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people from other planets
I don't know W*ill Sh*tt*rly from a hole in the ground, and have no interest in bringing out the rabid fandom hordes to my non-fandom LJ, but I just gotta say.
(The following is quoting a post of his at his blog; see coffeeandink's LJ for a link and context):
"a) My "class", no matter what you mean by the term, changed enormously when my grandfather's money became available to me in my mid-teens, and changed again when it was gone. The newspaper article here explains my father's class background as well or better than I could.
b) People who see the world primarily in terms of skin color or gender may not realize that class can change. So they may have been confused by noticing that I've lived more than one lifestyle, and concluded that I must lie."
CLASS DOES NOT CHANGE LIKE THAT. His family's income changed, and/or his access to financial resources changed. (The newspaper article he references talks a lot of about his father's political activism and some about how he earns his living, but does not mention his upbringing, whether or not he attended college, etc. I see nothing in the newspaper article that references his father's class background - did I miss it? Edit: I re-read; his father is described as a "self-educated high-school dropout." Now, that could mean a lot of things - were his parents sharecroppers, or was he the rebellious child of priviledge? Note also he is described as a "businessman" operating a theme park, restaurant, and gas station. He has the resources to send his children across the country when they are threatened at school. End edit.)
S. may have lived in poverty and as a social outcast in his narrow-minded community as a child, but he came from people who had heard of Choate, and inherited the money to send him there. That alone means he was upper-middle class. His parents, had they chosen to do so, could probably have lived a much different life (i.e. one of suburban middle-class comfort) from the one they chose. I've been richer or poorer in my life, though I've never been destitute or hungry. I have always been the child and grandchild of upper middle class people, which fact alone means I know how to behave in polite society (though it took a little time to get used to the Actual Rich when I attended Choate, in the late 1980s), it was always assumed I could and would attend college, and it was always assumed I could be almost anything I wanted to. It sounds like S.'s class background is not actually much different from mine, although our life experiences are vastly different.
(The following is quoting a post of his at his blog; see coffeeandink's LJ for a link and context):
"a) My "class", no matter what you mean by the term, changed enormously when my grandfather's money became available to me in my mid-teens, and changed again when it was gone. The newspaper article here explains my father's class background as well or better than I could.
b) People who see the world primarily in terms of skin color or gender may not realize that class can change. So they may have been confused by noticing that I've lived more than one lifestyle, and concluded that I must lie."
CLASS DOES NOT CHANGE LIKE THAT. His family's income changed, and/or his access to financial resources changed. (The newspaper article he references talks a lot of about his father's political activism and some about how he earns his living, but does not mention his upbringing, whether or not he attended college, etc. I see nothing in the newspaper article that references his father's class background - did I miss it? Edit: I re-read; his father is described as a "self-educated high-school dropout." Now, that could mean a lot of things - were his parents sharecroppers, or was he the rebellious child of priviledge? Note also he is described as a "businessman" operating a theme park, restaurant, and gas station. He has the resources to send his children across the country when they are threatened at school. End edit.)
S. may have lived in poverty and as a social outcast in his narrow-minded community as a child, but he came from people who had heard of Choate, and inherited the money to send him there. That alone means he was upper-middle class. His parents, had they chosen to do so, could probably have lived a much different life (i.e. one of suburban middle-class comfort) from the one they chose. I've been richer or poorer in my life, though I've never been destitute or hungry. I have always been the child and grandchild of upper middle class people, which fact alone means I know how to behave in polite society (though it took a little time to get used to the Actual Rich when I attended Choate, in the late 1980s), it was always assumed I could and would attend college, and it was always assumed I could be almost anything I wanted to. It sounds like S.'s class background is not actually much different from mine, although our life experiences are vastly different.
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You are absolutely right about class. Money may help with mobility between classes, the creation of a new class, or in creating the illusion of class mobility, but in the end, class is about your worldview, your social network, your ability to speak the 'language' of a specific class/culture, your assumptions about what 'normal' life should look like, etc.
I could probably be more coherent, but honestly, the coffee is still kicking in.
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Probably, because we both went on scholarship, and he paid for the privilege, he would consider us his sistren in lower-class agitation! Dude! I beat W--- S----- on the privilege of no-privilege scale!!
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It's your knowledge of the system, the way that you speak, your cultural trappings, your expectations - in a very big way, your expectations - and the way that people react to you. And your money. Which you'd think anyone with a true interest in class issues would understand, wouldn't you?
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I have no idea how much weight contemporary Marxist theory places on the structural definition of class, as opposed to the more psychology concept of socio-economic status, which is what most people mean when they talk about class.
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Now, maybe W.S.'s parents didn't give a damn about his table manners or whatever (his social skills could obviously use some work), but I know quite a few people and families which have gone through a generation or two of lower income and come out the other side, ah, comfortably off and with the same class identity they had before their setbacks. These folks went through an income change, not a class change.
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How did he live? His parents, who lived on Central Park West, sent him regular checks.
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I remember once in college, one of my friends said that she didn't think she could ever marry someone rich, because she'd feel too much like she was exploiting the poor.
I grew up in an upper-middle class suburb, where my family was fairly average for the town, I think. My parents paid my tuition and room and board from my college fund (plus I had a partial academic scholarship), and they'd pay for any clothes that my mom agreed I needed, but things like movies and going out to dinner and other things like that were from my own money. I didn't have to work, and that made me "rich" to most of my friends. But I had to pay for fun stuff myself, I did have to limit how often I went out, and my parents would have laughed if I'd ever even considered asking them to pay for a spring break trip for me, so that made me not as rich as a whole lot of other people.
(After that friend made the comment about not being able to marry a rich man, I said, "I'd be able to," and before I could say any more, she said, "You know, there are lots of ethnic jokes I could make now, but I'll refrain." Took several days before I calmed down enough to address that rationally.)
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When word was out that the Klan would burn down our little roadside attraction, Dad and Mom drove us to Minnesota in a station wagon. Whenever we made trips with Dad in summer time, we would park by the side of the road and sleep in back of the station wagon, but this would've been in the winter and I think Mom came along, so I'm sure we either stopped at a couple of cheap motels, or Mom and Dad took turns driving all the way there. (I don't know why I remember the trip back, but not the trip there.)
My mother's father, a small town druggist, invested in Polaris, a snowmobile maker that did well, but my family didn't see any of that while I was young because Dad believed Mom's parents looked down on him and his pride would not let him accept their money. When I was in eighth grade, Grandpa offered to send me to a private school, Dad went to the library to research what was available and came back with a few possibilities. He wanted me to apply to Choate because John F. Kennedy went there.
As for Dog Land, it was a little roadside attraction consisting of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a gift shop, and a hundred dogs on display, almost all donated by breeders. Not exactly a theme park. The "gas station" was a pump by the gift shop.