The Middling Classes

The middle classes, ultimately, must be abolished. I would venture to suggest, and beyond that, I would heartily support, an abolition of all such distinction, but I am not as naïve as to think that should be possible. Yet, do not confuse my conviction, as it were, for a fanciful Bolshevistic idea. Pray let me continue, gentle reader...

It might be suggested, by many dubious and charlatan-minded pseudo-scientists, that, all things are compelled to a middle state. And again, one might conceive such idiotic notions of centrifugal balance; as if the state of affairs are determined proper by extreme physical force, in order that none may arise above the one, and that the one may never dominate the many, so that we as a people, in general, may achieve a common and uniformly wealthy or otherwise prosperous existence.

Such existence is tantamount to banality. For inevitably it is established, by such scientific means, that there is a quantifiable and 'falsifiable' rule of order, as it were. To that effect, a certain dictatorship, or which ever sort of authoritarian principle, or any variation of such similar guiding judgments, which inevitably necessitates categorised thought and action gives way to those who champion these ridiculous and tedious notions of behaviour. And to these wretched and painful truths, we the people cry amass 'up' and 'down' accordingly - regardless of the affects our vain and contrived opinions might have in public utterance!

Do not mistake my intent, gentle reader… I have not the slightest intent to attack one’s sense of propriety and accord with the World in which we have all awkwardly and suddenly encountered it – I would do you little credit and even less of a service. But merely to consider that you and I, as it were, face this unfortunate state with such propriety as is internally deemed fit, and to that extent, are perpetually tied. You stand irrevocably tied to your relations and affairs as I am continually bound by out-dated and, as modern times have shown, unnecessary consideration of respective needs and abilities. We are all now supposedly to be held accountable, yet we have forgotten the joys and inconveniences of the requisite responsibility. To be held accountable is, in fact, a delusion. It is a plague upon the conscience; accountability is a convenient phrase for the inevitable shift of responsibility, and at that, it is a temporary state of mind – more so, one which is easily removed. If one were ever to realise, on a rainy and otherwise unpleasant day, that one felt no further obligation to one’s employ, one might disregard all connections thereto; in such a light, one is held responsible only for that which one has hitherto accomplished, and subsequently – and fundamentally – not accountable for any success or failure which, as we so often see, befalls common interaction.

But then, as so many needless writers have often idly questioned on such days… what is to be done? As accountability has been dismissed, and responsibility has been established as conditionally asserted, where do the fearful reader and the frightful writer take refuge? What of our natural need to perpetuate internal order? What of our desire to maintain calm in the creation of the tempest? What of our desire to artfully describe otherwise trite and useless fears? What is to be done with our ever-loathed fascination with resolution and completion?

So at first there was a mention to the middling sorts, was there not? What of them and their relation to this line of non-conformity? A reasonable question, though it is that even such speculation is lost upon them! As they sit in their comfortable middling homes, in sprawling and identical neighbourhoods, and as they enjoy their sprawling, identical intentions, and even when they scoff at our sprawling, identical ideas, they too consider what it is that they might to do. They too sense, despite their well-programmed conceptions of normalcy and propriety, that some one thing stands incorrect. Some one thing is out of sorts in their labours; some one thing is incongruent with their social obligations; some one thing is amiss in their inter-personal relations (or for that matter, desires); and most painfully of all, some many things are inappropriate when they look in the proverbial mirror – as so many have asked of them and as so many have been beheaded by such suggestion. It is, in all practicality, best to not bother with them, as they can not be saved in their current state of route boredom. They, as we, have no inert desire to be saved from themselves! Thus, they must disappear – and thus they so desire, my considerate reader…

Yet they have no desire to be free, as it were. Whilst they must disappear, it is in such a subtle degree of disguise as to prove useless, as they find refuge in slight deviation from the previous generation’s success. The middle class was born as such:

And it was, that the great and mighty immigrant arrived in such and such a year, and, having great love and care for his immigrant family, took up a profitable situation in the most decrepit and unfortunate of employment; that the immigrant’s joys, pains, and sufferings were relayed in the first tongue and translated to the now ‘native’ child in an other regard; that this ‘heir’ inevitably cleverly conceived of a vague notion of perpetuity, so as to provide for his progeny; and within a century’s time (or less) the great-grandson might too rub elbows with those who had, in similar generational fashion, once enslaved and degraded the forbearer of the coal miner, or the tailor, or the wine merchant, or the dung-mongerer, or the convict in chains. And thus have they arrived in the Suburban dream World! At last they too can purchase the treasures of old at new, reduced prices!

I am the last to discourage or disapprove of a man who, for which ever reason or by what ever means, wishes to disappear… far from it. Yet, I am hard pressed to approve of an intent to recreate within plasticated lines, and I should do better than to condone careless accumulation in the name of achievement that ‘would have otherwise been denied to them, elsewhere.’ To assert that one would have been denied some thing some where else is a defense of inequity – and to that effect a plea for unworthy recognition.

Thus, the middle class is to be completely disregarded. For they seek to ignore their cousins who are tied to poverty, and they greedily assert claim to accumulate the wealth of their new-found friends. The middle class is a peculiar and unfortunate station in life, for it is a singular caste which is comfortable in social relativity supported by mediocre economic sustenance – all the while utterly dependant upon some foolish hope for better times and more advantageous means. As much as it pains me to think it, the lower classes have far too many practical burdens, while the so-called upper classes have no care for either of the two lesser categories other than might be found in a moderately interesting political essay. Indeed, it is only from the middle that it was conceived of lesser and greater, and it was only from the middle that political right could ever be established by these means.

Ultimately, this has been a poor and incomplete discussion. Those who are troubled to read such utterances will (and should) dismiss them, even if eventually. I fear that I have taken a middle ground in this vein, and that I run the risk of having become that which I seek to remedy. Then, if any one thing should be done, it would wisely be that such dialogue and nonsensical thought be continued, and then debated, and then defeated, until there is no longer a lesser, middle, and upper ground of perspective. It should be well desired that only one perspective should be necessary, though never could it be established that any perspective would in turn dominate such conversation. Thus, I leave you with my apologies for this exercise in banality, and pray your forgiveness for its lack of certainty, which I know you so warmly desire.

Yours, etc…

Kitaev