>I'm not sure what kind of "weird" behavior we're talking about. There
>was the woman I saw in the subway once who had a spacehat with
>antennae and a necktie all fashioned out of aluminum foil. I'm
>guessing that's not what we're talking about. But how about the maids
>that Barbara Ehrenreich writes about in Nickel & Dimed, who express
>absolutely no class resentment over the McMansions they're paid a
>pittance to clean, and even dream of occupying one day? Or the
>bartender I overheard in Toronto saying that Bill Gates deserved
>"every penny" of his fortune? That's a different kind of weird. Why
>do people think that way?
My guess: because instead of identifying with their real selves, they identify with their ideal selves, which are basically cultural constructs. In this society Bill Gates is constructed as the ideal individual who we all aspire to equal. If he deserves his fortune, so ultimately will I when I get my fortune. Ha. Ha.
A real incident to illustrate. Fifteen years ago, I was selling a socialist newpaper in the poorer districts of San Jose. I knocked on the door of a run-down basement apartment, a Miller-guzzling male dressed in dirty jeans and an undershirt opened the door and allowed me to enter. The apartment was of the black-velvet paintings and apple crates variety: it bespoke of various kinds of impovrishement. I announced that I was selling a socialist paper and asked him if he was interested in buying a copy.
"No." He said, "I don't believe in socialism. I'm a capitalist."
"You are?" I queried looking around his apartment, "Then, where's your capital?"
That stopped him only for a second,
"My body," he replied, "My body is my capital."
So, there you go. What untold fortune he was going to squeeze out of his body, I do not know.
(As a side note, another fascinating look at this problem comes from a movie "The Man in the Glass Booth" -- screenplay by Robert Shaw I think: Nazis and Jews. If you haven't seen it it's hopless, it's nowhere to be found anymore.)
Joanna Bujes