by Bipin Aurora
And so, in my youth, I worshipped my heroes: safely, unthreateningly, from a distance of age. I read the sports sections with passion, like a famished mouse set loose upon cheese. But, of course, it is too late for that now. I am old and I can no longer fool myself. As long as the birth rate is greater than the death rate—in this day and age an incontrovertible fact—both the number and proportion of people older than me will inevitably, inexorably, keep decreasing. In the freakish case that all deaths are consistently of those younger than me, the number of people older than me will stay constant; the proportion of such people will still decrease. It is a mathematical law, I cannot deny it. Fairly soon, I will have no seniors to compare myself with!
And so, with the same zeal with which I once devoured the sports pages, I now avoid them. And, too, sports pages have developed a new habit nowadays of telling which athletes went to which schools. Perhaps it is an old habit, one that I simply never noticed before. But old or new, why they must get into it at all, I do not know. Perhaps they do it simply to spite me. They know that I went to a state university; and vicious devils that they are, they will not let me live it down.
***
But it is not only the sports pages that are after me. On the more “serious” pages—the editorial pages, for example—they always have articles from professors at certain schools: Harvard, Yale, MIT. Professors of government, professors of public policy, professors of economics, professors of physics. What in Lord’s name have I to do with any of them? On the “news” pages they speak of the rising costs at certain other schools. What in Lord’s name do I have to do with rising costs and admissions policies? I have never charged anyone an exorbitant price and I have never been admitted anywhere.
Even my once beloved matrimonial pages are no longer safe. In my youth—my wondrous youth—I used to dream of women and love and matrimony. I vowed above never to discuss this topic, but I will mention it here, just this once, to show, if nothing else, how far all my dreams have been shattered. In my youth, full of hopes and plans, I used to read the matrimonial pages with awe. Would I, too, share some day the bliss of these loving couples? There was always such pride in the smiles of the grooms, such twinkle in the eyes of the brides. Now, an old and broken man, I know that I was only fooling myself; conjugal happiness was never fated for me. But must papers compound my misery, must they add salt to my wound, by telling me that groom A went to Dartmouth and bride B to Vassar? That groom X received his law degree from Chicago and bride Y her PhD from Princeton? Isn’t it enough that these couples are happy, that they are couples, and that I am unhappy, single?
“But,” you will say, “matrimonial pages always mentioned school degrees, only you never noticed them.”
Perhaps I didn’t notice them, but cannot newspapers be a little considerate? Cannot they appreciate, just once, the plight of an old and average man, a man who went to a state university and is tired of being belittled?
But of course, of course, it isn’t only the newspapers. Magazines and television networks are at it, too. Top ten law schools, top ten medical schools, top ten graduate schools, top ten MBA schools. Starting salaries for law school graduates, starting salaries for B-school graduates. And, too, the neighbors: my son the salutatorian, my daughter the valedictorian; my daughter-in-law the medical student, my son-in-law the dental student.
What, I ask again, has an average man to do with such matters? They are the stuff of kings and queens, of aristocracies and meritocracies. I am willing to admit that others are more intelligent than I am—I cannot but admit it—but must such intelligence always be displayed at the market place? Cannot it be kept at least a little private?
A few years ago The Washington Post had a running “debate” between two columnists on which school, Harvard or Oxford, was better. My Lord! One columnist, a Harvard graduate, defended—naturally—the crimson point of view. The other, an Oxford graduate, spoke for the Oxford side. Each spokesman introduced apparently serious arguments but the debate was too good-natured, too much of a charade. And what, I ask you, was the real purpose of the debate? But, of course, to allow both columnists an opportunity to reveal, and to bask in the glory of, their alma maters. And the unstated, but clear, presumption? That, of course, both schools are not only good, but exceptional!
I have a fantasy—when my dreams fail me I turn to fantasies, you might say, but what else is an average man to do?—I have a fantasy that one day an edict is passed that prohibits, absolutely prohibits, people from revealing the schools of their past. Violation of the edict is punishable by life imprisonment. People must complete resumes without mentioning the names of their schools; they must seek jobs and undergo interviews under the same constraints; they cannot even mention their schools in casual conversations. Even mentioning geographical locations—Cambridge, Palo Alto, New Haven—in suggestive ways is prohibited. The enforcement of the edict is absolute; the inspectors show no mercy. What would happen under such a rule?
“All nonsense,” you will say, “a madman’s hallucinations.”
But what, my friends, would happen? Would not the whole society, especially the elite-aristocratic-privileged component of it, stand on the brink of collapse? Would not many, unable to bear such a state, a state in which they cannot reveal their precious backgrounds, take their lives?
“But only a handful,” you will retort, “only a fanatic handful.”
The others would hold out, then, but for how long? No degrees, no easy identifiers to distinguish themselves from the masses. Always the need to prove and reprove themselves. No presumption of intelligence. Would not the torture get, after a while, too much? Would not they, too, commit suicide? Or go insane? Or, for the opportunity to proclaim just once, just once more, their separateness, their superiority, would not they readily risk life imprisonment? Or life imprisonment ten times over?
