What the hell does class have to do with anything?

Wesley Willis to thread!

Most lumpen thread ever.

I work at an investment bank. Two other employees of the bank, just a few floors above me, are:

1. a well known indie promoter in NYC.
2. a well known indie country singer/songwriter and FMU dj.

uh, no.

And I could make that argument with purely regional and race-related points ignoring class altogether.

And of course make that argument ten times more strongly not ignoring it.

= prole.

(Sorry, Evan, but that's classic.)

proletariat.

i really don't get why people think there are no class differences in america, i thought they were very striking on the occasions i have been there.

UK=lot of class talk about relatively small distinctions
US=very little class talk about huge distinctions

Exactly. Because as I said on another thread, class in America is all about potential. It's a myth, sure, and it's disintegrating, but it's still the basis for all our politics. No matter who you are, you can bootstrap it to the top if you're industrious enough. Rockefeller did it! And that was only, what 100 years ago?

If that film don't capture class, then I don't know what does.

(Married With Children too, but you already knew that)

who is this Colin S Barrow? man of great insights it seems

name sounds familiar

have you written any airport novels?

(hint to Kenan: the real Geir would never respond)

I was just struck by the humor of the fact that I didn't immediately recognize this as a joke.

Child poverty hovers in the mid-teens or higher. The rates go far higher than that when you get into the Hispanic and African-American populations (30+% as I recall).

A third of Americans lack access to adequate healthcare, or healthcare at all.

Greater income disparity than any other "western" nation, and rising.

Here in Texas, our wonderful governor is living up to his "no taxes" pledge by cutting medical services to needy children, impoverished elderly and indigents. I guarantee similar things are happening in other states

You gonna tell me class doesn't matter?

I'm not sure if the "people who make five times my wage aren't much better off" statement is funny or sad. Yeah, there's no difference in making $20,000 a year and $100,000. None at all.

"The American Dream" is a great idea, but it's also an extremely oppressive and confining way to live. This idea is so overwhelmingly pervasive in our culture that it's generally believed EVERYONE here wants a part of the giant novelty-sized check in the sky. So even though it's perfectly noble to be part of the working class (the backbone, the fabric, and any other hamfisted cliches you've got), there's an assumption that you're there for a reason -- you're supporting your family any old way you know how, or you're working your way through school, or you're biding time while you hone your chops/plant your magic beans/write up the business plan that's gonna make you a zillionaire. These people are our heroes. But anyone who doesn't have an eye on upward mobility -- anyone who's content with barely getting by -- is branded a BIG FAT LOSER.

However, lately I'm seeing a lot more people in their late 20s/early 30s who are indeed barely getting by at a time when they're supposed to be bringing in big bucks, getting married, having kids that they can dress well and send to good schools. I know a lot of this has to do with layoffs, but I also think that this sector of Gen-X is resisting the pull towards the middle class that seemed so urgent and key for twentysomethings in the 20th century -- it's not a rebellion per se, but maybe a shift in priorities, an acceptance of a dead-end lifestyle in return for some prolonged hang-time. Which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but the downside is you end up with a bunch of confused 40-year-olds slinging coffee in some mid-sized city, scratching their asses and playing their stupid Wilco CDs and making vague "five year plans" about "maybe going back to school."

I think the class-mobility/success thing in America comes from a weird sort of shame and fear of this impulse we have towards sloth, something that runs counter to the industrious bootstrap-tugging etc etc that supposedly guides and unifies us as a nation.

So much for David Bowie, Roxy Music, Rolling Stones and Beastie Boys...

I'm confused, JBR. Are you saying these people are big fat losers or not?

Geir, what is it with you - are you ever right about anything? Bowie and the Stones were somewhat middle class but hardly UPPER class. Bryan Ferry's background is positively working class.

No, those are our heroes.

I'm saying:

1) The struggle is sexy. If you work double shifts in a 7-11 cuz you have kids to support, that's considered heroic and romantic. If you're young and poor BUT you don't intend to stay that way, you're the sexy angelic-yet-dirt-encrusted face of American capitalism.

2) I'm saying I can sort of see why people don't think it's so desirable if you're just as directionless/unmotivated at 40 as you were at 26. This is where I maybe take devil's advocate. But I'm not arguing for a pro-"sloth" lifestyle; I'm arguing against a culture that allows no room for deviation from this path we've all apparently chosen for ourselves JUST BY HAVING BEEN BORN IN AMERICA. The problem is that we're not taught we CAN achieve anything -- it's constantly reinforced that we (as a nation) DO achieve anything. "Can" gives you time to bide; "do" is like a "thanks in advance; I know you're already on the case" memo from a passive-aggressive boss.

Uh-huh. Even if I took that at face value - and the idea that having 7x the income doesn't matter remains a joke - why should I consider it relevant to anyone else?

