Us and Them
When this cotton-mill boy went down to the University in 1959, he noticed something at once. There was a division between the superior US (that is, them) and the inferior THEM (that is, us). The division had nothing to do with intellectual distinction or even athletic prowess, but the members of US definitely regarded themselves as superior.
THEM (that is, us) wore white or checkered socks, jeans, and whatever shirt we could find. The members of US were far more sophisticated. They wore black socks, button collar shirts, windbreakers with a special logo, and sometimes burberries . They were invited to fraternities. Some professors knew their families or their fathers who had previously attended. They even carried umbrellas, which where I came from would mark a boy forever as a sissy.
This is exactly what is going on today. US runs the country. They are the people with the right attitudes and the right connections, who went to the right schools. They are the people in the know. They have always associated with others just like themselves. We are THEM, that is, the deplorables, those who don’t have the sophisticated wisdom of US, the Americans who don’t really count.
The ruling elite of the country today, the blue people, are simply US who have grown up or at least gotten older. A lot of them have never done any real labour or had a relationship with a real American.
The important point here is to note that being part of US does not indicate any real superiority in anything that really counts. The upper ranks of the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the corporations, the armed forces, the church, the academy, the media are the domain of US. Look at the disastrous wars and policies, the pervasive mediocrity, dishonesty, and sense of entitlement of our “leaders” of recent generations. If America is still producing any people of genuine honour, learning, and independent character, you certainly won’t find many in Washington and you probably have never heard of them.
The BLUE leaders (US) are followed by the millions of lackeys who have the same intellectual and moral mediocrity and like to think of themselves as a sophisticated elite because they are “in the know,” that is, they have the right fashionable attitudes, unlike their deplorable, unenlightened neighbours.
There you have it. The Blues are “US” and the rest of us are “THEM.” Their sense of superiority is not based upon any real quality. It is essentially snobbery.
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This article definitely describes the attitude of the progressive elites and want-to-be progressive elites. We are always being told we are backwards, or that are beliefs are due to lack of education, or lack of being cultured.
One of many laughably transparent lies of the “liberals” or “progressives” (whatever they call themselves) was the claim that they cared about working people. The fact that a malfactor of great wealth and snob like FDR was fobbed off on us by our textbooks, teachers and professors as a pal of workers was one of many examples of just how contemptuous of truth these people (Clyde Wilson’s “US”) were.
The contempt for blue collar workers that was hardwired in the brains and personalities of these socialist intellectuals was as obvious to a thoughtful observer as the proverbial hand in front of one’s face.
Now this pretense of championing working people has been abandoned. The crooks and traitors needed the White working people as part of their coalition back in the days of my childhood.
Not any more.
They have now abandoned the White working class which they view as a seedbed for fascism and beneath contempt.
They now look to 3rd world aliens as the revolutionary class. Forget the proletariat. In fact, they want the White proletariat ground under.
The ruling elites, especially what someone in Britain dubbed “the chattering class”, i.e. journalists, view workers as a pathology…a pathology to be “cured.”
You can see this when they make remarks about how someone’s grandfather or father worked in a factory (“ONLY a mill foreman”) but now he’s a lawyer. That kind of statement.
The psychology here is that someone who works with his hands contributes little or nothing to society, is a loser and is to be viewed as such.
Basically, their idea is that the entire country must eventually become Harvard professors who are the only people deserving of respect. Such a result is the ultimate goal of the idea of “social uplift.” Everyone will have been cured of the need to do manual work. Anyone who does manual work is to be regarded with contempt especailly when contempt wears the mask of pity.
In a normal, healthy society, i.e. NOT Amerika, attitudes would reflect the way and normal healthy person regards his body. The brain does not regard the hand or the foot with contempt but with genuine appreciation and concern. The hand and the foot, in turn, are not at war with the brain.
Northern Europeans are supposed to respect labor. We didn’t used to regard workers with contempt. Such an attitude was foreign to us. The psychology of the Spanish Hidalgo with its idea that manual labor is degrading and people who do manual labor are to be despised was not for us (the real “US” not the “US” Dr. Wilson is writing about).
Marie Antoinette probably never entertained the contempt for working people and servants that just drips off the wine-and-cheese party, Birkinstock wearing, Volvo driving progressive class such as the ones who live in my neighborhood in Atlanta.
Right you are, Sam. Looking back on history, the fact is that Communists/Socialists have NEVER cared about the people, the proletariat, the workers. Their motive has always been hatred of Western civilization. Now they have a newer and better lever to destroy with.
Proud to be a Them. (Just as long as James Whitmore and James Arness don’t come after me.)
I don’t know what I find more frustrating. The US folks in their snobbish ivory covered halls that live far, far away from me or the THEMs that I have to interact with who admire and hope to be like the US folk.
Bullseye. When I came here to teach at the university of Michigan in 1959 I noticed this immediately & with some amusement, having been lectured frequently by visiting Americans on the evils of English class distinction.
Thank goodness I only had a London Fog and not a Burberry. Just about all of us at the College carried a British style umbrella, even the rednecks from Darlington, West Columbia and Spartanburg, but in a small school we gelled in a way it would have been impossible at UNC. At the age of 17, a romantically minded teacher told me I should go straight to college. I applied to Harvard, which accepted me on the condition that I finish two required senior courses, and the Cof C which took me as I was, probably because my father’s partner was a benefactor–though I don’t know that. Not going to Harvard was the best thing that could have happened. I learned vastly more Greek and hung out with Clyde’s “them.”
For sure, the real Us’s never seem to bring Joan Weldon along.