The productive class

People who suck up to the wealthy should be called what they are — brown-nosers and lap-dogs willing to say anything in hopes of getting a piece of that money. But they’re even worse than that. They’re also blasphemers and poisoners.

They’re blasphemers because instead of praising God as the only true source of and only legitimate destiny for all that wealth, they pretend instead that it comes from and belongs to rich people — the very same rich, depraved criminals who are themselves condemned by God.

And they’re poisoners because those rich people they’re busy flattering are already way too full of themselves. The last thing they need is somebody else adding to the swollen egos that keep them from seeing reality. The brown-nosers are like the waiter in that sketch from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, shoving more and more food in front of the engorged diner until, finally — “wafer thin mint?” — it kills him.

The suck-ups shouldn’t be telling rich people how awesome they are, they should be warning them of the danger they’re in. The rich are suffering from a deadly disease and these toadies are telling them, “You’re fine, don’t worry, you’re perfect.”

If you really care about the rich, don’t give them praise. They’re already OD’ing on praise. Give them the truth. That’s the one thing they desperately need and the one thing they haven’t got.

And pray for them. Pray that God will heal their souls. Rich people can be saved, but it won’t be easy.

I can’t take credit for the paragraphs above. The original I’m paraphrasing was written long before I was born. It was also written long before the Pythons filmed that movie — though I think it’s an appropriate dynamic equivalent for the proverb in the original.

The passage above comes from the opening of a notorious little book. We’ll discuss the reasons for its notoriety later, when I post the original and discuss where it’s from.

In the meantime, I’m wondering if anyone recognizes this or can guess who and what it is that I’m paraphrasing here. My paraphrase is, admittedly, a bit loose, but I think it reflects the tone and substance of the original.