Comments on: Lindquist and Class 1

By: John

John — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 08:40:29 +0000

Pursuing this point is important, Mike. My parents were clearly working class. My mother’s father (an immigrant from Ireland) died when she was 5 (he was a steelworker in Cleveland) and she, her two sisters, and brother were raised by a single mother who took in laundry to make a living. My father’s father immigrated from Hungary, did some farmwork when dad was a baby, and died when my father was about 6 years old. His mother remarried, but my father was often in trouble, being sent to the boys’ farm for truancy twice, dropping out of school, getting a job as a baker, and then later as a sheet metal worker, what he did until retirement. None of my aunts or uncles on either side attended college, though my mother’s brother worked his way up to the vice-presidency of the Cleveland power company. He went to night school–that was before community colleges existed in Ohio.

My parents’ major purpose in life was to ensure that none of their seven children be working class, and they succeeded admirably. We’re all clearly part of the middle class–and one of my brothers has ended up filthy rich. That’s a point that often seems to escape many compositionists who want to claim working class roots. As college professors, they are NOT working class anymore.

Because no one in my family had been to college, no one could give me advice or direct me. That was not a hindrance, in my view, but an advantage. I had to figure it all out on my own.

So I think you are right to query the significance of a scholar claiming working class status as some kind of authenticating experience.

By: Rob Miller

Rob Miller — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 16:28:53 +0000

Mike,

I’m afraid that this might come across as giberish, but I don’t care. For me the concept of “working class” and the claim to be in it is all about the desire to belong and to feel accomplished. We all want to say that we have worked hard to get where are now and we want credit for it. We all want to associate ourselves with something regardless if the claim is accurate or not. For example, how many times have you heard someone claim that they are part native american? Chances are that they are less native american than any other ethnicity in their family tree, but they still insist on telling people that they are native american. By doing so it gives them the right to claim the origin, to feel oppressed and to act like society owes them something. Hell, I’m part native american but that does not entitle me to speak on any tribe’s behalf. The same applies to he concept of “working class”. Regardless, I’m rambling. Back to the point.

In my opinion the definitions of “working class” and “blue collar” are constantly confused with one another. What the appropriate definitions should be is up for debate a bit and that is where the problem lies. We are working with socially constructed definitions that are based upon decades old ideologies. If we want to use these terms any more we will need to update the definitions. We are no longer a “blue collar” country even though the founding father inside of us all says otherwise. We have changed to more of a service/social welfare society. The title “working class” applies to so small a percentage in this country that very few people can claim it anymore. My father worked 17 hour days, was gone for weeks at a time and slaved on his job every day as a truck driver to provide for his family. Does that make him working class? What if I told you he makes $95,000 per year, lives in the suburbs, owns a 1960 corvette and 1966 chevy II that are to die for? Would that change your mind. Regardless, my point is if we continue to use outdated terminology to discuss modern society we will always be confused.

Sorry for rambling and being so long winded. I could go on for days on this one.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 07:34:55 +0000

There are a couple of things that I think are at work here, Mike: first, yeah–there’s a body of work that might reasonably lead one to believe that “working class roots” lends a certain authenticity or penumbra of success in the face of hardship to the choice of academe: think of Richard Rodriguez or Mike Rose. It’s (I’m thinking here of Rodriguez in particular) a sort of semiotic cubbyhole in which one might be very comfortable: alienated from one’s upbringing by/in the bookish, contemplative life. It just screams what Rodriguez talked about re: Hoggart’s “scholarship boy.”
Too, by making a claim to working class roots, there’s an implicit claim of overcoming-of-obstacles that is very much in line with the Horatio Algeresque mythology of America and,as you point out, very much in line with the ostensibly meritocratic form & function of the academy.
On another hand, there’s also an issue of identity: how many truly working class folks that you’ve known think about class at all, except insofar as recognizing that & theirs are not, never have been, and will probably never be wealthy, or even “well-off”? Going around claiming working-class identity seems almost restricted to those who’ve “gotten over” (and the Gene Debses of the world, I guess). Though I must point out that I feel pretty damned working class, even though neither my family of origin nor my family now really fit that label (lack of income notwithstanding).