Great idea, Eugene. We, in the US, struggle with a public discourse that
adamantly refuses to recognize its class-riven nature. I was thinking the
other day how helpful it would be for some socially progressive think tank
to sponsor an ethnographic, participant/observer study of upper class
attitudes toward class--slipping into private power clubs and engaging in
leisurely but intense conversations about the structure of society.
David
PS. Thanks to Victor, Andy, Ricardo, and Eugene for reflections my
postmodernist/poststructuralist thread.
Victor, Andy, and Ricardo
"Eugene Matusov"
<ematusov who-is-at udel.ed To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
u> cc: (bcc: David H Kirshner/dkirsh/LSU)
Subject: RE: real and virtual worlds
12/30/2003 07:26
PM
Please respond to
xmca
Dear Andy–
It will be interesting to check/test your (and Victor’s?) hypothesis about
“*all* member of bourgeois society… sharing… the same illusions”. I
personally doubt that members of upper class (“old moneys”) would agree
with “I believe if you put an effort into anything, you can get ahead…”
(Strauss, 1992, p. 202) But it will be nice to check that. I wish somebody
made a study like Claudia Strauss did with members of working, middle, and
upper class people.
What do you think?
Eugene
From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 7:39 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: real and virtual worlds
Here we come back to what someone (Victor?) said about *all* members of
bourgeois society, whatever class, sharing in the first place, the same
illusions. Class consciousness and solidarity are attitudes I think which
have to be learnt through definite kinds of experience; such experiences
are not to be had in the home, generally are not conveyed in TV; perhaps
the first experiences are in gang-like interactions at school?
Andy
At 07:23 PM 30/12/2003 -0500, you wrote:
Dear Andy, I think you are right on the target talking about, what Jim Gee
calls, projective identity. The question that I have is how and why working
class people participate in middle-class cultural model(or way of talking).
It is not the case that working class people accept any middle class
cultural modelthat available via TV or other popular media. Although I do
not have much data about that but I doubt that many working class people
would buy middle class cultural model of child fostering based on
constantly giving kids choices. So the question is why some working class
people project themselves in self-actualizationmiddle-class cultural model
but not in child-rearing through choice-makingmiddle-class cultural model.
I do not think the preference of working class people in adapting
middle-class models can be explained simply by watching TV. Any ideas?
What do you think?
Eugene
From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 6:38 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: real and virtual worlds
We could put this together with Jim Gee's observations about play. People
are growing up acting out characters that they see on TV. They believe that
they can make their own character. But this turns out to be a frustrated
experience; they only get to play Doug Heffernan. ... Andy
Claudias study shows that also working class men widely hold this
self-actualizationcultural model they do and cannot enact it (but rather
they act out of necessity-based being a breadwinnercultural model). Victor
or anybody else, can you explain what makes proliferation of cultural
modelsthat people deeply hold but cant enact, please?
Eugene
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