Celebrity Deathmatch: Horatio Alger vs Michael Moore

My money's on Alger, only because Moore doesn't seem very spry in the ring. But seriously, where do we go if not on either side of the extreme? That's my own personal question, and I'd like to pose it to others as well. The answer will more than likely determine the next few decades in American History.

In order to fully demonstrate what I mean, and for those unfamiliar with who I'm speaking of here, let's explore the conveyor of Capitalism, this poet of positive thinking, this sage of success. Mr. Alger is known for his varied works which follow the success of poor boys who rise to wealth and fame. For instance, in Ragged Dick, Dick is a New York shoe-shiner who meets a boy about his age named Frank. Frank is of the upper classes and employs Dick as a tour guide for his day trip to New York City. Observing Frank's refined manners, appearance, and success, Dick decides to pull himself out of his situation. His first steps are to save, instead of spend, his little monies earned as a boot black. He then starts a bank account, learns to read and write, and you can guess the rest. Dick rises to fame and fortune by his own pluck and by the luck and coincidence of circumstances surrounding his upward struggle.

This is classic Alger. And he has written literally dozens of books with same exact formula. The reason he is important and will be around for a long time is not literary in nature, however. He is the purveyor of the "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" mentality. In his age of dramatic class gaps between the rich and poor, Alger (and many others including Carnegie and Rockefeller) believed that the only way for the poor to rise to success was to try really hard. This is not an archaic thought process, as any hardcore Republican will tell you. Alger's ideas are the basis of the idea that the poor stay poor because of their laziness and lack of utility. To offer any kind of help, assistance, or welfare in any form would be to allow these people to stay in their current situations without any improvement by giving them a reason to be lazy (with the salty insult that our paychecks are reduced to do such a thing). This is the mentality of the Alger-ite and those following him. It should be mentioned that Alger is not a large man by any means, giving him obvious disadvantage in a deathmatch. However, he is spry and full of gumption. He knows how to seize opportunities and he is probably, like his literary characters, very lucky. Maybe he'll get lucky in the ring...

The other extreme, is of course our mutual friend, film director Michael Moore. Anyone in our present American culture will know of his name at the least, and at the most will have seen every one of his films. I have seen snippets myself, without ever having viewed one in its entirety. His recent film to hit theaters carries the delightful title "Capitalism: A Love Story." See here for more. Now it must be said of Michael Moore that he has gumption as well, which comes out in the form of his making films that titillate the rage bones of those on the far left. This has provided Mr. Moore with an unending audience that will pay for anything that has his name on it. So in a way, Mr. Moore is not unlike Alger in his pursuit and seizure of opportunities that provide wealth. Perhaps they have much more in common than the two would think.

Moore's agenda, as will be easily observed by any one of his films, is decidedly left-handed. He believes in such leftist ideas as gun control, government business regulation, universal healthcare, and secularization of any public institution. Mr. Moore can probably not count the times he has been called a communist (though he would probably prefer socialist) and probably also cannot count the number of times that it has been suggested to him that he relocate to Canada. Moore is a heavy-hitter behind the camera and in the ring. He is, admittedly quite obese and may have some trouble lasting more than a few rounds with Mr. Alger.

So why all this banter about dead authors fighting rude filmmakers? It is relevant, believe me, to current debates taking place in our country.

CNN aired yesterday a shot of a long line of people in Houston. Their reason for lining up before 5 AM on a Saturday morning: free healthcare. Dr. Oz, a tv physician, in partnership with the National Association for Free Clinics provided a series of check ups and medical examinations free of charge. The number of volunteers working the event: 700.

Without insulting the kindness of heart in Dr. Oz and his volunteers, the event was clearly a demonstration to show the volume of needs that exist in our nation as they pertain to healthcare. For any number of reasons, whether deserved or undeserved, some people are uninsured-about 40 million. And this is the current debate, of course, if you've been following the "news" (can we really call it that anymore?).

Without inserting my ill-researched and relatively uninformed opinion, I'd like to pose the question-how do we take care of these people? I mean, we're one of the top developing nations in the world and we seem to have a very low life expectancy and healthcare ranking. Yet, we know that the welfare state and the idea of "let's just all share the wealth" doesn't work. Okay, perhaps I've done a horrible job of withholding my opinion, but really where do we go with this issue? Save some, forget the rest? Spend, spend, spend? The extremes are obvious and yet there is very little negotiation going on in the middle, which disappoints me and countless other middle-of-the-roaders who believe partisan politics should not be an obstacle to positive change in our nation.

So there's the problem. There's no solution presented here, and while I'll accept the flak for not providing one, I still see the value of pointing out a significant problem (see Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and President Roosevelt's reaction after reading it). And the problem is not lack of healthcare reform, or minimum wage, or taxes anymore-the problem is that we cannot work toward progress when we hold on so lovingly to our comfortable beliefs and agendas, refusing to make room for anything else.

So how about we postpone the deathmatch, leave Alger in his grave, and leave Moore in Hollywood to continue to make his millions. Instead, we can push our politicians to make progress rather than to make their lobbyists happy. But the remaining question is this? Is there room in our political system for this to happen? The cynics say no, the hopeful say not now, but maybe soon.

..Next deathmatch to come: Dick Cheney vs. Che Guevara and his beard!