Fighting your way out of privilege - love the idea. There's one quick way- they could refuse the unearned hand-outs; but they gather for the will-reading, trying not to lick their chops too obviously, bemoaning the death-duties as a punishment on their hard-working parents when they probably inherited it too and what about the others who worked as hard and still died poor? As I said to one of my friends the other day, and she's supposed to be a Communist, 40% of something is better than 100% of nothing. She's thinking she'll have to sell her property in France because the French are pretty swingeing about death duties on second homes. In one way they earn it, though. A big advantage of non-privilege is you don't have to bow the knee, because there are no material benefits to be cancelled - one is cut off without a shilling form the outset, so it's two fingers to what your parents want - you are on your own, with no financial penalties accruing. I've observed there's nothing so quickly fillets the backbone from those who would have been OK otherwise than the anticipation of a tidy sum.

I'm not sure how this relates to alienation, unless I'm explaining my own. It's usually described as 'chip on the shoulder'. Maybe yours is different.

Sheila


Sheila