The freedom not to give a damn

May 27, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – All around the world, there are persons whose digestive organs appear to function, at public events, only in the presence of embossed invitations. Though these persons are decent, kindhearted and patriotic, they do not have regard for an event, however significant, unless they themselves are seated within visible proximity of the host.

The spiritual condition of these persons would have fascinated Thorstein Veblen, who long ago observed that the leisure class carries on its competition not through labour, but through ceremonial displays of useless distinction. In the contemporary colony of prestige-seekers, the invitation card has become what heraldic armour once was to medieval nobility. The invitation to events patronised by high society is proof that one’s pedigree remains sufficiently distinguished for ceremonial display.

There is, for instance, the tragic case of Reginald P. Featherstone III, financier, philanthropist, and tireless attender of receptions. For weeks before the grand diplomatic reception hosted by a foreign embassy Mr. Featherstone conducted himself with the nervous agitation of a man awaiting biopsy results.

Each morning, he approached his mailbox with trembling solemnity. He twice accused the postman of sabotage and once demanded that the gardener inspect the hedges for a misplaced envelope.

By the second week, his anxiety had matured into pathology. “Telephone the embassy,” he instructed his assistant, Clarice, no fewer than four times daily.

“Sir,” Clarice ventured timidly, “perhaps the invitations are delayed.”

“Delayed?” cried Featherstone. “Madam Ambassador once accepted a sandwich from my hand personally!”

Clarice called. The embassy, after much diplomatic hesitation, confirmed that the guest list had been finalised. Mr. Featherstone was not on it.

Witnesses report that he stared motionless for several seconds before emitting a faint sound resembling a punctured accordion. A mild stroke followed immediately thereafter, caused not by illness but by the unbearable revelation that somewhere in the capital an event of importance might occur without his presence.

Upon recovery, he insisted the omission must have been geopolitical. “No civilised nation,” he whispered from his hospital bed, “would intentionally exclude me.”

Such people possess the curious conviction that attendance itself constitutes a branch of achievement. They regard proximity to power as a substitute for substance. To stand near a president is, in their estimation, equivalent to governing.

Indeed, one frequently observes these ornamental bourgeois at state functions leaning forward in photographs with the desperate intensity of plants seeking sunlight. They fear that if they are not  photographed at the event, posterity will fail to record their adjacency to influence.

Their greatest horror is not poverty. It is general admission.

Consider the gentleman who will spend fifty thousand dollars on shoes to attend an international cricket match yet refuses to purchase an ordinary ticket among the spectators. He must have a laminated VIP pass suspended from his neck. He is, of course, drawn to the free food and drinks served in the VIP boxes. But the very thought of not having a VIP pass is utterly unbearable to him. And when he gets the pass, he will have it upside exposed on his desk so that every visitor to his office will notice.

The cricket match itself interests him scarcely at all. He cannot distinguish a googly from a forward defensive stroke. But to him, the very thought of sitting among the masses chewing peanuts sun would constitute social extinction.

He must occupy the VIP enclosure, where the who’s who of society and those who managed to wrestle a pass somehow nod solemnly at one another while pretending to watch cricket. If accidentally directed toward the public stands, such a man reacts as though ordered into penal servitude.

“What do you mean Red Stand?” he sputters. “Do I appear to you as a Red Stand individual?”

The modern prestige-seeker does not attend events; he accumulates appearances. His social calendar functions as an investment portfolio of visibility. Every gala attended, every funeral observed, every ribbon-cutting endured, adds another infinitesimal increment to his stockpile of symbolic capital.

Even grief must now be stratified by seating arrangement. There exist persons who judge funerals of prominent individuals not by the dignity of the deceased but by the location of their assigned chair. To be seated in Row Seven rather than Row Two is interpreted as an act of calculated hostility requiring months of retaliatory gossip.

One gentleman reportedly spent an entire memorial service glaring not at the coffin but at a businessman seated three pews ahead of him.

In these circles, the invitation card has ceased to be correspondence. It certifies one’s continued membership in the class of relevance. It is also why some people feel uncomfortable travelling in economy class on airplanes. Somehow doing so is beneath them.

And thus, society is filled with men and women perpetually exhausted from the strenuous labour of being seen. They rush from ribbon-cutting events, to receptions to awards ceremonies, terrified that absence from any notable gathering may permit rivals to advance half an inch higher upon the invisible ladder of prestige.

Meanwhile, the ordinary citizen, blissfully uninvited, enjoys the cricket match, sleeps peacefully during diplomatic receptions, and survives entire weekends without once telephoning an embassy to inquire whether his importance has been adequately recognised.

It is perhaps the only remaining luxury unavailable to the leisure class: the freedom not to care.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Freedom, Peeping Tom

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