Last Updated on May 27, 2016
In human history, class structure — whether of bloodlines or lineage; of wealth or claim to title and royalty; or of validated descendants from ancestral superiority — has been the norm.
Then, along came a religious figure (unnamed herein to avoid risk of inflammatory offense and preventing the potential for implosions of alarming hashtags in fits of fear and panic) who posited the notion that the “poor” (that class of mass populace which comprises the greater part of the world) should take “pity” upon the “rich” (those in the minority of the greater class struggle who control and manipulate the invisible levers of the world) because of the difficulties inherent in obtaining the proper credentials to enter through the proverbial pearly gates.
He went further in word-pictures of masterful storytelling, painting images of hellfire, suffering and punishment for those who mistreated the former, and where rewards, awards and commendations bestowed were merely of a temporary and ephemeral nature, whereas the eternal damnation based upon pleasures enjoyed in the temporal world would last well beyond the palliative superficiality of currency beheld.
The problem unstated, however, when the concept of “pity” was introduced, was twofold: First, the validation of such a feeling and perspective made equals of those in unequal circumstances, and one could even argue, reversed the roles maintained for societal conformity and stability, and enforced a parity of stature; and, second, the emotional and psychological make-up comprised in the very heart of “pity”, is akin to “disdain”, and is a close cousin thereof. Yes, yes — the one attaches to charity, a desire to assist and retains elements of empathy, sympathy, etc.; but it is more than that. “Pity” allows for parity of status and stature, just as “disdain” reverses the roles of societal convention.
That religious figure of yore (though we may impute total and complete omniscience upon the fella) injected into society a heretofore unnecessary and problematic component of societal disruption. It is, indeed, the caustic nature of disdain, which can evolve from pity, that presents itself as the poison which kills and the infectious spreading of ill-will and discomfiture. The feeling of unease quickly spread throughout nations and continents, and we are in the state we find ourselves in modernity, because of that uninvited infusion of dissatisfaction.
For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who daily toil with a medical condition, and face the onslaught of the Federal workforce and the Postal groups, the problem of pity and disdain, and their combined causticity is well-known. So long as you were healthy and fully productive, your coworkers, Supervisors and Managers treated you within the well-defined “class-structure” of acceptable conduct and behavior. Once it was “found out” about your medical condition, suddenly their attitude and treatment towards you changed, and altered dramatically, or perhaps (in some instances) in incremental subtleties of quiet reserve but spiteful turns.
Perhaps some “pitied” you, and you them; but such feelings have turned to disdain — not on their half, but from your perspective. Why? How? You are the one with the medical condition, who cannot perform all of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job, so what right have you?
Precisely because of that historical figure of yesteryear; that the true essence of human nature is to be cruel, and thus the best alternative remaining is to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in an effort to preserve the last vestiges of a class structure quickly fading in this world where the caustic nature of disdain in parity still survives.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire