My rich kid friend used to insist that they were. Not him, he was rich relative to me. He was talking about “Old Money” rich, or at least 2nd generation rich. The very rich, like the Kennedys and the DuPonts, etc. Bill Gates rich doesn’t count, you have to be born with it.
How so? Well, lookit the facts. Rich people tend to;
Live longer,
Be smarter, healthier, more powerful, and more attractive.
Give their kids weird names, and get away with it. (Imma Hogg, Shanda Lear)
Be able to have a peon killed, and not be prosecuted. That guy that recently was brought back from Mexico was a fool, or he’d have gotten away.
Basically, he (my buddy) said the rich really are our betters, and I really can’t show where he’s wrong.
Whaddya think? Do I have to define “better”?
Peace,
mangeorge
Putting it bluntly I think your friends theory is a whole lot of crap.
I think that the reason they are percieved as smarter is because they have the means to go and educate themselves in the best of schools from the beginning.
Healthier? Well maybe thats because they can afford a personal trainer, or maybe there money provides them with the ability to be able to eat the best of foods. Besides, dont a lot of rich kids end up with habits and in therapy just like there not so rich counterparts?
Powerful? I cant comment on this one really.
More Attractive? While I dont want to generalize but considering your friend has generalized a great deal heres one from me. The reson that rich people may appear more attractive then others is because they can afford better clothes, hairdressers, make up, etc etc.
The fact that the guy your friend is talking about, should show to him that rich people cant get away with everything and anything and that he is talking out of his ass.
So no IMHO I dont think the rich people are any better then the not so rich people.
This is a bunch of crap, unless you finesse “better”.
Live longer
- Maybe when compared to everyone, but much less so when compared to the insured middle class.
Be smarter,
-
Not at all my experience, many rich KIDS I know value education and are less motivated than others, or even the person who made the family rich in the first place
-
healthier
Similar to living longer, excluding abuse of drugs and stimulants which the rich can affford more easily -
more powerful
My “better” doesn’t include this, but it’s true -
and more attractive
Haven’t really found this to be true, beyond superficial accesories.
Give their kids weird names, and get away with it. (Imma Hogg, Shanda Lear)
- Know a lot of hippie babies with names like Stardust. Anecdotally, a lot of (possibly) “ethnic” names and spellings sound weird to my ear but are commonplace.
Be able to have a peon killed, and not be prosecuted. That guy that recently was brought back from Mexico was a fool, or he’d have gotten away.
- A lot of folks from all walks of life get away with injustices. This is probably true to a limited extent. It is certainly true for lesser evils like drug possession, etc.
The very rich are richer than you and me. If you have access to health insurance, etc., they are not that much better off.
Well, Delly, you say they are not better, then go on to say why they are. You offer excuses.
Him and I were actually talking about only those who are generally referred to as “old money”. There are people in this country who have never been inside a McDonalds, or any similar totem of the american way of life.
I’m talking about people who sometimes, and in some ways, are very different. And they breed very carefully.
I don’t like the idea, but I’m afraid there might some truth to the premise of this question.
Give me the NEW rich… THEY accomplish things for themselves… I tend to think “old money” families have a great ancestor… who probably wouldn’t care to much for his/her progeny.
I can’t say that they are actually better, but it certainly seems that way, doesn’t it? I personally do not feel that I am as good as they are (when I am close enough to observe them, say while watching the Travel Channel:) ). It’s one of my personal mental problems, I know, but I bet it’s widespread.
I find that the old rich, at their best, have a pace of life and a lack or worry that is desirable.
On the other hand I know not-so-rich who have this and rich who are idiots.
There is no old money in the USA. They’re all mere newcomer scum. Old money never left the Old Country.
