The New York Times has a headline and blurb on its home page that goes a little bit like this:
Opening Day for Shoppers Shows Divide
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORDWhen stores open for Black Friday sales late Thursday night, budget-minded shoppers will be racing for bargains while the rich mostly will not be bothering to leave home.
Oh–my–God. Omigod. So…the bargain hunters will be hunting for bargains Friday, and those not hunting for bargains will not be hunting for bargains? Or is it that all the budget-minded people are continuing to be budget-minded and all the not-budget-minded people are continuing to not be budget-minded? Or is it that all–or most–or just some but a lot–of the budget-minded people will race for the bargains?
Since there are many ways to group people into two more-or-less mutually exclusive sets, the world is full of “divides.” The members of one half of a divide don’t necessarily take up arms against members of the other half or even necessarily sulk about their respective statuses as they enact their different divide-specific roles. Of course, some persons do resent others who fare better than themselves economically, regardless of merits and causes; and some persons do look down on others who fare worse than themselves economically, regardless of merits and causes. This is why Marx and similar conceptually constipated agitators are able to write their unintelligible tripe and get people to listen to them, including many lower-tier intellectuals also eager to foster counterproductive social resentments.
That some persons are better off than others is never per se “news.” Nevertheless, whenever the persons who are better off do something that the persons less well off would be unlikely to do, perhaps ride in limos or lear jets, it seems that there’s ample warrant for some reporter to yamble about the arrival of yet another moldy tranche of proof of The Great Divide.
But is it true? Are the bargain-hunters really not taking limos to the 99-cent stores? Let’s investigate this….
Oh geez, I almost forgot. This is Thanksgiving, so let us give thanks. Thank you, New York Times, for nothing.
