Overlords
By D.
Thompson
In the
comments following this, a reader, Rich Rostrom, notes my use of the term “egalitarian
superiors.”
Isn’t that an
oxymoronic construction? They can’t be both ‘superior’ and ‘egalitarian.’
If the idea
is unfamiliar, perhaps I should elaborate. In my experience, the more
egalitarian a person says he is, the more superior he wishes to be, or assumes
he already is. Egalitarian sentiment is, and generally has been, a license for
hypocrisy, double standards and exerting power over others. Much as a professed
disdain for inequality is a way to signal one’s own moral, intellectual and
social superiority.
A rummage
through the archives reveals no shortage of illustrations.
The Observer’s
Kevin McKenna displayed his egalitarian credentials by calling for a ban on private
education: “The ultimate iniquity is
that independent, fee-paying schools are allowed to exist at all.” Picture the
big, generous heart behind those sentiments. It offends Mr McKenna that private
education should be allowed to exist - even when those who pay
for it also pay again via taxes for the state system. How dare some
parents want the best for their children when the best is something not
everyone can have, or indeed benefit from? According to Mr McKenna’s moral
calculus, parents who view the comprehensive system as inadequate – perhaps
because of their own first-hand experiences – are by implication wicked. And so
they should be stopped. Therefore Mr McKenna or his ideological
proxy must have power over others to stop all those evil people who work hard
and save to pay for their kids’ tuition.
In a similar
vein, the Fabian Society’s Sunder Katwala wants to “make life chances more equal” by minimising the role of
conscientious parents and discussing “the impact of private education.” Mr
Katwala seems very interested in the implicitly negative “impact” of private
education on those who don’t experience it. The impact of
state education and egalitarian sentiment on those who do experience such
things – say, the curious and able - doesn’t seem quite so pressing.
Then there’s
the socialist actress Arabella Weir, who deceived Guardian readers
about her own education in order to display her egalitarian piety as a “good,
responsible citizen.” So egalitarian is Ms Weir, she seems to view children not
as ends in themselves but as instruments for the advancement of a socialist
worldview. As formulated by Ms Weir, “the right thing to do” has a sacrificial
air and entails mingling conspicuously with those deemed “disadvantaged.” By Ms
Weir’s thinking, even if you had a grim and frustrating experience at a state
comprehensive you should still want to inflict that same experience on your
children. Ideally, by sending them to a disreputable school with plenty of
rough council estate kids and people for whom English is at best a second
language. Ms Weir tells us the advantages of this approach include, “learning
street sense, who to be wary of, who to avoid,” and teaching clever children “how to keep their
heads down.”
Zoe
Williams went further, signalling her sense of fairness by conjuring
scenarios in which parents would be humiliated and punished for trying to do
the best for their offspring. (“As for vindictive, ha!
Good.”) The Guardian’s
advocate of “social justice” delighted in the idea of parents’ access to their
preferred school being dependent on displaying a leftwing outlook and inversely
proportional to the value of their car: “Do they have a 4x4? Can the
parents provide a letter from any local leftwing organisation, attesting to
their commitment to open-access state education?” In a move echoing Soviet
educational policy of the 1920s, our embittered class warrior then went on to
formulate her own punitive hierarchy: “At the very bottom of the waiting list,
put the kids who have been removed from a private school, since the intentions
of their parents are the most transparent: somewhat above them, but below
everybody else, put the kids who have siblings at private schools.” And Ms
Williams did all this while carefully omitting any mention of her own education at a school where extracurricular activities includevisits to the Sinai
Desert.
Readers will
no doubt recall Ms Williams’ Guardian colleague and fellow
enthusiast of “social justice,” George Monbiot, who wants to arrest people he only hopes have committed a crime, and who
flew around the world promoting a book telling the rest of us we shouldn’t be allowed to fly because it’s
akin to “child abuse.” A position that suggests either a remarkably casual view of child
abuse or, perhaps more likely, an assumed right to be exempt from his own
professed moral imperatives. And let’s not forget the environmentalist David
Suzuki, who denounces large houses as “disgusting” and thinks other people
shouldn’t aspire to owning homes like his own rather
spacious estates.
Nor should
we overlook the imperious Polly Toynbee - owner of a spare Tuscan villa
- who insists “money doesn’t make us happier” and who calls for an end to
the wrong kind of people earning as much as she does. Or Karen Armstrong, whose sense of “fairness” allows her to
transcend mere facts and misinform wildly - for the greater good, of course. Or the playwright Jonathan
Holmes, who expects to be subsidised by the taxpayer because he “speaks truth to power,” being as he is so terribly radical and leftwing. Or the late Barbara
Castle, Labour’s “Red Queen” - a socialist Baroness who railed against private
health care and denounced it as “immoral,” “obscene” and something to be
banned. And whose adamance evaporated when her own son needed medical treatment
and was discreetly admitted to a private hospital under an assumed name.
Further
illustration comes via Jere Surber, a professor of philosophy who signals his
egalitarian politics in a typically grand and
superior manner. Surber’s leftist leanings
are apparently the only “intellectually respectable way to
interpret the broad contours of history.” He and his colleagues “have carefully
studied the actual dynamics of history and culture; and we have trained
ourselves to think in complex, nuanced, and productive ways about the human
condition.” And so the professor finds it outrageous that “doctors, engineers
and scientists” are regarded as more valuable and paid more than he is.
And then
there’s the leftwing think-tank, the New Economics Foundation, whose Head of
Social Policy, Anna Coote, tells us we would become “better parents, better
citizens, better carers and better neighbours” if only our incomes
were dramatically reduced. “We,” she says, will be
“satisfied” without the “dispensable accoutrements of middle-class life,”
including “cars, holidays, electronic equipment and multiple items of
clothing.” The preferences of the British electorate – whose taxes fund the NEF
- don’t figure in this brave new world and the NEF’s deep thinkers simply know what’s
best for us. What’s best for us is “introducing measures to reduce the gradient
between high and low earners,” “growing our own food,” and “mending and
repairing things.” According to Ms Coote, “freedom” will be found in
sameness, make-do and unpaid manual labour.
These
assumptions may sound like the musings of a pretentious and arrogant teenager,
but they’re coming from adults who hope to influence government policy and
determine the shape of our lives. Readers may wish to consider the psychology
implied by the NEF proposal, and by other egalitarian sentiments outlined
above. Apparently, “we” will learn to find solace in the fact that everyone
else is in a comparably bad position, economically and educationally. (Though
I’m guessing “everyone” won’t include those who’ve taken it upon themselves to
ensure our utopia runs smoothly and without obstruction.) We’ll be equal, more
or less, and therefore we’ll be happy. And kind, and just better people.
We’ll abandon our cars, holidays and washing machines, along with the desire to
give our children advantages that we didn’t have. After all, these things are selfish.
And we’ll take comfort – perhaps even pleasure – in the lowered expectations of
our neighbours.
It’s the
psychology of socialism, people. Just don’t get it on the rug.
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