THE SAINT’S ELITISM:
I recently went out bowling with my
parents. My sister stayed home; it was late. I won both rounds, but some
troubling thoughts haunted me throughout the evening. Although I’d done my best
not to allow myself to be triggered by narcissistic manipulation, I could not
help but to feel such overwhelming pity for these Satanic souls that I had to
maintain an internal dialogue with them. What I said I was not proud of; no one
ever wants to have such a conversation, so it’s not something one derives great
joy from. It’s rather a chore.
The manner of my life has been neither
easy nor conventional. From an extremely young age, I was set apart for my
intelligence and my good will. I excelled not only in creative activities and
academics (though I was a bit slow and all ways idiosyncratic). I all so
endeared myself to elders and betters because of my natural charm and kindness.
Not all kids were as innocent as I was. And when teachers spoke of excellence
it was not uncommon for them to speak of me. This is simply the truth. I have
no ulterior motive to present it; it is all I’ve ever known. Though it DOES
lead into what I have next to say.
The joys of recognition all ways fought
against the pains of being needed. Not only did I have constantly to impress my
parents and teachers. I all so felt a deep sense of empathy and pain for those
I’d deemed less fortunate than I was. Only in passing was I told I HAD to pity
them; most often I could simply feel it when I met them. And I saw the World as
being at once beautiful and terrifying.
When my peers speak now to me of
“childhood naivete”, I know what they’re referring to only as it applies to
them. When I hear “innocence”, I don’t think of naivete. I think of
blamelessness. And I had sworn that that would never change for me. At the age of
twenty-seven, it has yet to. I learned from a young age that what is popular is
seldom if ever right and usually it is absolutely arbitrary. So it followed
that to be arbitrary was an evil and to be purposive was a Good. And nothing
could part me from my fortitude.
When someone disagrees with me, that
does not bother me. I simply figure out WHY that person is wrong; I do not
change my own position. When my Father says something stupid, I take note of
his shortcomings, which have all ways skewed his perspectives. I see how his
opinions say something of himself. I do not let him make me think that MY
opinions say something of MY self. I have no reason to take personal
responsibility for his shortcomings; I have simply to acknowledge them
internally, externalizing the position only if it proves to be a problem. Any
shortcomings of my own are just that: my own. If they mattered, I would know
ABOUT them long before an other did. And I all ways would know if they matter.
Morality was never relative to the observer, so a conflict of opinion does not
reveal two sets of prejudices that are just respective to the warring parties;
rather it reveals a set of prejudices on the part of the erring party. I am not
alone in this conviction. Soren Kierkegaard, considered the most profound
thinker of the nineteenth century (by Wittgenstein, who is considered the most
profound thinker of the TWENTIETH century) wrote an entire book dismissing the
Leveling process. He was himself not alone in dismissing the Ideal of Equality;
Friedrich Nietzsche all so spoke ill of it. Put simply: one must never let the
desire for Solidarity and Belonging to take precedence over one’s personal
development; one must have fortitude enough to get up on that high horse, day
in and day out, over and over again, cultivating objectivity through self-knowledge
and tempering conviction with gentleness. The High Horse is a right because the
Higher Ground is a responsibility. It is no fault of mine if others fall short
of it, nor must I avail myself of what their reasons are; I have simply to note
the failure and its most probable causes, that I might learn from their mistake
before it might become my own. It’s all ways been that way. I cannot say I ever
was a Happy child. But at least I was Right. Alasdair MacIntyre seals the deal.
He writes that morality has become corrupted by emotivism. From an emotivist
perspective, every conflict requires both parties to share the blame, for each position
in that conflict is motivated only by personal emotive drives. In fact,
however, ethics is not a horizontal plane that can be made prey to extortion
and other forms of devious quid pro quo; it is a vertical plane, with how we
are upon the bottom and how we Should Be upon the Top. The Reverend Martin
Luther King Junior understood this, though our elementary schools never taught
it. King was an intellectual; he understood that to be Equal we must WORK for
it. Only the most basic needs are given by Nature, and even for those needs to
be MET an exceptional moral effort is to be made on the parts of all people,
both those who have and those who have not. In this sense, he came to the same
conclusion as MacIntyre, who spoke of Virtue and Excellence as its own reward:
King was a Communist. And it does not require either holiness or genius to see
this common sense: that any Community that does not embrace Community as an
Ideal is overrun with vice. At that point, history repeats itself, only because
the Few and Proud will stand out. For myself, I can say this much: being one of
the few, a virgin at the age of twenty-seven, as well as an introvert, no
longer bothers me. I’m proud of my position. I was raised for it. It’s all I
ever knew. And it was what I gave my childhood up for. I don’t like to be Right
All the Time.