"My LIFESTYLE is not that much different. Class distinction is not the difference between a Mercedes and a Honda but access to your full potential. The working class struggle is just more relevant to the turn of century or the civil rights era when ACCESS was prohibited by class barriers. YOUR ACCESS is unhindered except by your own laziness or desire "

Bullshit.

Your access is limited by class, top to bottom. Does the kid from Watts have the same "opportunities" or "access" as the kid from the 'burbs? No, of course not. Does the child of first-generation immigrants (assuming non-native English speakers here) have the same "opportunities" or "access" as a WASP? No, of course not.

Class determines where you go to college, if you even get to go to college. Class determines whether or not you have to work full-time to get through school, hell, to get through high school.

That your sheltered existence has never seen a difference in opportunity or access based on class doesn't mean it's nonexistent.

If you live anywhere and you have the time and funding to either play music or follow music, you are proabably better off than a whole lot of people in this world that don't have jack squat but the chance to keep on breathing.

I imagine Gary will be paved in gold and polished to a fine sheen and one will be able to drink wine out of the little Calumet river.

But, Jody, is that an American thing or is that a "human nature" thing, however you want to define that. I don't think there are too many people outside of America who have no dreams of achieving something better than what they had or getting to a high level of society; it's just sometimes the standards of what is an achievement vary from culture to culture. I don't think it's a universal instinct in every person, but I think as a whole people all over feel the need to improve their standing in life.

PS I am judging all of you.

uh - what? Are you not paying attention? The unequal distribution of wealth has been a dominant theme of political philosophers for centuries.

btw, being poor is the COOLEST!

huh - Is this directed at me? I have a job. I have never written a record review in my life. I do not have any student loans to pay off. No one owes me shit, except to treat me like a human being the same as everybody else. What's not fair is idiots like you failing to realize basic social realities at the expense of the less fortunate.

I'm saying that i haven't heard A CASE for it. Everyone complains
about "unequal distribution" but why? Why should we struggle to achieve equal distribution? If you choose to donate 25% of my income into the holy fund of charity, great for you, what a swell guy. but why should your hard-earned cash be forcibly taken away and distributed to all and sundry? Sound a bit dodgy to me.
Here's my take on socialism: it's like a football match where
one team is losing badly and so you feel sorry for them and
take away some goals from the winning team and give them to
the losing team, just to even things up. it may seem like a
philanthropic thing to do, but you're really just spoiling the
game for everyone. why not just ensure that the playing field
is fair, no one's cheating, and let everyone play to the
best of their abilities?

How about this: both "teams" play how they think is best, in their lives as they are lived. Though one side has, say 3 people on it, they start with a score of 900,000,000, every goal they get in is worth another 5,000,000, and they have the power to dictate the movements of their opponents, who number around 500 and get 1 point a goal. Fun game!

Worst metaphor ever.

But we ALREADY live in an anthill society! Capitalist "queens" at the top - worker drones at the bottom. I can't think of a better analogy to describe the relationship between, say, Kenneth Lay and some hapless sweatshop worker in Jamaica.

^TMMilton Bradley Corp.

America is a Class Act

This is not true - there are massive disparities between the schools of poor communities and those of rich ones, both in terms of the quality of education provided and the number of students who go on to higher education.

"housing/"

Ditto. Take a look at how home loan applications are processed, and who has an easier time getting them.

"healthcare"

Then why are so many people in this country without healthcare? Because they don't WANT it?

"I already stated that the concept of middle class is void because 90% of the country falls into this so called class"

I don't understand what definition of class you're referring to here - is it the one about owning the means of production? If so, 90% of America does not own any kind of real capital (mutual funds don't count). If you're talking about income - 90% of the country does not all have same income level.

"Using extreme examples like aperson from the projects or the homeless are not indicitive of average or median incomes"

I didn't bring up either of these examples, YOU DID.

"I already stated that the LIFESTYLES of people in this median income range are essentially the same in regards to information and potential"

I just don't understand this. Using money as the main gauge of class, obviously someone with more money is gonna have more access to more information (and thus more opportunities) because they're going to have more media and means of communication at their disposal because they can afford to buy them... I don't know what you mean by "lifestyle" (is that some shorthand for what commodities people like to consume?)

"I already stated that only celebrity defines the class seperation you so desperately want to exist (to explain your own failures maybe)"

Haha! You don't know anything about me. What failures?

"It is narrow minded to believe everyone should think like you and be some liberal quasi-socialist silly man"

I never said this, I just asked you to explain yourself, which seems to be a very painful undertaking for you. Hey look, there's Scott Baio!

