tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post2999467276400918872..comments2023-09-29T06:57:06.991-07:00Comments on Anglachel's Journal: The Truth of the Bitter White Elite ClassAnglachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01110546252851760414noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-1854915174955422942010-11-10T02:32:44.271-08:002010-11-10T02:32:44.271-08:00Janis and Anglachel,
Your conversation here inter...Janis and Anglachel,<br /><br />Your conversation here interests me. And reflects my experience.<br /><br />I remember when my children were young and I was working my a** off to send them to a private pre-school. One of the schools benefactors there said something like "we really think parents should be home when children are so young." <br /><br />And I wondered, after that.... if she realized that I would not be able to pay tuition if I did not work?? (Or for food and clothes.)<br /><br />It's a strange world that elite live in. They believe we can choose NOT to be educated and hold jobs. They truly assume that we are living off of interest, as they do. <br /><br />Which also explains why they think this "jobless recovery" is a recovery. Their risky accounts have been bailed out and are stabilizing a bit. What do they care if those who need jobs are doing better?Stray Yellar Dawg?https://www.blogger.com/profile/04861846247063603370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-49136241017170749372010-11-09T17:44:53.123-08:002010-11-09T17:44:53.123-08:00"To refuse to assimilate and to beat them at ..."To refuse to assimilate and to beat them at their own game - that is intolerable to any elite."<br /><br />YES. It's an attack against their identity as the origin of all that is wonderful and smart in the world. THEY own smartness. Not YOU people. YOU own incest and cleaning your ears with a car key.<br /><br />They can't see how getting the living hell educated out of you is not a rejection of being working-class, but a REFLECTION of it.<br /><br />That idiot you talked to didn't even realize that some people actually <i>need</i> money. To him, people work for status or self-actualization or some other self-help book catchphrase, but not to eat. Most of that type aren't really educated anyway ... expensively educated, but not extensively. They don't have to actually DO all the work or treat their classes as anything more than an fascinating intellectual bagatelle -- they don't have to use their brains to live.<br /><br />The world looks very different when you are expected to earn every single penny you will ever spend on yourself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-75247818177732602442010-11-09T17:13:59.825-08:002010-11-09T17:13:59.825-08:00Hi Janice,
I stand corrected and am guilty as cha...Hi Janice,<br /><br />I stand corrected and am guilty as charged. I was trying to capture the elite perspective of what they believe the working class wants and ended up falling into the very thinking I was trying to criticize.<br /><br />A little anecdote. When I decided to stop trying to be a professional political thinker, mostly due to severe lack of money and foul job prospects in my field, I had an exit interview at my university. The professor doing the interview looked at me and said in a very patronizing way, "I see. So, you're not up to a *career*. You just want a *job.*" To which I replied, "No, I need an income." <br /><br />That's the moment of condescension and projection I was trying (and failed) to capture. If I reject his life choices by choosing another path, then there is something wrong with me. I'm "not up to" the rigors of a "career" and will settle for a mere "job". The shocking thing was the resentment manifested in his dismissal of me, almost like a curse that I should fail.<br /><br />It gives me no small satisfaction that I've ended up in, yes, A JOB that pays me well, gives me intellectual challenges, and where I am actively doing good things for the public's benefit. Unlike Mr. Snotnose.<br /><br />To refuse to assimilate and to beat them at their own game - that is intolerable to any elite. <br /><br />AnglachelAnglachelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01110546252851760414noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-35806399456357178612010-11-09T09:29:22.420-08:002010-11-09T09:29:22.420-08:00We certainly do see the point of wanting to be a s...We certainly do see the point of wanting to be a straight-A student. I have never heard ANY parents push their bright kids to get educated harder than a working-class parent of a bright kid.<br /><br />The problem is that, when we DO get As and <i>outperform</i> all those elites and get multiple terrifying degrees (BS in physics ans astronomy, MS physics, Phi Beta Kappa, Teas Scholar), we insist on still admiring our lunchbucket parents instead of being embarrassed of them.<br /><br />Just because I'm smarter than almost every gentry elite I've ever known, and just because I'm better educated than most of them, I still don't want to wake up one day and <i>be one of them</i>. They don't get that. They think that my drive and ambition is an apology for being born working-class, and an outward expression of my thirst to be Just Like Them. It's not. It's a reflection of what I am, a massive thirst for mathematics right alongside a deep love of old cars and stadium rock.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-87129834862521495912010-11-09T03:09:37.355-08:002010-11-09T03:09:37.355-08:00Best explanation of the "Bitter Clinging Clas...Best explanation of the "Bitter Clinging Class" I have yet to read.<br /><br />Thank you!Stray Yellar Dawg?https://www.blogger.com/profile/04861846247063603370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4119943.post-63444310951115318692010-11-08T23:53:45.881-08:002010-11-08T23:53:45.881-08:00The Stevensonian elites don't grok that even w...The Stevensonian elites don't grok that even when the Jacksonians get fancy degrees and financial success they still aren't ashamed of their roots.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com