(And some days it takes more Stones than others...) Where Mythical Bestiary meets Contemporary Culture and Chews On Its Leg Until Covered with Slobber.There's terra incognita here for research into the social class distinctions among lawyers, doctors, politician/bureaucrats, and teachers.
There's certainly a culture gap between public teachers and professors, and among public teachers, a class struggle between those who love their subject, those who wanted to "teach" as an excuse to coach, and those who were intellectually lazy enough to major in "Education" and get summers off.
We all encounter medical people who followed the path of altruism or scientific interest, versus those who became doctors because that's one does in their family circle. The past isn't dead, it isn't even past, and Faulkner might have added, the family mythology shapes us more than some care to admit.
A friend who did time in a monastery found layers of class distinction between those who excelled at pastoral care, and those who excelled at climbing the ladder of advancement in the church. How much of this is due to the personalities attracted to the profession? This goes a long way towards explaining Vatican politics. We need only look to how John Paul II scorned liberation theology in South America because his lenses were fogged over by Stalinism in Europe. Anywhere he smelled "communism" or impudent women, out came the scourge. After two papacies spent punishing the foot soldiers, we might have a new pope who turns towards the ambiguities of parish work. "Who am I to judge?", he asks. Let's hope this extends to the church women who rather than sit down and shut up, ought to take a fire house to the burrows in Vatican City.
These distinctions might be most apparent among judges. Chief Justice Roberts being the very model of a country club boy who became a judge, and that background shaping his decisions. In my scant experience, I have met judges who vary from the most humane to the least human of officials. And there are shades of diversity in this; if I can't have a Mandela, a Darrow or a pro bono saint in my corner, I'd find it easier to deal with an honestly rapacious Saul Goodman than a sanctimonious pharisee.
