Okay, I’ll admit it … I just finished my first binge watching of anything ever. As mentioned on March 31, I attempted “Downton Abbey” for the third, maybe fourth, time. Success.
The investment, in terms of time, not to mention my swelling ankles from sitting, made me realize this much television is not for the older generation and I will try to never do it again.
Still, I must admit, I enjoyed many facets of the episodes which had escaped me before (there’s that evolution thing again), even though I hadn’t seen many. The years that the show encompassed brought about great change in many ways, and the characters had to adapt to the, sometimes shocking, new social norms which those changes brought about.
Granted, when the aristocracy of certain nations fell, some fell harder, faster, more violently and with more pain than others. England’s evolution was more anticipated and slower, coming apart more civilly. That allowed some of the more insightful, titled families to evolve and adapt, enabling them to soften the fall.
“Adapt or die,” the character Billy Beane says in one of my favorite films, “Moneyball,” and that simple truth can’t be stressed enough; we absolutely must adapt in order to continue to survive, improve and grow.
Of course, when we do, most of the time the change is simple, soft, or gradual and we never really see it happen. Other times it isn’t, and it’s fist to cuffs all the way.
It’s an amazing thing to many people around the world when we watch any person, or type of person, fight impending changes that will improve things for millions. It’s even more amazing to see people fight to reverse laws that already do that, even long standing ones.
In some cases, it stems from a mindset derived from a long line of hereditary grooming. In some cases, a person resists change simply because it doesn’t work to his/her own personal benefit. Sometimes people defy a change even if they themselves will gain from it, simply because certain others will gain as well. It’s the proof of a selfish and small mind defying the big picture.
The proprieties and pleasantries of the era of “Downton Abbey” were constraining to say the least, but for keeping some level of manners and propriety, the rigidity helped.
At least people knew what they were expected to do to keep their family from scandal, even if many often colored outside the lines.
Today, of course, we still find ourselves in that ever-present environment of change, and still the most difficult changes to accomplish are those which alter the social norm. Just as so many have bristled over social progress and change throughout history, so do too many still bristle today.
Where the changes enhance life and opportunity at large, luckily, most people have little trouble jumping into the icy pool of evolving customs even today. Some go in head first and love it, where others may be toe-dippers, but most still face the challenges and embrace progress. There will always be those, sometimes even those we love too much to abandon, who try to fight, bend and reshape progress until it fits them best, but change … though not always comfortable, is omnipresent and highly relative to survival. So, we adapt.
It’s important to remember as we do, though, that just because time passes and the rules change, all change must be for the better, and that all change must, at least, be for the good of most people.
Obviously, then, it’s imperative to remember that change can’t always be singularly about money or wealth in any particular dictate. We must be most prudent with changes that affect people’s personal and private rights and life-altering opportunities.
The larger the number of people who are offered better living opportunities, better work opportunities and better access to quality education, the greater the improvement to a nation’s entire social system. It follows, then, that any hierarchy in that nation’s social system gets shaken down a notch or two, but not only is that unavoidable, any true democracy shouldn’t have a hierarchy anyway.
As in the days of “Downton Abbey,” the life carved by inequitable privilege and the manner by which people became entitled is a fascinating one. What we need to remember, however, is that history has proven that the greater population is destined to grow restless as more and more is retained at the top because, when it is, less improves overall. And “the overall” is where most people exist.
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