"And its obviously wrong to assume I'm a Wasp when my family were immigrants and I have worked since I was 16 to support and better myself"

Unlike you, I made no assumptions about you or your personal details and I never brought it up. Thanks for sharing though.

Whats ironic is that I am probably the only idiot on this board who "does work in the community with the poor."

As I said before YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT ME. Stop being so presumptious.

"And they don't like being considered helpless or unable to better themselves by overeducated white music nerds"

I didn't call anybody helpless (except maybe you when it comes to engaging in rational debate).

No working class lad goes to art school.

Does it? Dubya never worked for shit, and look at him: top of the UPPERCLASS anthill.

my biggest complaint is that some folks in our society get way too much money for their "hard work". it's a big scam. that one person, alex rodriguez, will be paid over a quarter of a billion dollars over ten years for playing baseball is INSANITY. that one guy will make the same as 12600 people making $20K a year for playing baseball!!

that's shameful and he's not even halfway to the top of how rich some people are.

too many men and women get to run things solely because they inherited the money from someone else's hard work.

and that shit happens in the rock world especially on the industry side...

working class folks can go to art school... they just get fucked afterwards...
m.

I take your point, but Alex Rodriguez is a curious example of capitalist shame. People drop out of high school to play baseball. One in thousands make it as professional baseball players. At least people who go to art school get an education.

your friend,

f--)

Ah, I see the problem here. You believe people are inherently lazy - but there's abundant sociological evidence that given free time and free reign, people DO and MAKE stuff.

i still think that your average upper class person today with old money is a goob who can't swim without a boat, line, life preserver, and a person to do the paddling of each appendage.

yet these incapable people are most likely to be the captains of our society.
m.

They can in the UK too, this has more to do with pride, and whether they actually want to go to school - particularly a "pretentious" one like art school is.

"Eeeeh son, stop that bollocks about becoming an artist, better become a footie player just like ol' dad, and then go down'a'pub'ave a few pints".

because they did not earn those opportunities. opportunities should not be through accident of birth

Also this is true in America, both parents were unemployed when I got into an art college, and I was far from being the only one.

Scott baio an inspiration to all....

Conservatives and liberals both have their imbedded stumbling blocks in considering this issue, as one glance at the preceding argument will reveal. Conservatives are too hard up on the play of individual motive in the class question. It's the Puritan work ethic redux: people are wealthy because they worked hard and therefore deserve to be wealthy; poor people are whiners who should just get a fucking job already; anyone who moans about social justice are pinkos who should hop the next flight to Cuba. We've heard this all before. Just as often, we've heard the typical liberal (or rather, radical) stances on this position: it's all the fault of the upper classes, they keep the poor down on purpose, our economic system is essentially corrupt and should be scrapped. After they've been repeated thousands of times for thousands of years, these remarks and all iterations thereof begin to sound a little hollow.

So... can we step back from the ideology a little and attempt a more mannered and complex debate? This might sound weird from the guy who was cursing out Bill O'Reilly a few threads ago, but seriously, let's give it a try. Besides, that bastard deserves any vitriol that comes his way.

I worldviews based on strawmen.

I think Mullet might actually even agree with me on this point, even if we disagree on the nature of (and solutions to) poverty.

I don't see what's so radical about this position. Even the most casual glance at world history will show you that so far it's been nothing but endless killing and suffering for the vast majority of humanity at any given time. Something is clearly wrong and we should be thinking about how to fix it.

As for your second post, I go directly to your last two words. Fix it. This is the only real option, in my mind: working out the flaws in the current system. There are no real alternatives available to us at this point, at least if one thinks of alternatives in the form of Marxist-Leninist communism. I belong to an Amnesty International chapter at my college, and there are disappointing numbers of fashionable Marxists running about with cellphones moaning about the glories of Cuba. That's bullshit. Equally so is the neoconservative dream, really the Puritan dream, of America as being a completely meritocratic society.

I think the real question that liberals need to face now is: how can we reconcile individual liberties (soundly trounced by communism) with social justice (often left on the wayside in capitalist societies) ? I like to think this question *can* be answered, but that's probably just naive of me.

God... I feel so conservative, bashing Marxism like that. I need to insult Bill O'Reilly again. Fascist pig-fucker. There, I feel better.

Cause lookin' at their track record over the course of the last
century: big f***in dud.

And I don't even feel like responding to anyone who says
"oh, Marxism has never TRULY been implemented. if we just have
one more go at it, we'll finally achieve a classless utopia;
honest." That's akin to saying that, given one more year of life,
Linda McCartney would have learned how to sing.

I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

The only way to enable a truly fuctional classless utopia is through the universal consumption of complex melodic music. Until this this happens your political theories are nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Geir Hongro

Damned collectivists.

Anyway, tremble before the might of Amon Toth as I pass judgement on your souls with my scales of... etc.etc.

