Prometheus 6

The ideology of equality, which teaches us that every man is just as good as the next, appeals to our pride. We cling to this belief even as experience in our everyday lives proves to us that it is not true. We are quite aware of the fact that some people achieve greater success than others; some are rich and some are poor. But that only makes us adhere to our belief all the more. As Czech scholar Petr Lom has suggested, "the dogma of equality" takes hold of the imagination and gives us hope that we really are equal to everyone. It fuels our dreams that we can be, will be (and therefore magically that we are) just the same as those who have achieved more money, fame or status than ourselves.

The Joe Lunch Bucket strategy
Why we insist that highly educated, wealthy politicians act like an average guy.
Gregory Rodriguez
April 21, 2008

If Americans are such huge fans of big dreams and high rolling, self-made tycoons and upward mobility, why then do we insist on seeing our national political elites -- who are also generally our economic and educational elites -- throw back a shot of whiskey or lace up bowling shoes?

Why do we need to pretend that high-flying politicians who graduated from the fanciest schools and dine at the toniest restaurants really don't live in a different world and -- dare I say it -- class than the rest of us?

The easy answer is that we want to identify with them, and we want them to identify with us. But there's also something more at play here, and that's the never-ending tension between our cherished ideologies of mobility and equality. 

We don't want to think about the real shape of class in America. Who fits where in the hierarchy has always been a touchy, even embarrassing, issue, and when it is discussed, it's usually in harsh, moralistic tropes about the haves and have nots that do nothing to illuminate nuances.

It's long been an enduring quirk of American politics that the most successful politicians are the ones who best conceal the very hauteur that gives them the supreme confidence -- or is it gall? -- to think they can lead the most powerful nation on Earth. Ironically, the pols who started at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder often feel most obliged to strike a humble pose. As political scientist Elliot White wrote in 1971, "The greater the distance traveled, the greater the pretense of not having gone far at all."

Sure, high-ranking politicians of humble origins can lay at least some claim to being "common." But that's really a ruse. Because the best politicians wouldn't get as far as they do if they hadn't already successfully convinced large numbers of people that they were distinct from -- read: better than -- the rest of us.

And therein lies our dilemma. We hold to the belief that we are all equal, yet we yearn for distinctiveness for ourselves and those we choose to represent us. In a nation whose form of government exalts the illusion of uniformity among its citizens, we are collectively engaged in a struggle to be recognized as unique by our peers.