Hazard Replies

Re your Editor’s Notebook response to my essay on "The ‘Capital C’ Culture syndrome"—

Eastern Europe as an example of fairness and accessibility? I have spent the last seven years in a part of that Eastern Europe, and have visited Bautzen, the prison where thousands were dispatched for trying to be decent. Come on, Dan. How about Finland, Sweden or Denmark for valid comparisons?

I have no argument with Bob Scott as a civilized man. He was the best of what is left from the WASP hegemony. But his crowd’s hiding behind Anglophilia instead of creating a truly egalitarian culture has saddled us with apparently intractable problems.

Do you see no connection between the recent reports of Exxon’s chief cleaning up on our oil addiction and the underclasses in Philly having to dodge daily bullets? Zillionaires and homeless coexisting? No number of museums will ever close that gap.

Decent income (not underpaid illegals to do our dirty work), effective education for the damaged poor, and an open mind among the privileged about a globalizing economy favoring the already overfavored: yes, those are the necessary if not sufficient conditions of a truly cultivated society.

Otherwise Culture with a capital C is just an unearned badge of status, crippling the overfavored into thinking their lives are exemplary, rather than simply overfavored. Eastern Europe as a counterargument? That’s a stinking Red Herring, Dan.