Lawrence Watt-Evans is reposting some old Usenet essays on the subject of class, which regular readers will recognize as a hot-button issues for me. So far, he’s up to part four of six. The list:<\/p>\n
It’s excellent stuff. A sample, from Part 4:<\/p>\n
\nWork — what’s it good for?<\/p>\n
For the lower class, work is one way of getting money and keeping the Man from hassling you. It’s not necessarily the best way, but it works. Taking pride in one’s work is not likely. Jobs are transitory. Work is an option. Your job is no part of your identity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
\nFor the working class, on the other hand, taking pride in one’s work is important. In fact, pride is generally a very significant thing for the working class. Making money is important, and that’s a solid reason to work, but turning down added money in order to be proud of what one does is perfectly normal.<\/p>\n
It doesn’t matter all that very much what the work is. Oh, it’s best to have a job you enjoy, but whether you love your job or hate it, it’s important to do it well. If you’re a plumber, then by God you want to be a good plumber. If you’re flipping burgers, then you want them to be good burgers.<\/p>\n
And this pride in one’s work is one of the major divides between working class and lower middle class. Some people make no distinction between those two classes, and economically they’re pretty interchangeable, but behaviorally they’re not. Working class people work to survive, because it’s what people do, and they try to do it well; middle class people work to get ahead, and if they try to do it well, that’s usually to impress someone so they can get a better job.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
And now I’m going to end up spending my few idle moments today trying to figure out where I fit in his scheme of classes….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lawrence Watt-Evans is reposting some old Usenet essays on the subject of class, which regular readers will recognize as a hot-button issues for me. So far, he’s up to part four of six. The list: Defining Terms Who I Am Attitudes & Money On the Job It’s excellent stuff. A sample, from Part 4: Work… Continue reading The Class Project<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-class_issues","category-politics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}