  Bigotry and prejudice are ugly, but the private and ugly truth is that the war rages on a very personal level.  It does no one good and spreads like the plague.  Condescension, petty meanness, and all other forms of standing on top of others is no way to survive or to gain riches, it is just a way of spreading the disease of hierarchy.