I regret to inform you that people are buying books for the wrong reason. Guardian newspaper op-ed headline: “Reading is precious. But the cult of book ownership can be smug and middle-class.”

The cult. They meet in the dark, abandoned spaces of shuttered Barnes and Nobles, making ritual sacrifices to Lord Isbn, He Who Numbers Our Tomes. Let’s try this out on other socio-economic groups:

“Reading is generally a waste of time. But not owning any books is stupid and lower-class.”

One in a group of aggravated readers would recount how she grew up poor. They couldn’t afford the newspaper, but Dad got up early and transcribed the news on the wireless so he could read it to everyone at the table. At Christmas each of the children would receive a book, which their dad had bought by selling his eyelashes to the hair-monger down the lane. In short, she is deeply insulted by the implication that the poor do not own books, when her isolated, anecdotal experience should stand as a total refutation.

But others would defend “the lower class” for rejecting literature, since it was the product of a capitalist society that commodified experience into pat fictions that reinforced a paternalistic, cis-normative, colonialist, white-centered world that otherized the lived experience of the indigenous people and privileged the “written word” over the vocalizations and gestures of nonbinary Aleutians who passed on their history through song and interpretative dance. The solution was to disrupt the publishing industry, remove the layers of editors who gatekeep the stories of the marginalized, publish everything, give authors massive advances, but give away the books for free. Then the lower class would have shelves that groaned with relevant tomes.

Of course, no one would dare write such a piece about the “lower class.” The snide little slap at the middle class insulates the author from criticism because there’s nothing safer to decry than the petty bougie, and gawd, just imagine what they’re reading. Mystery fiction, where Dirk Fedora solves the murder, or the 357th book about Miss Blurple, who is 80 and obviously a lesbian. This time she figures out who’s poisoning the board members of the Rhododendron Enthusiasts League. Or it’s a heteronormative romance with some smooth-chested long-haired pirate on the cover making rapey eyes at the governor’s daughter in Jamaica.

I mean, middle class. Says it all.

The best part of the revolution and the elimination of the classes is the extirpation of the upper class, of course; that’s just so satisfying, and everyone gets to take all their stuff. The elimination of the middle class is something else, though. It’s the getting rid of the compliant, the ignorant, the maddeningly satisfied. The greatest impediment to the imminent utopia. You know, Mom and Dad.

The middle class have no taste, you see. They prefer a gauzy landscape painting by Thomas Kinkade to something that belongs in a museum, like a really gauzy picture by J. M. W. Turner. They listen to classic rock or country instead of the crystalline intricacies of Mozart. The rich watch bleak smart films in which an old man plays chess with Death; the middle class watch movies about an old man who plays checkers with Death. And so on.

But that’s an old formulation. Contemporary upper-class people, a group that includes the pointlessly educated scribblers dearly wishing for a post-Western utopia, have remarkably poor taste. In the old days you could count on some gouty plutocrat to bankroll a museum addition dripping with classical ornamentation or buy a Bernini because everyone knew it was the apogee of human artistic endeavor. Now the “elites,” for lack of a better word, are more likely to seal-clap for junk to prove their modern bona fides.

Example: the golden “NOW” statue on the New York State courthouse in Manhattan. It’s an old building in the classical style. There are ten plinths atop the structure, nine being occupied by statues of old law-giving men such as Moses and Zoroaster. Fox News on the new addition:

The statue, which “with curling braids and tentacle-like arms rises from a lotus flower, was created to pay homage to Ruth Bader Ginsberg [sic] and her fight for abortion. The statue is adorned with the late Supreme Court Justice’s signature lace collar.”

Hmm. They couldn’t find a genuine ancient gender-fluid lawgiver? Emperor Nero was reputed to wear female garb. He could be held up as an ancient expert on urban renewal. Of course, it would be hard to tell from street level that Drag Nero was joyfully disrupting old norms. Middle-class tourists might look at it without getting the transgressive message unless the statue wore a bright outrageous wig. So we got the floating gold goddess with the tentacular limbs, high-octane nightmare fuel. Which isn’t culty-sounding at all.

It is middle-class to say, “That’s weird, and it doesn’t fit.” It’s upper-class, or at least upper-brain-class, to say, “It doesn’t fit, and that’s deeply important.” The fact that the statue wears a ruffled bib that celebrates the death of fertility and has a groin as smooth and featureless as a Ken doll’s — potent female energy! Fecundity defined as a negation. Think how she can multitask with those tentacles! The statue lacks only a few mewling cats and a half-crushed box of wine.

Who knows what defines the “middle class” these days? You could possibly sum up their position as “Stop making me say I have to approve of weird stuff.” But it’s not enough to be indifferent to the new idols. As the New York Times headline on the new statue put it: “Move Over Moses and Zoroaster: Manhattan Has a New Female Lawgiver.” It’s like a Chuck Berry lyric. Roll over Confucius, tell Justinian the news.