Comments on: Whose Class, Whose Terms? http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2003/06/27/whose-class-whose-terms/ faults | sins | abuses Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:41:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Chris http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2003/06/27/whose-class-whose-terms/#comment-39 Chris Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/archives/2003/06/27/whose-class-whose-terms/#comment-39 I agree with you, Mike--it doesn't seem odd or difficult at all that some the owning class get surplus (profit) of their own making. It seems at least somewhat relevant that our notions of class have changed markedly since Marx wrote: middle class now means "Have to work every day for a living" and only other people are working class. One of the things that interests me is how my students (or yours) would self-identify regarding class, and whether or how that impacts their attitudes toward the ends of their education. I've not thought it out completely, but I'm interested in what you discover. I agree with you, Mike–it doesn’t seem odd or difficult at all that some the owning class get surplus (profit) of their own making. It seems at least somewhat relevant that our notions of class have changed markedly since Marx wrote: middle class now means “Have to work every day for a living” and only other people are working class. One of the things that interests me is how my students (or yours) would self-identify regarding class, and whether or how that impacts their attitudes toward the ends of their education. I’ve not thought it out completely, but I’m interested in what you discover.

]]> By: Mike http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2003/06/27/whose-class-whose-terms/#comment-40 Mike Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/archives/2003/06/27/whose-class-whose-terms/#comment-40 Actually, Chris, I think you might have misread me: I was suggesting, rather cynically, that it doesn't seem odd that the capitalist class get profit <em>not</em> of their own making. Exploitation seems to be an unfortunate fact of life in American culture, and I think we tell ourselves many stories to cover up or ameliorate our own sense of that exploitation. I'm interested in your comments about the middle class and the working class. Certainly, since 85% of Americans identify as middle class, and most folks want to think of themselves as hardworking, your first definition seems apt. But I'd also contend that there are quite a few people who identify as working class: it's not solely a role of alterity. Many students in my classes are certainly middle class, but our campus is also in a fairly rural/agricultural area, with a significant population of farmers' children and first-generation college students. I do think that many of those students aspire to be members of the middle class, but at the same time, class identity is a vexed issue when you consider the frequent advice to never forget where you came from. Actually, Chris, I think you might have misread me: I was suggesting, rather cynically, that it doesn’t seem odd that the capitalist class get profit not of their own making. Exploitation seems to be an unfortunate fact of life in American culture, and I think we tell ourselves many stories to cover up or ameliorate our own sense of that exploitation.

I’m interested in your comments about the middle class and the working class. Certainly, since 85% of Americans identify as middle class, and most folks want to think of themselves as hardworking, your first definition seems apt. But I’d also contend that there are quite a few people who identify as working class: it’s not solely a role of alterity.

Many students in my classes are certainly middle class, but our campus is also in a fairly rural/agricultural area, with a significant population of farmers’ children and first-generation college students. I do think that many of those students aspire to be members of the middle class, but at the same time, class identity is a vexed issue when you consider the frequent advice to never forget where you came from.

]]> By: Chris http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/2003/06/27/whose-class-whose-terms/#comment-41 Chris Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.vitia.org/wordpress/archives/2003/06/27/whose-class-whose-terms/#comment-41 <p>No, I saw the bulge of your tongue in your cheek. I was picking up on the notion that a lot of people would call us both a couple of neo-Marxist class warriors for suggesting something so outlandish.</p><p>I guess, for me, there are a lot of confounding issues that play into class identification re: education. When I ask my students (I teach at an open-enrollment, public state university campus where the average age of undergraduates is 26), they almost without exception identify an education as one leg up on the ladder to success. At the same time, most would call themselves middle class of one stratum or another. If pressed, I'm sure some would identify the very act of going to college as a middle-class (read: "bourgeois") pursuit, but I imagine there would be ambivalence: aren't I already middle class?</p><p>I think a general culture of anti-intellectualism and a history of it among the working classes in particular plays a role here, but I haven't thought it through enough to say anything definitive. I do find it interesting that so many in the business world--entrepreneurs, if you like--(adherents of neoclassical economics, if only in a practical way) would probably by any objective measure have a lot of working-class values: thrift, hard work, a distrust of the motives of fifth-column lefties, but would never identify themselves as working class.</p><p>What I may be pointing at is that I think notions of class cut across strata of economic wherewithal; that is, there's a disconnect from the strict spectral notion I think most have: that if you earn a working class wage in a working class job, you have working class values and identify yourself as working class. It is partially about alterity, but I think a lot of it's about wish fulfillment, or some inchoate notion that if I act middle class, I will be.</p> No, I saw the bulge of your tongue in your cheek. I was picking up on the notion that a lot of people would call us both a couple of neo-Marxist class warriors for suggesting something so outlandish.

I guess, for me, there are a lot of confounding issues that play into class identification re: education. When I ask my students (I teach at an open-enrollment, public state university campus where the average age of undergraduates is 26), they almost without exception identify an education as one leg up on the ladder to success. At the same time, most would call themselves middle class of one stratum or another. If pressed, I’m sure some would identify the very act of going to college as a middle-class (read: “bourgeois”) pursuit, but I imagine there would be ambivalence: aren’t I already middle class?

I think a general culture of anti-intellectualism and a history of it among the working classes in particular plays a role here, but I haven’t thought it through enough to say anything definitive. I do find it interesting that so many in the business world–entrepreneurs, if you like–(adherents of neoclassical economics, if only in a practical way) would probably by any objective measure have a lot of working-class values: thrift, hard work, a distrust of the motives of fifth-column lefties, but would never identify themselves as working class.

What I may be pointing at is that I think notions of class cut across strata of economic wherewithal; that is, there’s a disconnect from the strict spectral notion I think most have: that if you earn a working class wage in a working class job, you have working class values and identify yourself as working class. It is partially about alterity, but I think a lot of it’s about wish fulfillment, or some inchoate notion that if I act middle class, I will be.

]]>