Instinctive anger at the wealthy and/or wealth contrasts

Wait until I've locked up my Faberge Eggs.

I can understand nimh's reaction.

Maybe money can't buy you happiness but it does give you some choices -- one of those choices being not having to argue with a drunken spouse over a key. To me she sounds resigned, listlessly asking for the key back after having it snactched from her. It doesn't feel/sound/seem like she has a lot of choice in the matter.

Then you turn around and see another couple that has all these choices.

And well, your gut reacts.

Maybe you get a flash of Robin Hood. Or maybe you get a flash of envy. Or maybe (like my insanely wealthy friend) you get a little embarrassed at displays of wealth.

I personally don't have a problem with gut reactions based on appearance when it is clear that the people have made choices about how they appear - hip clothes and haircuts, cool shades, etc. They're presenting an image of themselves through these choices.

The suburban kids who dress like rappers.

The botox matron in her finery.

The trust fund kid who lives in a hovel and buys his clothes in a second hand store.

Aren't they trying to tell us something about themselves?

Why is it judgemental to read these clues and respond to them?

I've both been on both ends of the opportunity spectrum and observed both sides. Even in the relatively wealthy US many people fall through the cracks through no fault of their own, no lack of effort on their own, no lack of spit or spirit or gumption. When you have been in this place (and some of us are heading toward it again) and see more and more people in it, murmurs by people who are doing well about the fecklessness of the poor, the expressed irritation of lack of pulling up by bootstraps, gets to your emotional gut and may reside there as a - well, primary response antibody, to use a medical metaphor. Visible injustice is part of it, but also, a flush of awareness of the lack of understanding by those who are doing ok, and a wisp of inchoate anger about that.

Of course reason prevails, and signifiers like designer shades or baggy pants are superficial triggers for assuming anything about anyone's attitude.

I had stopped reading this thread becaue there didn't seem to be any real understanding between those who say they don't judge and those who say they have a momentary feeling of ange (admitting the feeling is irrational).

Then jpin Milwaukee said:



Absolutely NOT. Not one of us wants to bring down the rich to the level of the poor, whether that is meant to mean the dumb, the lazy, or simply, the unfortunate. (There is a large area of possible misunderstanding in that very statement).

I have the feeling that those of us who understand nimh's meaning have either had the experience of being poor through no fault of our own or those of us who have worked with people less fortunate than most.

There are probably different levels of that gut anger, but it usually stems from a real knowledge of the vast difference between the two groups. It means that we have seen the devastation of being poor or developmentally challenged or having a mental illness that prevents us from ever succeeding because we are openly unpleasant toward the world.

Do we want these people to have the same wealth as the rich? Of course not, give us a little credit. We just know how impossible it can be to ever improve one's lot in life if we are thrown a few extra difficuties than most experience. When we read of the excesses and greed of the very rich and thier resentment of being taxed more than everyone else, we sure do get angry, and for good reason.

Dys and I have become friendly with a woman who waitresses at IHop. She commited a felony when she brought a little marijuana over from Mexico. She has severe diabetes. She isn't well educated nor is she very smart--so it is doubly difficult for her to find and sign up for the few services open to her. She once said, half jokingly, that maybe she should commit another felony just for the medical benefits she enjoyed while in prison; that it was the best medical care she had ever had in her life.

I wonder, did any of you have a gut reaction that, if she is a felon, doesn't really take good cate of herself and doesn't have the brains to get out of her predicament, she doesn't deserve equal treatment? Be honest.

Everyone who has responded on this thread is a person I respect and would really like to meet in person. I just have a hard time understanding why there isn't better understanding among us.

Not all so clear, Diane, though I know we agree on this stuff. But, JPB, affected by us reacting to the well dressed, and her family, are the only ones I know of going to New Orleans and physically helping out.

Some here are defensive that it is fine to have money and do well. Yes it is. That's not the question. I too cry for my father, who was rather high up in some places for some time, and also a vulnerable man. I, in turn, like sophistication and style and design and creativity and a lot of other matters past buying a quart of milk.

Those of us who've had these whifs of grrrrrr don't shun vigor and growth and the money that goes with it. But we've seen some battering by the oblivious and are reactive. That's it, reactive.

Just as some are reactive in the other direction, about get a grip and get your sorry selves out of the mire you cause yourselves by your behavior.

I'll try not to allot posters a place in some column. JPB is a person of clear empathy who reacts to the expression of the wafts of anger re a passing minute of, oh, seeming royalty walks, when it is just a nice man and woman with some fun to be picked out dark glasses.

Not that I have a clue about royalty.

From my decades of life in and out of whatever drawing rooms or family rooms, I understand a lot of the artifice and the play of those who will be eating ok the next few months, and otherwise.

Sorry I haven't read all the replies, this may have been said.

I think most of us are raised to expect a certain amount of "fairness" in the world, even though as adults we may (or may not) understand it to be an illusion.

What may have caused the nimh's anger here was not the existence of wealthy and poor people in the world...he was already aware of this, but rather, it was from having to see the two juxtaposed, from having to think about both states (poor and wealthy) in sequence, and seeing an immediate simple solution (the wealthy couple helping the poor couple) completely ignored and some of that anger was frustration at that reality of not being able to facilitate the solution himself.

