Being Affluent or Not

The word 'affluent' got brought up in the past couple of days, by Bill Mahler (HBO's comedian) over redstate people who just aren't as clever or affluent as bluestate people.  Naturally, it begs questions.

Where did the word affluent come from?  Around two-thousand years ago, the Latin language folks came up with this word, and it was supposed to mean (in the beginning)....'to flow' or that things could happen with this event or prospect occurring.  Eventually, the Latin word got taken over by the French (old French, not that modern stuff), and they gave it a kind of slang term meaning....that you don't move up in life or be someone of status, unless you had affluent things going on (flowing).  Somewhere down the line....some British folks got sophisticated and started to share the word in the UK, and it was a status-type word, where you were someone clever, smart, witty, sophisticated, and with profits somewhere in the background.  Two old Brit gals on the street could talk about up-and-coming Mister Jameson in a respectful way, hinting that he was affluent, and would get a 'fine' wife one day. 

The trouble with Mahler's meaning and use of the affluent, is that we are in a 'Twilight-Zone' situation with most Americans, and a lot of folks are affluent without even knowing about it.

You could be living in a double-wide trailer home, with a Ford F-150 truck in the carport, and be affluent. 

You could be living in a cottage in upstate Michigan, with $22,000 a year rolling in from your waitress job, and be affluent.

You could be making $1.3 million playing for the San Diego Padres as a relief-pitcher, with a trampy girlfriend, and NOT be affluent.

You could be a Detroit dope-dealer making $300k a year, and living out of a crack-house, with a brand-new $60k car in the drive-way, and having vacations in New Orleans each year, and think you are affluent. 

You could be a mobster for the Akron, Ohio mafia, and be absolutely sure about your affluentness. 

You could be an idiot who got $120,000 in student loans back in the 1990s, and still today....at age 47....still be paying off that stupid loan....feeling absolutely no affluentness.

You could be an electrical engineer driving an Oldsmobile 88 model (the last one made in 1999) and feel some surge of affluentness each morning as you rev up the engine....drive the forty-two miles to work, and hum along with Led Zepplin tunes coming out of the twelve speakers you installed in the car.

What Bill missed here is that affluentness is a mathematical 'estimation' of where you were, how far you traveled, and where some nifty end-point exists in your mind.  Only you can prescribe your affluentess scale number.  You might be a one.....you might be a ten.

Does being affluent make you a conservative or a liberal?  No.  That's the sad thing about this whole discussion and argument.  That seventh-grade nutcase in your class, that you regarded as a potential psychopath?  Well....he might today be the carpet-king of Jefferson City, TN and fairly affluent.