Ah, right, let me guess - "libertarian." Or "north-right" (may Allah bless the Nolan chart), perhaps. Hell, maybe you're a Randroid.

Newsflash - those are all conservative.

[quote]and 2) I was addressing this statement:
"You're absolutely right that there are few viable alternatives at present to the Marxist view of class."[/quote]
Yep, the "Marxist view of class" is easily separated from Marxist ideology.

Analysis vs. ideology, it's very simple.

[quote]You must have missed it. And the other references to marx giving credibility to his theories or referring to fashionable
marxists.[/quote]
Uh-huh, as I said, it's funny how conservatives (or maybe you're not a conservative... you just make conservative laissez-faire capitalist arguments - ha!) equate Marxist-derived analysis with Marxist ideology.

"If anyone in the world still gives 2 shits for Marx's theories,
I have to wonder about their judgement/sanity."

This somehow pegged me in with Bill O'Reilly, whom I am
on the record as despising. I don't like capitalism - it _has_
been used as a tool to wring the blood out of the working classes.
But I disagree that Marxism is the only viable alternative left -
the cure is worse than the disease.

I don't really have a coherent point to make besides the fact that
Marx was WRONG. Analysis, ideology, "view of class",
whatever, his way of looking
at the world was horribly warped has had left a wake of pain and
suffering that I personally am affected by, in my own small part.
My mother was born and raised in El Salvador, and experienced
1st hand the practical application of Marx's ideas. Marx =
disenchanment, dislocation, dismemberment EVERYWHERE
in the world where his writings have been read and believed,
so excuse me for having a low tolerance for that shit.

If this has been confusing, sorry, it's hard to focus on the discussion
at hand with all the HILARIOUS jpegs and FANTASTICALLY funny asides!!!
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!!

He formulated a juggernaut of a theory. Perhaps one of the most powerful known in human history, at least in the political sense. Over a third, perhaps two-thirds, of the world's population live in quasi-Marxist states. His political potency lies in the fact that his theories crystallize unease and dissent. Even the whitest and richest of liberal college students can't help but get choked up when reading Marx's prose. His rhetoric is unmatched by anything I've read on the conservative side, although Burke has a few flourishes here and there. Marx wrote with the vigor of someone who knew he was going to change history. His shadow, along with those of Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche, looms as powerfully over Western civilization as does the shadow of Jesus Christ.

I hope that the value-neutral intention of that observation came across. I won't go deep into my opinions about the praxis of Marxist theory. Obviously the application of Marxist theory in real-world politics has been a bloody and disheartening thing to watch. However, we should never overlook the importance or utility of Marxist theories as analytic tools. His critique of capitalism was thorough, gut-wrenching, beyond all ken in that point of history. He has inspired perhaps hundreds of theorists to move in his wake, whether in admiration, opposition, or an interesting mixture of both. Even if you want to dismiss the vast majority of those theorists as hacks, that still leaves a vast body of work and thought that has proven necessary in our modern discourse about capitalism and the global economy.

So, you can take Marx or leave him in a concrete, political context. Preferably I think you should leave him. Soviet Russia has taught us that much. But you can't dismiss him and his writings out of hand because of that. It'd be like dismissing the New Testament because of the Crusades; it's all interpretation.

If you accept the premise that our society has moved into a post-modern "moment", then Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, the capstone thinkers of the hermeneutics of suspicion, are the fathers of our age. For good or for worse.

Needless to say, I hate these bastards, though not nearly as much as I hate the neocons or the old-school cons or hard-school conservatives in general. And Bill O'Reilly. And Dubya. Still, a fanatic is a fanatic, whether left or right. I don't draw ideological lines when it comes to combatting stupidity.

I really believe in what you've wrote. It's like a religion.
Scratch that - it is a religion.

We all want to sometimes just drag that smarmy yuppie out
of his sports car, beat him senseless, and drive off into
glory. Marx presents an ideological basis that allow people
to follow through on that vengeful impulse, on a grand scale.
You are so right about how marx's prose is so great - it can
grab you and it rings true. I honestly think he was inspired
when he wrote the book.

_The Mainspring Of Human Progress_ by Henry Grade Weaver
is a book that I recommend. It functions as a rebuttal of
Karl Marks, of sorts, although that is not it's intention,
and it is so level-headed, clear and simple that it doesn't
really seem to tow any party line. Recommended to anyone
who still believes in a democratic republic.

I think we can add the working classes to music in the long list of things you appear to know nothing about or have no experience of, Geir. What century are you living in?

the revolution will not be televised!
it'll be on the internet!
clicking on a pic of scott baio
half-naked
glistening
and not able to really take charge,
because the revolution will not be televised!
it'll be on the internet!

m.

(Since I'm at work, I wince every time I open this thread.)