Legacies and Other Detritus

Exactly when did the meaning of the word “legacy” switch from something to be valued to something to be suspicious about or starved into non-existence?* At a monument to Mary McLeod Bethune in Washington, Bethune is depicted in the act of handing off her legacy as an educator, civil rights activists, and proud, wise elderly woman to two children who stand waiting to receive it. The inspiring words of her Legacy are engraved around the base of the statue. The legacy, here, is used as a symbol of durable, perhaps even timeless values; an inheritance to be treasured, protected, nurtured and maybe even venerated.

But maybe we don’t live in a world than can any longer accommodate such an understanding of things left to us from time gone by.

You will note that US auto companies were not-too-long ago said to be suffering from “legacy costs” – which was intended to mean but not say, the cost of paying on the retirement plans of union auto workers. What well-managed American company would continue to honor these burdensomely generous retirement plans for factory workers (whose productivity had made billions of dollars of profits to pay dividends and raise asset values for shareholders and finance outlandish corporate management salaries)?

We were to understand that grown up people must accept that Detroit’s once-upon-a-time generosity and “Big Labor’s” once-upon-a-time power are now outdated and somehow quaint elements of a bygone, fuzzy-headed era of coddled middleclass expectations and bloated corporate laziness. This was to be seen as an unfortunate legacy left to us by a previous generation, somewhat like big, overstuffed, embarrassingly ornate Victorian furniture left to you in a will by an ancient addled great aunt who’d accumulated a bunch of once cherished pricey pieces now turned to just so much superfluous crap by changing social tastes and mores. You smile politely when the executor tells you where to pick it up, then you rent a u-haul to take it all to the salvation army or the dump, or perhaps stick it all in the “finished basement” that no one ever goes in and is the resting place for your bumper-pool table, exercise bike, and other extraneous junk you don’t want but cant get rid of (in other words, your growing “legacy” for some unsuspecting surviving distant relative).

More recently, we’ve come to understand that US auto manufacturing itself is a legacy industry. In fact, some want us to understand that industry, as we once understood it, is a legacy sector of the economy. Oh, sure it would be nice if we could keep the old thing running, but who has the time or the resources for it any more. I mean, it was great that our parents could expect that with a reasonable degree of publicly provided education, and a willingness to work hard and take some overtime, one could work at a respectable job making things and earning enough to live in small but comfortable home in a nice neighborhood with solid schools, have a nice family meal out every once in a while, take a vacation at a nearby lake for a week once a year, put away enough money to send the kids to a state university, and so forth…

But, c’mon, those rosy days are gone. People need to wake up and realize we live in a globalized economy where brown and off-white folks are willing to work in plants, mills, and factories for a fraction of what spoiled US workers expect to be paid. Lazy American workers expect to earn a living; those frisky, enterprising, realistically hardened folks in the developing world understand that work in a factory producing wealth and products for others’ benefit can only pay survival wages; who should expect more – it’s called labor for godsake, it’s not like working with your mind or something valuable like that!

Yes, we have inherited the expectations of the once mighty American middleclass, but…well, it’s a legacy. We’ll have to figure out what to do to store those expectations somewhere where they won’t be an embarrassing eyesore or reminder…just until we can get rid of them, or they quietly die off from neglect.

Sticking the word “legacy” in front of something you probably ought to value and treat with respect but would rather ignore, neglect, or relegate to some status of invisibility is an uncannily creative and craftily convenient use of language. (Not surprising, since it came from the fun and clever world of IT.) I recently heard someone described as a “legacy catholic.” I found this pleasingly handy for describing my own relationship with the Church. No longer do I have to struggle with the ambiguity of “I was raised catholic…”, now I can say I am a legacy catholic: I don’t really use it, it was just left to me by my parents, bless their cute little souls.

It occurs to me now that that we may soon be encouraged to see our aging friends, relatives, and neighbors as a “legacy population.” Just like Social Security will soon be a legacy social program. Maybe instead of a burdensome Social Security system, we will have a new cost-efficient Legacy Interim Population Support program which will provide minimal survival upkeep and warehousing for us aging babyboomers somewhere out of the way until our demographic balloon of resource-sucking numbers tails off sometime in the 2040’s.

Not that this isn’t what we do now with about a third of the folks who live past 80, it’s just that it will be openly and unapologetically acknowledged as the only sensible way to deal with a legacy social contract and some very irresponsible post WWII procreating by our grandparents; plus it will have a cuddly new acronym: LIPS; just like what you kiss someone gently off to sleep with, kiss a beloved relative goodbye with; kiss off some former prized possession or loved one now turned burdensome and unlovable…

Legacy: It’s the new garbage.

* According to various sources: A gift of personal property by will. A tangible or intangible thing handed down by a predecessor; a long lasting effect of an event or process. c.1375, "body of persons sent on a mission," from O.Fr. legacie "legate's office," from M.L. legatia, from L. legatus "ambassador, envoy," noun use of pp. of legare "appoint by a last will, send as a legate". Sense of "property left by will" appeared in Scot. c.1460.