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GAZETTE

         I remember learning, in my school days, about the large and faraway country of India and that it had a caste system, which was a system of dividing people into classes.  We learned that people of India were born into the various classes, stayed there for their entire lives, and that's just how it was.  Those born into the lower class were called the untouchables and it was impossible to climb out of it.  Those born into the upper class were privileged simply because they were born into privilege.

         I remember learning, in my school days, about the feudal system in the Middle Ages.  It seemed a very cold and dark time to me.  We learned there was the upper class of kings and lords and the lower class of peasants or serfs.  Those in the upper class had freedom and power.  Those in the lower class worked the land and were in some ways like slaves who could occasionally work themselves to freedom.

         I remember learning, in my school days, about the societies in Phoenicia, Babylon, Greece, Egypt.  There were classes of people in those ancient places, classes ranked from high to low.  They were vertical classes, not horizontal.  In other words, the classes were above and below each other like rungs on a ladder.  They were not next to each other like peas in a pod.

         It was all very foreign to a little girl who was living in modern times in the United States of America -- in the Midwest, actually, where things were exceptionally good and normal -- attending school like all the other kids, and where we were required to memorize a speech that said we were a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

         In speaking these words at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln obviously did not mean that people are created equal in talents, beauty, brains, health, wealth, material goods, not even equal spiritual goods.    He meant that people are created with equal dignity.  Poor people are equal in dignity to rich people.  The butcher is equal in dignity to the university professor.  Men are equal in dignity to women, and children trump them all.  The old and frail are equal in dignity to the young athletes.  People of different races and creeds are equal in dignity.  That's what Lincoln meant.

         In my school days I also had to memorize the opening paragraphs to the Declaration of Independence.   "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."  And so as time went by, I knew how lucky I was to be born in America where the only classes we spoke of were classes like the 1st grade and the 5th grade and the 11th grade, for example.

         I'm not sure exactly when it became part of the vernacular here in the USA, but people running the nation and the networks in recent times have been putting us into classes.  There are now in the USA three classes of people:  the Upper Class, the Middle Class, and the Lower Class.  Within the Middle Class they speak further of two sub-classes:  Upper Middle Class and Lower Middle Class.

         Surely you, too, have heard this new kind of speech.  The different classes in this new vernacular are divided according to the amount of money people make and the taxes they will pay or not pay.  The most populated group, the one with the most rungs on the ladder, is the Middle Class, which is why it is further divided.  Although we are told the "Middle Class" is shrinking, I suspect most of us identify with that middle expanse of rungs on the ladder.

         You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why the new speech has seeped into our nation.  It's because words mean something.  Words change our way of thinking.  Words change our lives, which is why some people try to change the definition of them.

         If we've now got classes of people in our nation, we've got a division in our country that didn't exist before.  I believe it's related to divide and conquer.  "Classes" of people come to see each other differently --  not simply as human beings with equal dignity who are all trying to do their best during their lifetime in their particular circumstance, but as enemies.  It's what you call class warfare.  The word "class" confers a differently perceived dignity on people.  Perception becomes reality.

         Dividing people into classes steals human dignity from all rungs on the ladder.  When dignity decreases, disposal becomes easier.  It becomes easier, even lawful, to dispose of unborn children, mentally handicapped people, the old and the frail, the weak of mind or body, also those who hold the "wrong" thoughts and beliefs.

         In my school days, people didn't talk of classes in America.  There were different groups and occupations, of course, with different struggles and incomes, but there were not different classes.  We knew that we didn't have the same capacities and interests.  We didn't have the same religion or the same ancestries.  We didn't have the same thoughts and opinions, but the fact remained that we all had equal dignity and, therefore, the country was more civilized.

         Did anyone notice when it began to change?

November 2012

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