I’d
rather that each person I could teach would learn,
and
that he’d teach me in return.
I’d
rather that he never spurn me but would reach
out
to me as I yearn.
I’d
rather live and easily forgive
when
I am able to reform. And insofar as I am stable
in
this fable I can thus inform.
That
if I’m stable I am able and this will become the norm.
But
if I cannot reach them to beseech them I can keep my own heart warm.
For
if he will not listen then I have nothing to learn from him.
Yet
if I should dismiss him I will not dismiss him on a whim.
It’s really as simple as being sober in
the midst of drunkards. I can nod along and learn a lot about them, but if they
say something that is totally ridiculous then I can say, without the slightest
impulse to contrive, that they are drunk, and that is all. Being Right is too
precious of a treasure to be wasted on those who don’t value it, and anyone who
would take it from me on principle can have no principles; no moral agent
actually sees morality as though it were subjective and relative. It is not
arrogance that nurtures my conviction, but humility and drive. Humility is not
dependent on one’s fellows; they can come and go, but character remains. With true
humility comes that one gift: Self-Knowledge. Most people don’t have it, and I
don’t think I can change that all together. What I can say for a fact is this:
that if I know myself, and if myself and Other are akin, then I know the Other.
If I have empathy for Others in my Heart, I see where their own emotions reach
a narcissistic dead end. I do not require sympathy for them, but rather only
caution in their midst, and any problems that arise I know will be their fault.
I do not suffer from my own shortcomings; I amend them. What my enemies
preclude is that their OWN shortcomings would cause suffering for me. And by
precluding this they evidence their own depravity of character. That I would
blame them constantly would not reflect upon my own, for I do not project evil
upon the World. It’s simply THERE, objectively, in Human Strife. And I’ve
chosen to never be a part of it. If this was simply our common duty, how could
I be wrong?
After the Bowling Alley we stopped by Jack
in the Box to get some curly fries. I’d barely eaten this entire week, and I’m
still looking for a job. As we walked in it took me no time to remember my
first job, for I would go to this same restaurant quite often during my lunch
shift. I was comforted by the memory of who I was back then. Though I felt like
a sell-out, I then saw no reason not to make the most of working at a fabric
store. I believed in Human Goodness as a Unifying Cause, ubiquitous throughout
religions and evidenced by all the arts. I expected adulthood to be a break
from all the pains of childhood; children have to work hard to get to this
point, but adults can have fun and do whatever they want. I was treated
otherwise. Despite all my attempts to Level and Connect with my comrades at Joann
Fabrics, I was treated with disdain and judgment. I did nothing to change their
opinion of me, since I was never in the habit of adapting myself to my
neighbours; I just sought the company of better neighbours. If every individual
was precious, I would do a disservice to my own individuality by changing; I
could only hope to change their impression OF me, and if they refused to change
that then at least I’d know I’d done my best to teach them by example.
Back then, I believed that all the World
were Good. I knew myself to be Good; I’d been Good since I was five years old,
and I was loved even before that. So I wanted to believe that the whole World
was Good like me. Apparently, this was not so. But for the first time in my
life I had this troubling thought: that they did not WANT to be Good Like Me.
That they would rather be Bad in Their Own Way than to follow my example. And I
did not dare to conclude this. Too much depended on my authority. I had a
younger sister who had to be saved from any corrupting influence. I had a dog
to take care of. I had dreams to make real. This was not the time for a crisis
of faith.
When I first walked into that Jack in
the Box, I trusted people. Now I don’t. But only because I learned this: that
people are not Equal. They could be, but they choose not to be. And That’s
Fine. If someone errs, he does not redefine propriety to suit his error. He
simply falls short of virtue. And that’s okay. Most often, it is just a passing
observation in my mind. I do not need to verbalize it unless it becomes a
problem. But there is a gang of ingrates who will make an accusation even when
I keep my peace, thus making problems out of petty failings. They have nothing
to condemn me for, so they condemn me for the one thing that they can find
worthy of condemning: that I am right all the time. But since this is the exact
OPPOSITE of vice, and rather the Ideal, how can I shake before the accusation,
except that I seem to be in the company of lunatics whose tone of voice
suggests that virtue itself is their enemy?
