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Thursday, July 09, 2009
Middle Class For A Change
I think I've figured out why it bugged me so much. Tim Hudak, the newly minted leader of the Ontario Tories, invoked the term "middle class" with near comic frequently during the recent party leadership campaign. We are basically a middle class society. Once upon a time class was a clear and powerful dividing line in Canadian life. It still exists. But when plumbers make more than university graduates - and not just in the humanities - the lines have blurred. Middle Class is really code for average. The "divine average" as Whitman put it. Perhaps vanity overtakes me here, but I take offense at being called average. Let's put it this way:
Hi, my name is Publius. I'm looking to earn your vote. I know how you think because we're both average. Not special in anyway. Just plain ordinary. I'm ordinary, you're ordinary. We're all ordinary. Vote for me! We're both beige amidst a background of sprawling grey.
Middle Class Ontario is the reverse of Lake Wobegon. No one is above average, or below it. We are not bright or stupid. We lack distinguishing characteristics. We all live in the suburbs. We all have two kids. Don't let all that ethnic or racial diversity fool you. The chap fresh off the plane from the Punjab, or the vet who crossed the Scheldt, are both middle class, both average. Just like Tim, and Dalt, and Michael and Stephen. Except that Michael and Stephen are not average, they're clearly above average.
It would be difficult to pick Dalton McGuinty out of a police line up (away dark thoughts). He blends so effortlessly into wherever he is. His voice has the soothing tone of a vacuum cleaner running on low. Very useful for putting fussy babies to sleep. A post-political career, surely. Whitman's Divine Average incarnate. For all the Red Star's desperate attempts to paint Tim Hudak as the Son of Mike, the two men project very different images. Mike was clearly a leader. He was the guying pushing his way to the front, devil take you know what. Tim is the guy next door. Like Dalt. The new Tory leader isn't so much running for Mike Harris' third term, but for Dalt's.
Modern politics witnesses the absurd spectacle of highly educated men, many of them with IQs toward the right end of the curve, stooping to conquer. Average people don't want to be Premier of Ontario, or Prime Minister of Canada. Perhaps not even sane people want such positions. This was not always so. Until at least the time of Brian Mulroney the chaps running the show projected themselves as larger than life. They would make flattering comparisons, or have others do it for them, toward the greats of history. Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister was always trying to sound Churchillesque.
An old story has it that Wilfred Laurier's handlers - yes, such creatures existed even then - tried to get the great man to make a speech in a lumber mill wearing workmen's clothes. Laurier put on the garb, took one look in the mirror and then immediately got back into his business suit. One of the most elegant dressers in the Dominion, whose manners and style rivaled those of a British peer, was not going to pretend to be anything but what he was. He told his handlers he would look foolish playing a mill worker. The electorate wanted to see a great man lead a great nation. It was a part and Laurier played it beautifully.
We don't look up to leaders. It goes against the democratic tradition that everyone is as good as everyone else. Many libertarians will second the sentiment. The state being little better than organized crime (the term organized being used loosely), its leaders are as such only gangsters. This confuses the "is" with the "ought." Leaders are about the ought, where we should be not where we are. They are suppose to project an ideal and lay out a plan to achieve it. Even a laissez-faire state will have crises and emergencies. The Divine Average as Leader is really the Status Quo as Ideal. We don't expect the guy next door to inspire us. We expect him to mow the lawn.
Posted by PUBLIUS on July 9, 2009 | Permalink
Comments
Or you could say, "We're all equal, some are just more equal". h/t Orwell's ~ Animal Farm.
Posted by: The original JC | 2009-07-09 6:59:13 AM
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