Charles C. Milliken: The joy of superiority
I think we can all agree that talent, intelligence, drive and just plain luck are not equally distributed. For people so blessed, I should think a quiet satisfaction and gratitude might be the appropriate reaction. But somehow that never seems to be enough. What good is it to be at the top of the heap if others do not acknowledge your superiority, and what better way to get others to admit your superiority than to point out their relative inferiority.
What got me to thinking about this is the recent spate of electoral insults against those “bitter enders clinging to their guns and Bibles,” or the notorious “basket of deplorables.” Certainly such insults directed at those not likely to vote for you don’t really help get more votes. But it is mighty satisfying to put yourself on a pedestal by burying others.
There is, however, nothing new about this. I recently picked up a copy of “Babbit,” by Sinclair Lewis. Lewis was once a popular writer, who also wrote “Main Street” and “Elmer Gantry.” “Babbitt,” written in 1922, is, in the edition I read, a 366-page sneer at George Babbitt, an epitome of middle class respectability. His opinions are those of others like him, his tastes are decidedly low-brow, he is a joiner, a booster and, needless to say, a thorough-going hypocrite. In his moderately successful real estate business he is honest, or at least as honest as he needs to be. Making a dollar, after all, is the point of business, and if ethical shaving is required, well, everybody does it. I need hardly point out he is also a Republican. Lewis’s friend H.L. Menken described the type as the “booboisie.”
Babbitt does flirt with more liberal ideas, briefly, but swiftly discovers his friends and neighbors do not approve of such notions, and Babbitt, helped along by his frumpy wife’s attack of appendicitis, returns to the fold of conformity. (“Elmer Gantry,” written in 1927, did for evangelical religion what “Babbitt” did for business. It also created a storm of protest — banned in Boston — and a movie starring Burt Lancaster as a religious con man.)
As much fun as it no doubt was for Lewis and many other writers of the progressive persuasion to look down their noses at their social inferiors, there was a dark side to Babbittry. These people, it is hinted, are likely to fall into movements fascistic in their tendencies. Fascism was barely a thing in 1922: Mussolini marched on Rome just after the book was published. However, in a work published in 1935, “It Can’t Happen Here,” Lewis made explicit what was implicit in his earlier work. The middle-class Babbitts of the nation are fodder for fascist dictatorship, easily led and manipulated, longing to join something bigger than themselves to give purpose to their otherwise meaningless lives. The book originally targeted Huey Long, the hyper-populist senator from Louisiana, expected to run against FDR in 1936, and seen as a grave threat against America’s freedoms. Long’s assassination ended that threat.
Fast forward to 2016, and Donald Trump wins. Sales of “It Can’t Happen Here” soar, and a new edition is released just as President Trump is taking the oath of office. America, as many of our betters told us, was now slipping into a dictatorship with Trump at the helm.
Trump was a strange kind of dictator, cutting taxes, slashing at the regulatory state, and generally freeing up folks to get more jobs at better wages. Our current incumbent has raised taxes, hugely accelerated regulations (and their costs), and issued mandates galore, and oversaw sharp rises in the cost of living.
It’s been a century since “Babbitt,” and our progressive betters have kept the meme alive and well. Middle-class Americans, especially white ones, are a danger to democracy. Not only that, their tastes are plebeian, their materialism is crass, they wouldn't know a good wine if they tasted one. They like art that actually looks like something recognizable.
Aren’t you glad you’re not one of them?
Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Charles C. Milliken: The joy of superiority