All ways I’ve excelled in virtue. I eat
little. I read much. Most of the work I do I expect nothing in return for; most
of the money that I earn goes to either my friends or my investments, if not
just to feed me so my parents do not all ways have to. I do not suffer from
narcissism, because I do not allow my values to be skewed by personal
self-interest; I simply observe objective ones, and I can defend them till the
Death by the full force of cultural tradition. I don’t worry about my
condition; I don’t obsess over my own appearance. I am humble; hence I can
speak plainly on such matters without the need for distortion. Even when I
started my first job I had all ready suffered slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune. I forgave the people who had wronged me for their arrogance. But I
would not make the mistake of trusting them again should they say I was crazy.
My entire life I have had one true task: To Be Right. When I succeeded, it was
just expected; when I failed, it was unbearable. I had to hold the family
together. I have yet to DO a single thing I “want” to, though I try each day to
align my desires with my duties. I’m not Happy. But being Happy was not the
Goal. No one wants to be happy; people want rather to suffer for a Common Good;
otherwise they are not people. When I had my first true breakdown in college, I
trusted people so much that for some time I forgot just Who I Was. I’d let my
better judgment be bypassed by hostile agents. Now I do not let them get to me,
except when I must learn from their own errors. I was never crazy; the same
symptoms of “insanity” in me were simply consequences of the virtue I had spent
my youth perfecting. I had won; I was not perfect, but I had attained
perfection. I had found the Truth, the Beauty, and the Good. My Life had value,
and no one would ever make it forfeit. I had grown up, ready to join the ranks
of saints and sages who had gone before me. And I accepted humbly.
People all ways came to me for guidance.
Most of them abandoned me when they did not want my advice. I could never come
to them, and that’s all right. As surely as I mount the High Horse now,
observing them from up on high with gentleness, rather than fighting them upon
the ground, as they are prone to, I know that I do this out of love and service
to them. It is a double standard, and it’s in their favour; It’s all ways been
so. So they can come to me for help and offer nothing in return. My parents are
not so, but only because I had had to teach them, for a second time, to be Good
Parents; that’s not my responsibility, for I am still a virgin, but I did not
mind it that I had to be the one to tell them. After all: if my life is not
forfeit, but retains the same surpassing value that it had in childhood, why
should I expect anything less? I cannot render it worthless by selling it to
some corrupt organization. And for once it’s all in harmony. How could I let
the parasites corrupt it?
People still come to me for guidance.
Only some days ago I received a call from a girl who was suicidal. She was not
trying to save me from despair, nor did she want me to save her. She just
wanted to drag me down with her. I do not know why people do these things. But
I will not be an excuse for her. She could not prove a single thing that I’d
done wrong. She did not even presume I had. She simply condemned me that I’d
done what was expected of me: Every Thing Right. The classes that I failed I
failed because I knew the teachers were misguided. No one doubted my
intelligence when I was young, and they don’t doubt it now. And when Aldous Huxley
said that intelligence and good will were the two essential and indispensable
virtues, he did not include Equality in his assessment. That says something.
Austerity and loneliness are inevitable to me. I will never be One of Them. And
that’s All Right.
I could not save her from killing
herself. Even when I compared her to the woman I loved most she did not find it
in her Heart to save herself just to redeem an Other, even if only to give
Peace of Mind to a fellow sufferer she had pretended to be close to. I cannot
level with these sorts of “people”. And I do not need to.
I thought everyone would understand. I
thought I was being prepared for a World of Vision and Insight. All I ever
tried to do was to learn, teach, and retain. I cannot let my own virtues be
mitigated by the vices of others, for that violates retention. I can learn from
those vices and teach virtue. I can retain my objectivity. That I can do. That
is what keeps me going. It’s small wonder that those who most fervently
criticize me are teetering on the edge of Death. Evil hands have ways of
slitting each other’s wrists.
At the end of the day, I am no different
from everyone else. But that is not because we are all fallen and broken. We
are all striving towards the same heights, even if we climb different
mountains. Some of us see others from a higher vantage point. But I will say
this: that the higher that one climbs, the less competition there is. So I
think little of who is above me. I have earned my own Equality, even if others
have yet to do so. At any rate, I try my best to see them in this way. But I know
that this is just a metaphor. The truth is that not one of us truly matters as
much as does God’s Will. The truth is that in direct proportion to their
failures I have failed as well. The truth is that elitism does not solve
poverty or war. But it helps me to retain my objectivity in fighting them. The very
Salvation of Humanity is at stake.
DM.A.A.