I may be poor but I am “rich” in personality! <g>
I think that there is always going to be people two rungs above you on the ladder of financial sucess and security and two rungs below you. No one is seen better. Sure the old rich appear to have more because they are better able to afford more then some but that doesn’t mean they have better “class”
To say someone is “better” than another is to assume there is some intrinsic trait(s) within a person that places their value over another’s value. Who determines what those intrinsic values are? The rich? If so, why? Also, if this “better intrinsic value” is assumed as a given, then one is saying that intrinsic value is determined by something extrinsic, specifically money–how can something extrinsic and tangible have a direct correlation on what is intrinsic and intangible? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I don’t buy your friend’s theory.
Now, if you say that people with money have more opportunities, and perhaps even more motivation to make themselve “better”, I might agree. But even this is a gross generalization.
I live in an affluent part of New England where Old Money is considered about as old as the Rockefellers and Carnegies. It is my experience that people who do not have to worry about paying a bill on time, or never have to open the hood to their car are missing as much as people who don’t want to have to do those things. Now my soon-to-be-wife and I both make a very decent wage, our combined incomes are pretty good by today’s standards. However, I’d be damned if I am not as humble as the next guy. I’ve been down the road of having crediters call and all that, I was in college for 8 years, Paid my own way. Lived in nasty appartments (except whilst at Oxford) and I once drove a Pinto named George.
I knew that my education was an investment into my future life. I am very ahppy I have experienced the other side of the tracts. It makes me appreciate what I have now.
The OP’s assertions are groundless in any true facts and are mainly anecdotal references to a higher-class. Alduous Huxley had similar views, then again he extrapolated on them and wrote a book with a tangental theme. Maybe you have heard of it. A brave New World? I personally don’t buy the Alpha and Delta theory the OP purporting, but then again, I’m not a very materialistic person. And I put much more value in someones ability to show me who they are personality wise, I could care less if they drove up in an Asten Martin.
I like your friends theory. He can come work for me anytime. It sounds like he’s the kind of guy you can really abuse and get away with it with slim justification that “I’m rich, so I can treat you poorly”.
:rolleyes:
How is Rap like Porn? Both are better with the sound turned off.
Rich people aren’t better than the rest - they just have more money.
mangeorge, no I didnt give you reasons as to why they are better. I gave you reasons as to why they might be percieved to be better then the not so rich.
There is a difference.
Rich people simply have access to more money and sometimes they display better talent at acquiring it as well. I have seen so many helpless rich people in my life that couldn’t last a day without a hot meal that to call (or perceive) them as being “better” is an insult to most of humanity.
Lisa: The rich are different from us.
Marge: Yes. They’re better.
I can’t believe you people haven’t yet used a Simpsons quote! Sheesh!
According to the Surgeon General, the greatest determinate of ill health and early death is poverty.
i am an out of state student who attends school in baltimore but lives in roanoke virginia. while choosing places to stay at, i chose to stay with relatives in a rather low income section of baltimore. my friends for the most part are pretty wealthy and have no idea how much better financial wise and class wise i am than them but yet when they drive me home and see where i live while staying in baltimore they feel the need to make comments such as “I’m not drivin your ass to the ghetto!” or during prom the common joke was “The limo pulls out, there’s a drive-by and we all die…in the ghetto.”
a few weeks ago i took some of them down to my house in roanoke and once they saw it they were completely mistified and surprised...they saw where i chose to live in baltimore, thought that was how i actually lived and decided to make demeaning comments (they always treated me as part of the group regardless) yet when the see where i've grown up, the house that we own in roanoke they shut up and never said a damn thing.
ok got that out of the way just thought it was ironic
as for the op topic no they are not better than the rest…not nearly i have met upper and lower class people and find that there are some that are better and some that are just pure waste of human flesh because they think they are better than the rest of us…
sorry just got new glasses so i’m a bit disorientated and dizzy, so if that didn’t make sense i’ll fix it later…
I never said I percieved them as being better. I dont.
I just think some people do.
Just to clarify.
Welcome aboard(s), Judeluv3!
It sounds like you need some new friends.