dictionary.com quoth:
informal. elegance, grace, or dignity, as in dress and behavior [emphasis mine]: he may be a slob, but his brother has real class.
just so i’m clear: i don’t mean socio-economic class or any of that noblesse oblige-derived nonsense about the well-to-do having it. i attended a prep school and i know full well that coming from money is meaningless WRT how someone conducts him or her self: i’ve known too many people who did from money to buy into that particular myth. i’ve similarly known people who were dirt poor growing up and conduct themselves with class, too.
class is beautifully egalitarian: all people are as likely to possess it or lack it, and it’s just as accessible to all.
for some time, i’ve held the opinion that class is becoming an endangered species—so much so that i feared for its survival. i thought the evidence to be so overwhelming as for this conclusion to be pretty much self-evident, but on the off chance that evidence is required, i cite the following:
1. we all joke about road rage, and certainly, i’ve witnessed more than a few examples here or there myself just driving. there’s a fascination—an obsession, perhaps—with feeling that when wronged, the kid gloves can and should come off. the concept of a proportional response or indeed even of simply ignoring a provocation appears to be as anachronistic as challenging someone to a duel. and heaven knows the latter option, while perhaps barbaric by some contemporary standards, at least possesses some underlying concept of dignity.
2. a little while ago, a state legislator in alabama physically struck another legislator, evidently during particularly heated debate. in the federal congress, it’s customary to refer to fellow legislators by the title “distinguished gentleman”—where is the distinction in this, i ask? while most of us know that we shouldn’t look to politicians for role models, one would think that their office would lead them to better conduct than this.
3. eilan blogged the other day about a discipline technique for children with which someone acquainted her: spitting. in the child’s face. how is it not part of someone’s innate understanding that spitting is completely unacceptable behavior, esp spitting in the face of a child—one’s own child? what happened during this person’s childhood that somehow, this message—that even a child should know—simply wasn’t transmitted?
4. the now-former senior minister at my church related to me a story, something he witnessed during his vacation at a resort. a family with young children was at the hotel pool and the father was having a dispute with a hotel employee—i believe the issue revolved around inappropriate behavior by the family’s children. the exchange become progressively more heated, and finally, the father told the hotel employee that he was going to leave, and at night, when no one was there, he was going to return and defecate in the pool. when the minister related this to me, i was stunned. how it’s possible for a (theoretically fully) grown man to say such a thing is something i will never understand, nor do i ever wish to understand it. you can’t even call it crass—it’s so far beyond the most outrageous and broad understanding of the word as to warrant something else. even in jest, it’s so mind-bogglingly offensive as that even now, around a year after i was told the story, i’m still disgusted by it. even if the hotel employee was in the wrong—and based on the minister’s recollection, he absolutely was not—i cannot conceive of someone abdicating all sense of appropriate behavior and wanting to emulate the behavior of an animal.
i could go on and on, but i think that would simply bore you—or worse, disgust/enrage you. heaven knows it does me.
what’s happened in society that class has been replaced by—well, whatever the heck it is we have now? i see stories like these now & again and for a second or two, i really have to wonder if the folks who think that the end times are already here aren’t right. sanity generally returns pretty quickly but sometimes…
you may have noticed my use of the past tense: i had a fear that class is in danger of becoming extinct at the beginning. you see, i had something of a revelation.
i realized that perhaps, these aren’t problems but rather opportunities. it’s said that in the past, hindu monks would periodically capture birds and cage them, leaving the cages on well-traveled roads so that passing travelers could find and free the birds, thereby affording the traveler the opportunity improve his or her karma.
perhaps that’s what these things represent? maybe when we see such obvious breaches of good taste, we should see them as opportunities to demonstrate proper behavior? certainly, there are tons of examples of what isn’t, after all.
i’m not laboring under any delusions of being some kind of exemplar of class myself: after all, i know me, and i know better than to think such a thing. my own behavior has fallen short of that standard, as has everyone’s, i imagine.
but certainly none of us have threatened to go use a pool as a toilet, despite the very tenuous, very superficial similarity of both structures containing water.
anyway: i don’t know about you, but i’m going to try renewing my dedication to having a little class. i invite you to do the same.
who knows, maybe together, we’ll see something better as a result?
so am i being preachy or is there some modicum of sense to this? both? neither? i’m still kinda rusty at the whole “write a serious blog entry” thing, after all, so maybe i’ve overshot the mark—perhaps i have. comment and let me know.
ed
