[Xmca-l] Re: NYT Op-Ed: Class Prejudice Resurgent

[Andy Blunden]

It was the post-World War Two Settlement between the Allies and the 
Soviet Union which included huge concessions to the organised working 
class in Europe and America (and Australia) in exchange for Peaceful 
Co-existence. This for a time gave a degree of prosperity for the 
organised working class (which Americans have ever since called "the 
middle class") and this pacified the class struggle. All those sections 
of the world's population, beginning with the masses of the colonial 
world, followed by Blacks in the US and then Women, felt that they had 
been betrayed by this historic compromise, and raised their own demands 
for emancipation, and the next 50 years was dominated by this new 
configuration.
Somewhere around the 1990s, this began to open up and it became possible 
to again see class. Which was always there of course,

Andy
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/


Annalisa Aguilar wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> Why is this the case that 1930s is "non-appropriatable" by later generations? Is it because the stories are not told and shared? McCarthyism? I'm not understanding.
>
> I have a hard time accepting the difficulty groking of it. There are people who are at a gross disadvantage because of a lack of opportunities and lack of advantages. 
>
> What is there to grok? It is a sincere question, and not meant to be inflammatory in any way.
>
> Perhaps it is not knowing HOW to discuss it. That is my guess. But there has to be a way to discuss it. Where there is a will there is a way.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Monday, December 8, 2014 8:42 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: NYT Op-Ed: Class Prejudice Resurgent
>
> The centrality of class in human relations and psychological development is
> a topic that cannot get enough attention, Paul and Annalisa. Its one lesson
> of the 1930's in the US (at least) that appears non-appropriatable by later
> generations. Or to quote Greg, people have an awfully hard time groking it.
> mike
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 6:11 PM, Dr. Paul C. Mocombe <pmocombe@mocombeian.com
>   
>> wrote:
>>     
>
>   
>> Class is an unspoken topic in America's protestant social structure of
>> class inequality.  William Julius Wilson caught hell for his 1970s book,
>> "the declining significance of race," for making the argument that race is
>> becoming less important vis-a-vis class in determining the life chances of
>> black folk.
>>
>>
>> Dr. Paul C. Mocombe
>> President
>> The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc.
>> www.mocombeian.com
>> www.readingroomcurriculum.com
>> www.paulcmocombe.info
>>
>> <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Annalisa Aguilar <
>> annalisa@unm.edu> </div><div>Date:12/08/2014  8:50 PM  (GMT-05:00)
>> </div><div>To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> </div><div>Subject: [Xmca-l]  NYT Op-Ed: Class Prejudice Resurgent
>> </div><div>
>> </div>Hello esteemed discussants,
>>
>>
>> I am not normally a fan of David Brooks of the New York Times, but
>> sometimes he really surprises me. This is one of those times:
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/opinion/david-brooks-class-prejudice-resurgent.html
>> <
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/opinion/david-brooks-class-prejudice-resurgent.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fdavid-brooks&contentCollection=opinion&action=click&module=NextInCollection&region=Footer&pgtype=article
>>     
>> It has been my sense that we (as a culture, i.e., my American culture to
>> which he refers) are more afraid to discuss class then we are to discuss
>> race, and now it has become even harder, apparently.
>>
>>
>> I particularly took to this paragraph:
>>
>>
>> "Widening class distances produce class prejudice, classism. This is a
>> prejudice based on visceral attitudes about competence. People in the
>> "respectable" class have meritocratic virtues: executive function, grit, a
>> capacity for delayed gratification. The view about those in the untouchable
>> world is that they are short on these things. They are disorganized. They
>> are violent and scary. This belief has some grains of truth because of
>> childhood trauma, the stress of poverty and other things. But this view
>> metastasizes into a vicious, intellectually lazy stereotype. Before long,
>> animalistic imagery is used to describe these human beings."
>>
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>>
>> Annalisa
>>
>>
>>
>>     
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>
>
>