I mean, if they really need to feel
inferior to somebody, I can think of plenty of people they are
inferior to- but not to English toffs.
I had this thought after reading the
following in an article about David Samson, the mega-fixer lawyer at
the top echelon of the State of New Jersey's ruling class, boss of a
powerful law firm that arranges state contracts for its clients, and
who was placed at the head of the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey by Republican Governor Chris Christie (to whom Samson is a key henchman). Samson has now been dragged into the
news (and into daylight from the shadows where his ilk usually operate) by vengeful closing of the traffic lanes from Fort Lee, NJ onto the
George Washington bridge for four days in early September to punish
the Democratic mayor of that town for failing to endorse Christie for
reelection last year. Here's the passage that prompted the thought,
about Samson's wife:
“Mr. Samson’s wife, Joanna Dunn
Samson, is a former deputy commissioner of the New Jersey Department
of Environmental Protection. They have a condominium not far from his
firm’s main office, in West Orange, N.J., and a larger weekend home
in Litchfield County, in Connecticut, where Ms. Samson has ridden
horses with a local fox hunting club.” [1]
Fox hunting! Now where does that
come from? It's hardly an indigenous American custom.
You see this a lot if you check out the
“Style” section of the New York Times, for example (which
is sort of a house organ for the American bourgeoisie, among its
other functions), fox hunting, obsession with “royalty” and
“titles,” antiquing, concern with one's “lineage,” and
generally aping the mannerisms and folkways of the British upper
classes, especially “royalty.”
In addition to an inferiority complex,
perhaps they envy the English elite for not having to affect a common
man, faux populism, All Men Are Created Equal facade.
Or maybe we should see it as merely an
amusing affectation, a way of establishing one's social supremacy,
hunting foxes on horseback. I would also observe that such
British-centric affectations seems to be a phenomenon on the East
Coast of the U.S., where old money traces itself back to the English
landed gentry who founded the United States. Do you think there's
foxhunting in Los Angeles, or Chicago? No, there are no foxes, but if
there were, would they dress up in those funny costumes and hunt
them? I doubt it.
Speaking of Anglo inferiority
complexes, here's one that was simultaneously an inferiority AND
superiority complex- the relationship to “the Jews.” I think the
Anglo elite- indeed the elites of many European nations besides- felt
threatened by “Jews” because they feared what they perceived to
be their intelligence (valuing intellectual accomplishment is indeed
common among Jews) and skill at making money. (Not a canard, and
certainly not a put-down. Who doesn't wish they were good at amassing
wealth? Of course the truth here is a matter of percentages-
we could say a greater percentage of Jews are financially
successful, or intellectually accomplished, than other groups. I
think that is true, and something that Jewish people take pride in
among themselves, but regard as anti-Semitic if a gentile says
it. Certainly anti-Semites resent and hate Jews for it- but why
should the envy of loathsome bigots prevent the rest of us from being
able to acknowledge an aspect of reality, and try to explain and
understand it? It depends on the spirit and intent of the observation
whether it is anti-Semitic or not.)
1] “As Inquiry Widens, Port Authority Chief May Lose His Low Profile,” New York
Times, January 15, 2014. Notice that this gratuitous fact- of
interest to a certain social set- was tossed into an article about a
political scandal to which it would seem to be irrelevant. And they
give the wife's middle name, which is a family name, another marker
of social connections for those in the know. In terms of useful
information, there are details of Samson's dirty deals and
power-connections over the years, which provides a case study in the
institutionalized corruption of the U.S. socio-economic political
system.
