A hatmaker in Southern California lost his store and some irreplaceable century-old tools in the fires that have raged the past several days. I know because, as a hat lover, I followed his work closely.
The outpouring on social media and on sites dedicated to hat lovers has been universally sympathetic. “What can we do to help?” seems to be the most persistent sentiment in a wave of well wishes.
Contrast this to the way many have reacted to the losses experienced by celebrities and other California residents who are known to be wealthy.
Paris Hilton lost her house to the flames. She shared the news in an emotional post on social media. “This home was where we built so many precious memories,” she said.
The same thing happened to other well-known people, such as Mandy Moore, Mel Gibson and Billy Crystal, among others.
However, they were more likely to encounter online jeers than sympathy — more anger than love. Commenters said the celebrities are too rich to join the pity chorus, they own more houses elsewhere or they are people the posters don’t like, for some reason — you get the idea.
British columnist Debbie Stowe said she’s had enough of this.
“True, it’s a weird feeling for most of us to sympathize with people like Paris Hilton, as we grind out our unexciting jobs to pay mortgages or rent on our unglamorous homes in places that are not glitzy L.A. enclaves,” she wrote. “But some things — like fear for your safety, attachment to a home, or family mementos and memories — are universal. And the pain, loss and terror that come from a disaster like the deadly California wildfires extend beyond social status, fame and wealth.”
Stowe’s conclusion about celebrities is that people should “afford them grace and human sympathy, rather than gloating over their predicament.”
I agree. After all, isn’t that what we should afford all people?
And I can’t help but ask the question: How much fame or celebrity does someone need before they are considered unworthy of sympathy? Somewhere between a humble hatmaker and an actor with speaking parts?
It would be easy to launch into a rant here about how politicians have carried the lanterns and led the way down a muck-filled trail toward devaluing the lives of people with whom we disagree, or for whom we share envy and disdain. Certainly, elected officials used to display a thicker veneer of statesmanship and decorum, at least outwardly. Today it’s often difficult to determine who has control of the lantern on this trail, the culture or the elected leaders.
But rants tend to be misguided. A glance at history shows that a dislike of the rich is nothing new.
In 1920, the Saturday Evening Post published a piece by a Wall Street reporter who flamed wealthy people, telling of conversations in which these folks complained haughtily about impudent servants, etc.
“I am convinced that there is a definite social disease which we may call gold poisoning,” he wrote.
Perhaps this is true, but there were other examples at the time that told a different story. Only a few years earlier, John Jacob Astor IV, perhaps the richest person in the world at the time, had helped his pregnant wife into a lifeboat aboard the Titanic, and then stood back on deck, accepting that he could not accompany her. He later died in the icy waters.
When hatred for the rich flared again during the great recession 16 years ago, New York Times wealth columnist Paul Sullivan worried it was unhealthy and a bit hypocritical.
He wondered, “Why are the rich shouldering the blame for a collective run of bad decision-making?
“After all,” he wrote, “many of the rich got there through hard work. And plenty of not-so-rich people bought homes, cars and electronics they could not afford and then defaulted on the debt, contributing to the crash last year.”
The rich, Sullivan said, are not all of the same vintage. They aren’t a giant lump of sameness. Stereotypes don’t apply to them any more than to anyone else.
“From the outside, the wealthy seem to be one big money-minting group,” he wrote. “But how they came upon their wealth differs greatly.”
As with everything in life, there is nuance. And, as with most unkind or hateful remarks aimed at anyone who is suffering, these say more about the person from whom they come than from those to whom they are intended.
Most importantly, they imply that our sense of humanity exists on a sliding scale.
Whether a hatmaker who lost his shop and his tools, or a celebrity who lost one of several homes, all deserve sympathy and a measure of human decency in the wake of such a terrible natural disaster.