Making the hierarchy crumble a bit

I write a lot about people who (try to) enforce a social hierarchy. Here’s a story about someone who undermines the hierarchy. Alas, it is just a story.

When visiting family, especially when small children are involved, there’s always a bit of downtime when one isn’t engaged with the family. The kids need a nap. Sometimes the parents do too. This was true when visiting my niece’s family after Christmas. So in that downtime I looked over what books were in the house. One of them was Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was first published in 1885. I held a modern edition. I didn’t finish it while I was there, so read the rest through the online Project Gutenberg.

Though it is a children’s book, the cover blurb sounded intriguing. At about 150 pages I would think it would be for age seven to pre-teen.

Cedric Errol is seven and lives with his mother in New York City. His father has died and he had been told his father was English. Cedric is an outgoing boy and makes friends with Mr. Hodges the green grocer, Dick the bootblack, and many others in his neighborhood.

One day a lawyer shows up. Cedric’s father, the Captain, was the third son of the Earl of Dorincourt. The lawyer says the older brothers have also died, making Cedric the heir. The Earl would like the boy to come to England to receive a proper education to become Earl when he dies. The heir of this particular Earl is designated Lord Fauntleroy, which gives us the title of the book.

The lawyer says Cedric will be rich and he can begin to indulge his whims now. And his whims are to improve Dick’s business and to help a family friend through a financial difficulty.

I saw this as a story of hierarchy. The Earl is close to the top and would be quite interested in maintaining that position. That means those under him are probably oppressed. At the start of the story Cedric is towards the bottom of the hierarchy and isn’t particularly interested in moving up. So, would this be a story where Cedric is taught the ways of maintaining the hierarchy or would the system of hierarchy crumble at least a little bit through Cedric’s actions?

As Cedric and his mother arrive in England the tenants on the Earl’s estate see him as not a very nice person. The Earl is irritable and not kind. He has spent his life seeking pleasure and, nearing 70, all he has to show for it is loneliness and gout. The tenants fear his anger. The Earl doesn’t want to meet Cedric’s mother because she is American. She’s installed in a house away from the castle. Cedric can visit, but the Earl won’t. The Earl wants to meet Cedric alone – in case the boy is a disappointment. And he is not.

Cedric doesn’t know the Earl is grumpy. The lad has been told the generosity he was able to give to his American friends is because the Earl is generous and kind. He thinks his grandfather is a wonderful man. The Earl is first bemused by the affection, but soon feels he needs to live up to it.

The village pastor comes to call because of a tenant behind in rent. The Earl lets Cedric decide what to do. And he decides to tell the manager to be nice to the family, to not kick them out. Cedric sees a few of the cottages in the village are in in really bad shape and says the should be pulled down and rebuilt. The Earl allows it to happen. Cedric makes friends with the workmen. The villagers are delighted in the way the Earl has changed. Before Cedric’s eighth birthday the Earl realizes he is rather fond of the boy.

In this story we see love and compassion as an antidote to hierarchy and its oppression. The boy doesn’t care about his position. The money is great – because it can help people. The Earl’s mood and outlook are considerably softened. He begins to see his tenants as people, not as a source of money.

The hierarchy is definitely not abolished. At that time in England the idea would seem absurd. But the Earl, under the guidance of a boy, is no longer enforcing the hierarchy, no longer asking how something will maintain him above the divide between his position and that of his tenants.

Though we know the solution, it would be quite difficult to apply that solution to America’s current oppressors. A young boy might single-handedly charm an Earl and do it in a year. It is quite another to apply the solution to the entire GOP and their supremacist backers. One reason is they won’t let us get close enough to try. Though we may not be able to show love and compassion to the oppressors, we can show it to each other.