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:
It's excellent stuff. A sample, from Part 4:
Work -- what's it good for?
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.
For 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.
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.
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.
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....
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Fascinating. When I looked at
Working class: "I'm Joe Smith. I'm a welder."
Middle class: "I'm Joe Smith. I work for IBM."
Professional class: "I'm Joe Smith. I'm a lawyer."
I noticed that I use each of these three forms depending on which audience I think I am in! And if I mistakenly use the professional answer with a middle class audience, I'll know right away when they ask me "where".
"excellent stuff"?
Yeah, if grotesque stereotyping is your thing.
PhysioProf, I don't see how what was written counts as "stereotyping" (grotesque or otherwise). He's defining what he means by "lower class", "working class" and "middle class" in terms of attitudes towards work. It's only stereotyping if he assumed that everyone who fit into one of these categories according to a different definition (such as, by income level) also must share these attitudes. In the lines that Chad quotes, he doesn't do that.
You can certainly take issue with his definitions, by saying that many or most people don't fit into his categories, but I don't see how you can fairly call these categories "stereotyping".
CCPhysicist,
What is the difference between the working class and professional class responses? It seems in both cases, Joe Smith is defining himself(at least in introduction) as a person that does a certain kind of work. This is clearly different from the second, where he's defining himself by his boss.