“Nonsense,” you will say, “all nonsense. You are a fanatic, a madman, a sick man. You invite us over on the pretext of a chat and then you embarrass us with your ravings. Fantasies, you call them. If you went to a state university that is your problem; you should have been more intelligent. If you have insecurities, take them elsewhere: to a doctor, a psychiatrist—or to one of your precious birds. If you have dirty laundry, bare it in the washroom. But leave us out! Our patience has a limit!”
But of course, gentlemen, ladies—my friends—I did not mean to offend you. I was, as you say, only raving. I am insecure, and old and lonely. And sometimes my thoughts get away from me. I went to a state university and I do feel inferior. And though I may claim to speak for all the dispossessed, and lonely, and forgotten—all the others who never made the elite—I speak, really, only for myself. What concern have I for others? What have they ever done for me? Just accept me, somehow, in your group, and I will be your slave for life. I have, you see, a little cash, a little money that I would not be unwilling to share.
But no no, you must forgive me; I see that you are getting angry again. I really did not wish to offend you. It just slipped out, as it were. I am, my friends, so out of practice. I have not spoken to anyone for so long. You must forgive me.
***
Not that I wish to beat a dead horse—I could not beat anyone really even if I tried; I am, after all, so frail and weak now—but nonetheless the questions do gnaw at me. Why was I left out? Why was I excluded from the elite? Was it my receding hairline? My effeminate voice? My snubbed nose?
“There you go again,” you say, “still harping on the same issues, now beating not one but a stableful of horses. You were left out because you were too stupid, because you did not cut the mustard; because you struck others, as you strike us, as unstable, mad. But finally, when it comes down to it, we do not care why you were left out. It is your own private problem; even raising it is in bad taste.”
Thank you, my friends, for your honesty, pierce me though it may. Forthrightness is something that I have always admired in you, even tried to emulate. But one more question, my fri
ends, or perhaps two. Not about myself this time, for that is in bad taste, but about society. The laws of society are so much more impersonal, even scientific. To take, therefore, a societal law at random. Why, my friends, must society assume—no, presume—the intelligence of people from certain schools, and put that, of others, always to the test?
“More nonsense,” you say, “cryptic utterances. More ravings of a madman.”
But let me explain, my friends, let me explain. Do you not, my friends, presume the intelligence of my neighbor, the Harvard graduate, and ask me repeatedly to prove mine? If my Harvard colleague works at a job that is, shall we say, intellectually undemanding, you say, “He chooses to.” But if I work at the same job, you note, “He couldn’t but work there, he had no choice. It was the only thing that, given his intelligence, he could find.”
“But I judge a man by his ability,” you will retort. “Hell, I’ve known a lot of stupid people from Harvard.”
But of course, my friends, how well, how poetically you put it. And if you find my Harvard colleague stupid, don’t you add, at least mentally, at least silently: “I wonder how he got accepted there; it must have been a mistake.” Don’t you, my friends, presume that the Harvard norm is intelligence and don’t you seek reasons, extenuating circumstances, to explain, to justify—mostly to yourself—any seeming deviations from the norm?
“But suppose I do,” you say, a bit more excitedly, a bit more angrily now, “suppose, for the sake of argument, that I do presume the intelligence of the Harvard man? Would not I, as a rule, be right? Harvard is the archetype of our meritocracy, our way of separating the wheat from the chaff. The archetype may be imperfect, and we may not always choose the most intelligent—or we may not even know what intelligence is to begin with, in fact we may have it all wrong—but the archetype is something. And certainly it is better than anything you can come up with.”
But I have my doubts, my friends, my several doubts. I am like Thomas (one of the twelve, called Did’-y-mus) a skeptic. I maintain that the differences between the Harvard representative and the others are minimal. Fortuities, circumstances, accidents of birth: one had the opportunities, the parents, the counselors, the other did not. But then again, my friends, what am I talking about? What do I care about others? My concern is not societal laws, but myself, only me. And besides, what is in a name? Nothing! And even if there were something, why should I let that obsess me? What should I care what others think—about schools, or meritocracies, or about anything else?
“Precisely,” you say, “precisely. You keep harping on the same tedious points because you cannot get them out of your system. For all your postures, your alleged disclaimers, you probably believe, no, you do believe, more in names, in elites, than all of us put together.”
Of course, my friends, you are right. I do believe in names—in a name, everything! Include me in your choice group, give me a T-shirt, a decal, and I will—I have said it once, I will say it again—be your slave for life.
But then again, my friends, will I? Perhaps I say the above only for show, for dramatic effect. Though I beg for membership in your club, perhaps I am only rehearsing, putting on airs. For, when you think about it, what good would it do? With your praise and applause, I might learn to shed the old skin and claim, like Augustine, to be a new man. But I would only be fooling myself, wouldn’t I? Because, my friends—and this is the real point—if I really had the ability, if I really cut the mustard, I could do it even without your club, without you, without any of you. My genius would come out—somehow. Fortuities, accidents, circumstances of birth: I would overcome them all.