So to simplify ...imaginary simplistic "fair" solution competes with real awareness of the bigger complex picture...causing anger.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the "obliviousness" of the wealthier couple. Is this a case of the Kuleshov effect?



wiki.

Wow, that is fascinating. I also think it suggests that we all make immediate, instinctive judgements, whether consciously or subconsciously.

Talk about not being able to accept a different perspective. Now I am doing the same thing nimh is, but subconsciously! Well, that emcompasses everyone, now, doesn't it?

Imagine if nimh had first wandered past a rundown house with hungry kids begging on the steps, and then saw this same drunk, arguing couple arriving home at this very house.

I was raised as a film editor - sort of - though I never became one (yes, I do know there were one or two females, then). Back to look harder at Eorl's commentary later.

Eorl, on imagining nimh seeing that couple arguing, are you (I don't say you are) supposing he would have an opposite reaction?

Nimh has his lifetime of observations, including those to this minute. (I see these as always reevaluating for all of us).
You plan to jerk them about with this or that change of background?

and that's why we love him so. for his honesty. honest observations of others and self. reportend as they are, without embelishments and frills.

i just found the thread and only read the first page and last two. i gotta hand it to you, nimh. i sure felt that way many times, sure saw myself in your reaction, with following guilt trips and confusion. but i know few people, if any, who can capture a minute moment of a gray day to day life like a still photograph and give it so much meaning.

ossobuco,

I'm supposing it's possible, yes. That anger may be directed this time at the poor couple for spending money on getting drunk instead of feeding the hungry children.

Strangely, the feelings exhibited in both situations would come from the same humane empathetic source.

The poor couple scene could be exactly the same, yet now processed differently by the cognition immediately preceding it.

I'm reminded of an excellent episode of "Yes, Minister" refering to push-polls....how you get the poll answer you want by asking the right questions leading up to the real question at hand. If I remember rightly it was on the matter of support for National Service.

I'll admit the poor couple doing that scene the 64th time would get old. But I may still understand their constraining circumstances; they, being romani, have small recourse. Perhaps if I learned there are many new outlets for roma creativity I would go with it, the eye slighting of them as well melding with the rest doing ok.

I've been reading along. Wanted to thank nimh for the opening post and the honesty. I've been thinking about this long and hard. Is there something or someone I see and respond to instinctively--without reason?

Yes. Nothing to do with money, but yes. Humans, at least in theory, are rational and socialized. I don't act on the feeling. In fact, I try to talk myself out of it--if I'm conscious of it.

I've also been trying to figure out what causes rational beings to have such gut reactions to things. I'm working on that. Have an answer for one of the things I react to but not the other.

Thanks, again, kid. You made me look inward. Always a good thing.

Now that I'm tuned in, I'm sleepy. More yammering from me tomorrow.

I call bullsh!t.

It has been suggested that tax rates should be as high as 70%. 70% freaking percent. That means one person doing 100% of the work only gets to keep 30% of the reward. You could, quite literally, take the other 70%, give 30% to one "less fortunate person" another 30% to another "less fortunate person, and still have 10% left to stick in the governments coffers. Is that your idea of fair? One person working hard to support two others? Now I understand this isn't how the money would break down, but at the end of the day, your once middle class worker is now barely scraping by on 30% of his salary.

Others have suggested that the tax rate simply go back to pre-Bush rates. This is at least a more reasonable suggestion (if you still don't think we pay to much in taxes), but if tax revenue is the answer to helping out others, than why raise the tax rate? After the rate cut, tax revenues increased. Just like they did when Reagan cut taxes and when JFK cut taxes. So if you really want more tax money, why would you raise tax rates to a level that produced smaller tax revenue? That isn't raising up the less fortunate, that is bringing down the more fortunate.

What really gets me going about all of this though, is the sheer hypocrisy of and down right self righteous attitudes of people. I don't think everybody that has posted in this thread fits that discription, but there certainly are people that do.

Take the one.org video for example. I mean for christs sakes... Forbes.com estimates that Brad Pitt alone made $25 Million dollars from June of 05 to June of 06. Now Brad has adopted a few poor kids and does do some good charity/activist work, but 25 million dollars for one year of work?

If money was really the answer, all the celebrities that appeared in that video could feed all of Africa for years if they even contributed 50% of their life style to the cause.

This is my real problem. Hardly anybody puts their money where their mouth is. How many people on this thread did their taxes this year and paid more than they had to because they thought it would help some poor soul? How many of those celebrities gave away their vast fortunes and lived on 30k a year to help feed the starving in Africa? How much did you tip that poor waitress down at the ihop... 20% on a $15 bill... $3?

Nope... everyone wants to fix the problem, but they want everybody else to pay for it.

JP -- how does anything in your latest post bring the rich down to the level of the poor? Diane's claim was that nobody here wants to bring the rich down to the level of the poor, and you called this bullshît. If her statement was so wrong, why aren't you refuting what she actually said? Why are you making up a strawman and refute that one instead?

I gave more than you could imagine, jpin.

Quit trying to project. Not everyone thinks like you.

So, a proposal of a rich person paying 70% of their income in taxes isn't bringing them down to the level of the poor?