Dear Diary: The Wharton Dilemma
Although I had paid only the most glancing attention to the Massachusetts senatorial election, I can already see that I’ll be griping about politics for a while. Something about the Democratic Party fiasco popped a very fizzy cork.
When did it come to be said of Edith Wharton that she was too fashionable for Boston, and too intellectual for New York? Fashion and intellect having been the antipodal attributes of ladies in those times. The problem was complicated, I think, by Wharton’s rather severe physiognomy. She wasn’t ugly, but she was no pretty slip of a girl, either — ever. She grew more handsome as she got older, really; and by the time she was older she was a terror to younger women. Rich, published, admired by men of all ages and persuasions, thoroughly sophisticated, addicted to motor-cars, and capable of the most wonderful put-downs, Wharton was beyond the fashion-intellect divide once she settled in Paris (that, too!). She was Edith Wharton. A party of one.
That’s what I’ve been feeling like, lately. I’m too smart for the conservatives but too gracious for the progressives. I get along very well with conservatives, as long as we don’t talk about anything important, but progressives, notwithstanding the fact that I agree with them on everything that’s important, give me a rash. Meanwhile, I am a traitor to my class. (So was FDR, but let’s not be grandiose.)
Have you heard that story about Wharton in the Berkshires? She was visiting a neighboring monstrosity, and the hostess drew her into a furiously overly-upholstered chamber. “I call this the “French” room,” purred the chatelaine naively. “But my dear,” replied Wharton, feigning confusion (or perhaps not), “why?”
That was the only thing that I could think of to say when the best that the Massachusetts Democrats presented Martha Coakley and said, “We think of her as a Kennedy.” Who are these uncouth Democrats? They can’t hold a fork, they hardly know how to shake hands while looking you in the eye, and they say “No problem” instead of “You’re welcome.” In short: their manners are either ill-considered or rustic. Why are they the people who believe in all the right causes?
I’ve wondered about this all my life. I grew up in a town of virtual lobotomees, a village that still rivals anywhere in Texas in passion for sports talk. Why did they have all the money? Why does having a brain actually prevent the acquisition of wealth? Oh, I know the answer to that one, too.
People who make a lot of money are usually very smart indeed, but in a highly focused way that no genuinely intelligent person would acknowledge. My code word for Wall Street brilliance is “shrewd.” I believe that “shrewd” used to be a coded insult directed at Jews, which I mention because I don’t mean it that way myself. The town I grew up in, where nobody would sell a house to a Jew (in those days), was full of very shrewd people. The shrewd person is preternaturally gifted at looking out for Number One. You can’t say anything against it, except that it’s despicable, and that it gives intelligence a bad name.
People who believe in good causes fall into two groups. The first group is made up of the intelligent siblings of shrewd people. Intense loathing for shrewdness of any kind often tempts these good folk into looking out for everyone but Number One, which — paradoxically? — is not only not shrewd but not intelligent, either. Running away from your trust fund to join a commune in Asia, only to discover an immitigable aversion to dirty fingernails, isn’t, in the end, very bright. Eventually, these people come to terms with their lot, but their guilt is oppressive and their intelligence sicklied o’er.
The other group consists of meritocrats. It would be nice if meritocrats always said “thank you” to the social institutions that lifted them out of their native narrow confines, but very few do. Most are determined to insist that, compared to the siblings of the shrewd, the latter enjoy no serious advantages. A young man who plows through Harvard on a much-needed scholarship may fancy himself not only smarter but better-endowed than the roommate who, although equally bright, descends from generations of Yard Men. If the roommate is a shrewd operator, this is true. But the sibling of a shrewd operator will know a lot more than the meritocrat about putting people at ease and making them proud of what they do, whether they’re deans or dishwashers. Meritocrats have an unfortunate knack of making everyone feel miserable — or at least shabby — about everything.
There you have it, and the solution is obvious. We must all move to Paris.