What a great word, encapsulating a personality “disorder” that I have been struggling to fathom my whole life. Starting with my vassalage at a private girls’ school in Shaker Heights, Ohio. On the surface, I was one of “them”—the entitled progeny of a wealthy, aristocratic family. Only problem was, my father, who had married into money, eventually buckled under the pressures of perceived inadequacy and abandoned us when I was eight years old. Living in a fatherless home due to divorce or abandonment back in the fifties was not a socially acceptable status. I wore the brown and gold uniform (which I had to iron myself, poor me), and I outperformed in my studies, but my entitled schoolmates never embraced me as one of them. And that feeling of being surrounded by condescending rejection has fueled my insecurities my whole life. But it also instilled in me a strong desire to work for the benefit of those less fortunate than me – and my heiress chums.
Another benefit? The rich, layered character archetypes that seem to spring from the page as I create loathsome, complex villains for my thrillers. It helps to understand the origins of such egregious greed from my personal, up-close experiences.
My childhood wasn’t all bad, because it motivated me to bust my butt to become a lawyer and pass the California bar, then become a trial lawyer, then a Hollywood business executive, then a writer/producer, then ED of several nonprofits, then a journalist on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and finally co-owner of a successful, national production company. I pushed myself to my limits at every phase of my career to please, well, just about everyone. Everyone but myself. Not the best stimulous, to be sure.
But ever since my private school days, I have learned to endure an inordinate number of privileged, entitled inheritors from the land of inheritocracy. Folks lucky enough to have rich families and trust funds who take their money and status for granted. But only as far as it benefits them. God forbid they ever share in their unearned wealth, even to pick up a restaurant tab once in a while. My best friend in college was one of those…it took me a few decades to finally cut ties, although the wound still runs deep.
From my experience, nothing replaces the hard work and sweat equity it takes to earn a position of stature in this increasingly high-tech world. It frightens me to think that, more and more, the world is being run by inheritors whose greed knows no bounds, while their level of experience and altruism are next to nonexistent. The cancer of inheritocracy has spread throughout our civilized world, from the highest echelons of government to the mundane, daily affairs of neighborhood co-existence. When an heiress/soccer mom inserts her ill-conceived opinions on matters far beyond her ken to feel omnipotent, or a trust funder whose favorite quip is “it’s only money” (other people’s money, that is) imposes her uneducated will on those she perceives as “less than”, my ire is sparked. What kind of world will it be after a few generations of rule by these inheritors?
Ojalá, inheritocracy will not remain the state of play much longer.
