yes, dianavan, that's the kind of thing I was trying to talk about. It's my favorite subject, I think, but there isn't a word specifically for it.
   The closest thing I've found is Risk Homeostasis. Which is just the tendency of bad things happening at about the same rate despite our advances against them. If you design a ladder that people can lean out farther on, they will, immediately, and they'll get hurt about as often as without it. But it's still not exactly what I'm thinking of.
Class is a lot like those people who hurry to pass you on the interstate, then they slow down. As if they can only feel their progress in relation to somebody else, regardless of how fast they go, or wherever the hell they're going. It's a kind of social idiocy. Most social things are one sort of social idiocy or another, my favorite is the tendency of dumbass people to want to be in everybody else's way. Once you start watching it, you can't stop. It's amazing. Better than any so-called "reality" t.v.

Education is similar, because if what people really lusted for was education, there is a public library, where the greatest luxuries of the world are free, at least for those who did learn to read passably, and can get better with practice. But we want help, and a stamp of higher approval on top of what we could do for ourselves. It's fun to stamp things, and cool to achieve badges, any kid knows that.

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   I was a royal butt-head today. At an art museum I was telling my kids and their friends that these Yoruba "doors" weren't really doors but just 3 decorative panels, (which is the best scholarship I know of) when some guy leading a tour group suddenly told us Yes they were doors. I asked how a three-part door without any hinges worked. He said Don't ask me and I said I don't really think I did.

    Why do I need to be so rude to this Joe Art? Why do I enjoy how even the stupidest rudeness of other people draws other, more interesting people out? The good reason is probably that interesting people are too reticent by nature, the bad news is probably that I'm just messed-up in my head.