Just Some Guy on a Yacht

It has been some time since I last updated this blog because I have actually been out on the road a lot in the last few days. My girlfriend's family and I made a trip down to the Lake of the Ozarks to spend some time on a yacht that belongs to a family friend of theirs. That's right, I am on a yacht.

What's so amazing about this experience isn't just the fact that I'm on a yacht and spend my days swimming, hiking, and cruising the lake all day. That's all great, but what is really amazing is the fact that I get to take a look, however briefly, into a completely different world than my own. See, I am by no stretch of the imagination a wealthy person. My parents have one house, three pretty standard cars, and we don't indulge in too much. I am a soon-to-be graduate student. So this yacht may be the only yacht I am ever on unless I decide to do an ethnography on wealthy trust-fund kids on residential lakes.

This is a world governed by a strange mix of concealed and present wealth. It is obviously present because everywhere along this lake there are massive homes with fake palm trees sitting outside and a mega-yacht followed by kids spinning around on wave-runners. And they must see us on the yacht and just simply accept that we are the kind of people who own a yacht. But the wealth is concealed in so far as its unclear how these people came to achieve their material status. These boats dont say "Investment Banker" or "Trust Fund" or even "Heroine Dealer." All wealth is materially present and rated based upon not its legitimacy, but by its presentation in toys and the ability to play.

Wealth is transfered to other goods, and the quality of those goods earns you esteem and presence on the lake. But you need not be the wealthiest of all lake residents to reap great benefits. Simply renting a dock from a resort comes with pool access and fitness center privileges. There's a fairly high threshold, but once you get over that threshold, and however you chose to do so, you become a part of the material exchange on the lake.

All this is not to be a normative judgement on people who own yachts or have lake houses. I am not of the opinion that wealth translates to an immediate disdain for the non-wealthy and a massive amount of greediness. Clearly that is not the case. Instead, I make these observations precisely because it is so easy to lose the human narratives amidst all the material display. With current talk of the dept ceiling debate, I see many people on the left demonizing the wealthy as a group. Make no mistake, I think an end to the Bush era tax cuts is imperative and I am deeply disappointed with Obama for having extended them at all. But there's a very big difference between thinking that tax structures must change and demonizing people who have achieved material well-being.

I believe that the wealthy are only wealthy because of the society in which they exist has allowed them to be so. Most of them worked hard and achieved greatly, but fundamentally we all extract from this country to one degree or another. And there are many, many more people who are excluded from this kind of life not because they are "lazy, social welfare draining" but because there are many, complex factors that have merged and worked upon these individuals. I am horrified when I hear people blame the poor for their fortunes, and I am disappointed when people demonize the wealthy. Nothing is simple, and the current talk of different socio-economic groups plays out as though it were.

Of course, its not easy to talk about this and not remember the crippling poverty that exists everywhere. And its hard to not look around here and think that there are people looking for a meal right now with no degree of certainty that they will find it. And in this debt ceiling debate I know that there are many wealthy people who have a strong hold of the discourse while the future of the economy hangs in the balance. Still, it helps no one to sit around and think that the rich guy on his Ozarks yacht is plotting against the poor. It just makes me feel lame because I'm lucky if I can afford new shoes.