The Privileged – Folha de S. Paulo, September 23, 1973
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
“Privilege.” Nowadays, the word sends shivers down the spine. Wherever it is uttered, it evokes unpleasant images of the great of the earth reserving honors, treasures, and power for themselves alone while plundering and oppressing the small and helpless in the process.
It is not my intention to devote this article to analyzing the origin of this fanatical and simplistic conception of privilege from a religious or moral perspective. I would simply like to point out that men of true culture admit the possibility of just privileges that are perfectly consistent with the common good. Such privileges are indispensable for the good order of earthly things, and even heavenly ones.
For example, anyone well versed in history knows that Western culture would never have reached the heights it did at a given moment if European universities had not been endowed with precious privileges by the monarchs of Christendom. Nor would labor law have germinated and flourished had it not been for the privileges corporations enjoyed in the Middle Ages.
If we lift our eyes from earthly matters to heavenly ones, we immediately realize that the order and splendor of creatures have as their keystone the most privileged among them, namely, Mary Most Holy. The unique and unfathomable privileges of the Mother of God extend as honor, glory, and joy to all the inhabitants of the luminous and eternal mansions.
These few examples clearly show that there can be fair and beneficial privileges, just as there have been, are, and will be unfair and harmful ones until the end of the world.
In this matter, as in so many others, it is necessary to maintain nuance to avoid error. “La vérité est dans les nuances,” said Talleyrand. To condemn all privileges is as foolish as to support them all.
However reasonable the above statements may be, a certain type of person will inevitably become enraged by what I have just said, much like the devil when holy water is thrown at him.
This reaction is far from the trivial matter it seems at first glance. It is an early symptom of a drift toward communism. From an unconditional rage against privilege, the patient moves toward progressivism and Christian democracy, and from there to outright communism. Not infrequently, this evolution proves irreversible.
We can confirm this propensity toward communism in the mentality of fanatical ‘anti-privilegistas’ (forgive the barbaric neologism) as follows.
Let us imagine a clique of adventurers who, having seized power by violence in a certain country, proceed to crush its inhabitants under the heaviest and most all-encompassing tyranny. Let us imagine that the maxims of government they profess reduce the nation to abject misery. Let us further imagine that, at the same time, these despots and their closest subordinates live in the greatest luxury, enjoying everything denied to the unhappy population they dominate. Aren’t all the conventional marks of tyranny gathered here? Doesn’t the very excess of the picture make it seem almost implausible?
But let us press the image even further. Suppose these despots possessed weapons capable of destroying the world’s major cities, thereby enabling them to demand heavy tribute from the greatest nations on Earth. Has the picture not now reached the edge of the unimaginable?
Let us push the imagination further still. Imagine these despots wielding a mysterious hypnotic power that compels all humanity to pay them tribute; great magnates rush to lay untold riches at their feet, and many clergymen, even more eagerly, shower them with sympathy and support. Does this bewildering scene not approach delirium?
But let us cross the very thresholds of delirium and imagine that this bewildering, inexplicable, pathological situation left the multitudes of the earth in a state of lethargic semi-indifference, anesthetized by this magical force.
Finally, imagine these privileged rulers using taxes wrung from a terrified and compliant humanity not for relief but to build more weapons—only to levy new taxes again. And here is the climax: imagine their hypnotic power so complete that any voice daring to expose the brutality of this order with unmistakable clarity would fade into universal indifference.
The immense mass of privileges would thus have reached the very summit of radicalism, deep within the dark realms of absurdity. It would be a world increasingly lived on a grand scale, for the benefit of a shrinking few. A few, indeed, who would embody neither Faith, tradition, culture, virtue, nor right—only the naked, unvarnished fact of brutal power.
If such a stacking of privileges were actually in place, I ask whether we would not be facing the most unjust and odious situation in history.
* * *
About two weeks ago, the press reported almost simultaneously a series of striking facts. First, the United States has supplied the Kremlin’s despots with such quantities of low-priced goods that the cost of living in North America is rising at an alarming rate. Second, several European and American nations are steadfastly following the same suicidal policy. Third, Russia has resold part of the wheat ‘sold’ to it by the United States on the Italian market at nearly three times the price. The profit, of course, flowed straight into the Kremlin’s coffers, strengthening its police apparatus, reinforcing the ‘defenses’ of the Iron Curtain, and expanding the armaments of the Warsaw Pact. In short, more tyranny within the Iron Curtain—and more threats beyond it.
Naturally, all this portends more victims and groans in the East, and more fear, submission, and even greater concessions in the West, to the benefit of the satraps living large in the Kremlin.
In a word, it would seem that the Moscow despots are sitting like so many Satans on a throne, from which they devastate the entire earth for their own gain.
Here and there, thoughtful thinkers and distinguished journalists have denounced this monstrous phenomenon. The ‘toadish’ factions of the clergy and the bourgeoisie read them, listen to them, tremble with hatred toward the dissenters, and deem it safer to feign indifference. The rest of mortals continue to sleep.
* * *
For my part, I seek out the enemies of privilege to form a league with them to fight the monster.
But the strange adversaries of all privileges, confronted with this monstrous spectacle, hear nothing, say nothing, and do nothing.
What explanation remains, except that, for these unconditional enemies of privilege, the communists are granted the highest privilege of all: the right to seize every ounce of gold and every lever of power on Earth?
So, is it not true that a profound and blind sympathy for communism lies hidden in the depths of the souls of these enemies of privilege?