The latter are, of course, not completely irrelevant. If they are so stacked against you that you die, for example, an infant death, then you will, obviously, never get anyplace. But if the fortuities and circumstances are within reason—within limits—then a genius will manifest himself, regardless of others. It is a law of nature; it cannot be denied.
And that, my friends, is my torment, my beastly burden. The knowledge that even if I were admitted to the world’s choicest group, I would—even with all my effort—be, at best, only an ordinary member. No, perhaps even a good member, even a very good one, but—and this is the key—never the exceptional one. Not Marx, not Einstein, not Shakespeare. Not even an exceptional professor who writes to newspapers. Finally, in the ways that matter most, only an average and mediocre man. Nothing.
***
An average and mediocre man. Nothing.
An average and mediocre man. Nothing.
An average and mediocre man …
But the question remains, my friends, it remains. An average and mediocre man in this society, just what does he do? All this success and publicizing of success around him. What exactly does he do?
You do not care, my friends, I know you do not. But hear me out—do hear me out. Your lives are full, are happy. You are part of the elites. You go to Venice, you go to Chez Panisse and have your Merlot or Pinot Noir. But if you do not want a revolution in your hands—chaos, chaos—should not something be done?
I am an average and mediocre man. What should such a man—what should I—do?
Do I join the ranks of the worshippers, those who praise the successful ones? Do I say, like Eliot’s Prufrock, that I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be? That my role is to show up at the parade, to applaud, to applaud? To “swell a progress”?
Do I seethe in resentment, in rage, perhaps even plotting my “revenge”?
Do I retreat to a monastery and hide myself?
Do I resign myself to the facts, the cold facts, in front of me? Learn to keep a stiff upper lip? (And so on.)
Just what, my friends, just what do I do?
You do not care, my friends, I know you do not. But is it not in your self-interest to care? Revolution, chaos, is that what you want?
I have an idea, my friends, just an idea. I lie in bed, I think of these ideas. I live in my mouse hole, I think of these things. My idea, my friends, it is this. What if a law is passed that limits the publicizing of success? Or better yet, a law that limits success itself? Oh I admit, my friends, that the law would hurt a few. The gifted, the talented, the lucky—all those who, for some reason or other, have successes up their sleeve. But what about the rest, my friends, what about the rest? With the new law—the silence, the curfew on successes—the rest, the majority, would no longer feel so small or little. Or at least not to the same extent. So some would be hurt by the new law but many would be benefited—and we have to think, you know, of the greatest good for the greatest number. Yes yes, my friends, the greatest good for the greatest number, isn’t that the key?
The many might realize at first that they were living with a lie, that those with successes up their sleeves, the gifted, were being muzzled, that their spirit was being broken. But what of their own spirit? What of their own spirit that had always been crushed, humiliated? And with time, you know, the passing of generations, even the “lieness” might disappear. Through atrophy, through disuse, the talents of the gifted might in fact become dead.
Yes yes, my friends, I am convinced that this is the answer. The only answer!
I see, my friends, that you are upset. “He wants to get rid of success,” you say. “The madman wants to get rid of success. Is there no end to his ravings? Success is a good thing, but he wants to end it. He wants to pass a law, an actual law, to limit it. Does he think that it is actually possible? Does he think that it is good, actually good?”
It is good, my friends, of that I am convinced. All this success and this publicizing of success around a person. It makes people go mad. It creates new madmen every day.
But can it really be done, my friends, that is another matter. There are other average and mediocre people in the world. But will they join me in the push for this new law, really join me? Perverse beings that they are, they may (like me?) be more elitist than the elite themselves! “We need the exclusive clubs,” they might say. “We need somet
hing to look up to, to strive for.” Like the proletariat, they may, at times, be more capitalistic than the capitalists themselves (something Marx did not see). They do not want to get rid of management, you see, only to replace it with a better one. Or to make themselves the management.
No no, my friends, it will not be easy to bring about the new law. You will object; the masses might object as well.
But I have another idea, my friends. I lie in my mouse hole, I think of these things. I think, I think. If the success-limiting law is too extreme, is not another law—a compromise—possible? Yes yes, if the law is too extreme—anathema to the gifted, unacceptable to the ungifted or the forgotten—then we could, you know, choose a middle ground. We could be a bit more lenient, we could allow some successes. We could do it fair and square, not the way they do things in Russia, or in China. No no, we could do it by the lottery! The lottery would be held periodically, every year or so. Everyone would be allowed to enter, everyone would be allowed to participate, but—and this is the key—only a few people in each profession (law, literature, science, economics, you name it) would be chosen. Only they would be allowed to pursue success and, if successful, to reveal their successes. We wouldn’t abolish the success stories, even the successes, but we would, at the least, limit them.
And something, you know, is better than nothing. We do need to limit—that, if nothing else.