Lewis Lapham writes about the nomad and the settled. The nomad thinks about himself and not much else; the settled develops systems of thought and begins to see beyond himself. When they travel, the idle rich are like nomads: they have a vague stupid apprehension of the world around them.
“If he can afford the price of the ticket, the nomad comes and goes with the seasons of his desire. He has neither the time nor the inclination to think very much about the people standing by the wayside. The settled townsman makes art, science and law; of necessity he must understand something other than himself. The nomad merely gathers together his tent, his music and his animals, and wanders over the mountain in search of next year’s greening of America.
Transported from place to place at high speeds, suspended in a state of dynamic passivity, the American equestrian classes devote themselves to questions of technique and the relief of boredom. They can concentrate their attention on the logistics of going to Pasedena for the Super Bowl or to Japan for the cherry blossoms, or the ceaseless repetition of gossip and description of scene. But when, after prodigious labor, they find themselves on the fifty-yard line or standing under the trees in Kyoto, they can think of nothing to say. They have no idea of what any of it means, only that it is there and somehow very, very important, or very, very glamorous or very, very sad.”
Lewis Lapham, Money and Class in America
peter rudd
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