Some interesting posts this week on class here in the Pugetopolis.
A short class about ‘class’. Dick Morrill, an emeritus professor of geography at the University of Washington and an expert in urban demography, attempts to map out the class structures of the Puget Sound region. Except he starts out with this assertion in the 2nd paragraph:
There is no implication of “better than.” Class simply reflects the mix of inheritance, education, biology, experience, discrimination, and life events that lead to variability in economic well-being.
I do not understand at all how this professor has come to the conclusion that class has “no implication of ‘better than’.” It seems to me that implications of “better than” are the only way class works.
Here’s a response to Professor Morrill’s essay: Definition of Class Depends on Your Classification, by Ric Hallock, blogging for the Kitsap Sun (newspaper for the Kitsap Peninsula). This response was interesting to me for 2 reasons.
First, it bears all of the hallmarks of almost every discussion i’ve ever had about class:
- Objecting to the other person’s argument because they’ve mis-identified your particular class — “I take exception because he includes my humble spread as definitively lower class.” — tho’ it’s true that usually i see middle/upper-class people playing up the poor/lower-class backgrounds of their parents and grandparents.
- Making broad, stereotypical assumptions about the “rural fringe” — “There’s no doubt the KP has its fair share of backwoods trailers with blocked up 4×4s littering the yard [...].” Oh, yes, how droll. We also marry our cousins and have no front teeth.
Fortunately, second of all, the essay does rise above simply being a reiteration of worn-out, worthless class discussion stereotypes. Most notably, Hallock writes:
Regardless of any potential egalitarian notions you may have about living in a classless society, the truth is humans have a long and storied history of class in our varied cultures that is impossible to deny. When you consider yourself “rich” or “poor” or somewhere in between, you have just categorized yourself into a class.