"Echeleganismo." I'm not sure there's an equivalent word in English, and that's really too bad. America is afflicted with this and we need a word for it.
I remember in my late twenties, meeting a college friend after a few years, at a party of old friends. Her career was taking off, and her husband's even more so. My career was taking longer to get going.
Conversation turned to US social issues. My former friend had been a social justice activist. Newly affluent, she laughed at her former self as having been idealistic due to youthful naivete.
I decided this was a friendship worth discarding, so I said, "Opinions change. Values don't. Your new money shows us you never had any values, did you."
So then it was time to get my coat and leave, and I made a point to apologize to our host.
I've never seen her again since, these 30 years, and that's fine by me. I hear she's on husband 4 at least, and rich as Croesus and twice as miserable.
I'm more affluent than I ever thought possible, due to (not despite) my increasing anarchism. I didn't make the rules of America's rotting society, but I do live here, and I haven't taken a vow of poverty. I've prospered by seeing opportunities in the rot. I don't take that as virtue.
Echeleganismo can kiss my ass while I take their money.
"Echeleganismo." I'm not sure there's an equivalent word in English, and that's really too bad. America is afflicted with this and we need a word for it.
I remember in my late twenties, meeting a college friend after a few years, at a party of old friends. Her career was taking off, and her husband's even more so. My career was taking longer to get going.
Conversation turned to US social issues. My former friend had been a social justice activist. Newly affluent, she laughed at her former self as having been idealistic due to youthful naivete.
I decided this was a friendship worth discarding, so I said, "Opinions change. Values don't. Your new money shows us you never had any values, did you."
So then it was time to get my coat and leave, and I made a point to apologize to our host.
I've never seen her again since, these 30 years, and that's fine by me. I hear she's on husband 4 at least, and rich as Croesus and twice as miserable.
I'm more affluent than I ever thought possible, due to (not despite) my increasing anarchism. I didn't make the rules of America's rotting society, but I do live here, and I haven't taken a vow of poverty. I've prospered by seeing opportunities in the rot. I don't take that as virtue.
Echeleganismo can kiss my ass while I take their money.