Hey Jason, I am enjoying your thoughts on class, which is a complex subject. My lover and I had a huge discussion on a car trip through North Carolina a couple of years ago about that very subject. I argued that in the USA, more than in other countries, the politics of race were used to obscure issues of class and economics: poor white people are able to identify with rich white people rather than poor black people. The idea of America as a class-free society is very appealling, of course, and perhaps that is why so much emotional/political capital has been invested by the whole culture in reading society in black/white terms. I don't just mean by racists, but also by progressive people who are more comfortable battling the injustice of racial prejudice than the injustice of capitalism. I hesitate to even write this, for fear of sounding like a presumptuous outsider, because I know that in a context like this, it is easy to sound as if I am merely trying to substitute one master narrative for another.
In fact, when I started to type, I was gonna talk about my own background as a child of the working class. My parents were high-school drop-outs who did unskilled factory work their whole lives. When I was young and idealistic, I almost didn't go to university on principle, since it seemed like a betrayal of my working-class roots. Now, I am a "professional" teacher, with a good salary and good benefits and a comfortably bourgeois lifestyle. Much of this, I think, comes from education, and much from being gay, and therefore coming in contact with men from other classes (not to mention other cultures) whom I would never have met if I were straight.
Gosh, I love your livejournal. It makes me want to get on a plane to Memphis, track you down and talk with you all night long instead of blabbing away half-formed thoughts in your comment column.
That is extremely true. Everyone seems so eager to have their pie at the table of the wealthy. See, but rich people make me immediately nervous. And shopping makes me paranoid.
I've never quite understood why the have-lesses and the have-nots haven't found more in common with each other ... .
Thanks for these interesting posts. I read through most of them at my parents, where I couldn't devote sufficient concentration to them. I intend to do that though, in the next few days.
Thank you, Paul, for engaging with my muddled thoughts on this subject. I agree with what you are saying about the U.S. tendency to obscure class by turning to identity politics. I do think that certain aspects of identity --- race, gender, sexuality, etc. -- do play a complex part in how we construct, perceive, and act on class. The greatest shame is that we so rarely tie those identities back to class.
Meanwhile the obscenely wealthy play us like marionettes.
Your background is interesting. I wonder if you ever feel caught between your working class roots and your professional/academic present. If so, I wonder how that plays out, how you draw the seam of self between the two.
I am starting to recognize how a lot of my academic leanings have their roots in the religion I was brought up in -- not the conservative ideology, definitely, but the earnest pursuit of understanding, the adherence to one's built values, the growing of community.
Man, I would love to have an all-night gab session with you about subjects like these! If we're ever lucky enough to cross paths, then that is exactly what we should do!
In fact, when I started to type, I was gonna talk about my own background as a child of the working class. My parents were high-school drop-outs who did unskilled factory work their whole lives. When I was young and idealistic, I almost didn't go to university on principle, since it seemed like a betrayal of my working-class roots. Now, I am a "professional" teacher, with a good salary and good benefits and a comfortably bourgeois lifestyle. Much of this, I think, comes from education, and much from being gay, and therefore coming in contact with men from other classes (not to mention other cultures) whom I would never have met if I were straight.
Gosh, I love your livejournal. It makes me want to get on a plane to Memphis, track you down and talk with you all night long instead of blabbing away half-formed thoughts in your comment column.
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I've never quite understood why the have-lesses and the have-nots haven't found more in common with each other ... .
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Shopping makes me SO anxious!
Thanks for these interesting posts. I read through most of them at my parents, where I couldn't devote sufficient concentration to them. I intend to do that though, in the next few days.
xo
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Thanks, S! :: Nuzzle ::
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Meanwhile the obscenely wealthy play us like marionettes.
Your background is interesting. I wonder if you ever feel caught between your working class roots and your professional/academic present. If so, I wonder how that plays out, how you draw the seam of self between the two.
I am starting to recognize how a lot of my academic leanings have their roots in the religion I was brought up in -- not the conservative ideology, definitely, but the earnest pursuit of understanding, the adherence to one's built values, the growing of community.
Man, I would love to have an all-night gab session with you about subjects like these! If we're ever lucky enough to cross paths, then that is exactly what we should do!
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