Lifestyles of the Rich and Morally Ambiguous

I had a busy weekend. There was a two-day tournament at the course Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, plus I managed to pick-up an early morning loop today. I spent a lot of time with the rich and the powerful.

Time and time again, I learn the lesson that the privileged members of society are not all that different from regular folk. While wealth can open doors and provide a means to improving a person’s character, it is equally capable of eroding virtue and masking the innate ugliness of human nature. Undesirable characteristics fade into the background when covered in a nice suit or fine dress. Society treats the peccadilloes of the affluent with kiddie gloves, idiosyncrasies are dismissed as mere eccentricity.

The most successful and publicly righteous people can be the most hypocritical and ironic. (See: Bill McGuire) The rich are not any more hypocritical than the poor, but their wealth illuminates and highlights some of their inherent internal contradictions. Some very powerful individuals show contempt for the rules and feel no shame about it. Their money protects them, and they expect to be handled differently.

Many of these “grey-area dwellers” would not hesitate to correct a wayward member of the “great unwashed.” Caddies, for example, have been reprimanded for such atrocities as calling members by their first names, (at the member’s request no less) and for selling retrieved golf balls to members (“it’s stealing club property”). Yet it would be completely unacceptable for any person of a (perceived) lower status to scold socially deviant behavior of a CEO or any other member of the bourgeois.

This post was not meant to be a Marxist populist rant. As usual, it is the 1% that gives the other 99% a bad name. It is the few bad apples who allow social constructs to define right and wrong, thereby marginalizing morality. It is utterly frustrating to see those who seem to have it all act as if they are entitled to live by different standards, and be powerless to say anything about it.

Sure, in theory I could say something. After all I am physically capable of speech. But anything I could possibly say/do would not only be utterly ineffective, it would likely cost me my job, and would be hypocritical on my part. I’m neither entirely worthy of, nor ready to wear the Moral Police badge.

Instead, I’m just going to post this rant and watch the revolution on TV.