Anya is considering, today, the matter of fairness. The fairness of incomes where they are not based in the education required to get to a certain position, but some other, should-be-unimportant factors. And, I would venture a guess, the fairness with which our respect hierarchies are built.

What I see is a gap between what the surrounding environment (whether that means society at large or the micro-societies in which our daily existence is spent) expects of us versus what we might believe to be ‘right’ or ‘desirable’. Considering what we are exposed to, our beloved TV window into reality, I’m understanding that society wants me to buy. There are sufficiently many things out there so that something, somehow, must attract me. Case in point, I have more than 5 feeds of gadget blogs and sites in my news-reader. And, when it comes time to buy, I know what I want¹. So there are jewels, gadgets, houses, cars, dinners, clothes, perfumes, sex, safety, happiness to be purchased out there, and we all want a bite of something.

To consume, we need money. To get money the ‘good’ way: get a job, work the 9-5, get paid, cover bills, blow over the rest. Repeat. Grow as your belongings grow and look upon the guy next to you in disgust as he has only basic cable. About the neighbour with the bigger house – well, it’s ugly. To get money the ‘bad’ way – hustle, steal, cheat, extort, deal, blackmail, kidnap, kill. Spend it fast before you get caught.

I have friends caught in dead-end jobs they hate. In debt, there is no way to stay alive unless you stay employed. Debt, certainly, might be self-induced. Though for what we do under hypnosis, can we be held accountable?

I have seen first-hand the consuming struggle that an educated man has to undertake to come to terms with the above. With the realization that the society for which he does so much values him so little, directly and indirectly. With getting used to the sight of flashy cars driven by high-school drop-outs.

But, most importantly, I’ve realised that if you think of yourself as someone that can do something for society, to better it, you keep your head up no matter what. You go against the flux and you must realise that and not let it eat at you. Maybe it’s an imagined idea, a self-preservation technique. You, however, will respect yourself. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

In closing, a meritocracy based on education is highly unlikely to ever exist. Ergo, I don’t believe pay-scales will ever be distributed, in the majority of cases, using a merit-based system. As much as some may try to bring the requirements for schooling down to levels accessible by more would-be students, education in itself requires a lot of discipline and dedication. The baits we’re fed every day in all forms of media – the flashy things – are one way to triage the lot. Any job, in the end, is to be respected, because every job is needed. The obscene gaps in remuneration, however, are unjustifiable.

1. As a random titbit of information, this post is the very first one written on my brand-spanking-new MacBook Pro. I claim no superiority to the rest of the consumerist hordes, though I do not consider it hypocritical to at least comment on these issues. Feel free to contradict me in the comments [↩]