Sometime around 2010-2014 I realized that the US had always been a flat society where the vast majority thought of themselves as "middle class", but was heading into a new era. The US was still sorting people upward and downward based on merit, but after time when a society does that patterns start to emerge. With less immigration (at th…
Sometime around 2010-2014 I realized that the US had always been a flat society where the vast majority thought of themselves as "middle class", but was heading into a new era. The US was still sorting people upward and downward based on merit, but after time when a society does that patterns start to emerge. With less immigration (at the time), there were fewer stories of those immigrants climbing to the top. With NAFTA entrenched and China well-established in global trade, we were shedding jobs at the low end in return for cheaper goods for all. So, clearly, the more well off and less well off were being established.
In the end, I think the American Dream is there for those in a certain class or those with talent and ambition. But we've also reached the point closer to a well-established society with classes with less movement. We're nowhere near as entrenched as say, British society of the 1800's, but we're no longer immune from those lines forming. America now has a large and growing upper class that still thinks it's middle class and has absolutely zero idea how to effectively work with its fellow members of society in a constructive way.
I recall this hitting me most deeply during the pandemic when, engaged with the staff of the Governor of our state, I realized something about those in power. The guy in charge of much of the health planning was an incredibly competent and smart guy who happened to be in an ethnic minority - not a DEI hire at all, incredibly capable. He had gone to an absolute top school and was smart and capable. And he had absolutely zero idea how regular people of his ethnic group lived or were suffering in the pandemic. When he talked, it was clear that he thought everyone in the world lived and reacted to situations exactly like he and his college friends did and would - the people of his class. The whole of our upper class college educated population thinks this way, and they can't put themselves in others' shoes at all. The guy didn't even get that the people he supposedly "represented" by his ethnicity lived in multigenerational housing situations that put them in a higher risk class for COVID. Instead of coming to them with solutions for their situations, he was looking for ways to bring them to his level of understanding. It was eye opening, for sure.
I suppose it's optimistic to think that everyone has the potential to be a college professor, that manufacturing line operators can simply walk upstairs and draw up new manufacturing line designs on a computer, that police will start to make split second decisions the same way a college professor would decide when watching it in slo-mo on his computer, etc. But we should probably realize that the upper classes need to start thinking of the world as one where they work with and for the broader population that at the same time works for them, not demanding compliance from them but negotiating for mutual success, meeting them where they are.
Sometime around 2010-2014 I realized that the US had always been a flat society where the vast majority thought of themselves as "middle class", but was heading into a new era. The US was still sorting people upward and downward based on merit, but after time when a society does that patterns start to emerge. With less immigration (at the time), there were fewer stories of those immigrants climbing to the top. With NAFTA entrenched and China well-established in global trade, we were shedding jobs at the low end in return for cheaper goods for all. So, clearly, the more well off and less well off were being established.
In the end, I think the American Dream is there for those in a certain class or those with talent and ambition. But we've also reached the point closer to a well-established society with classes with less movement. We're nowhere near as entrenched as say, British society of the 1800's, but we're no longer immune from those lines forming. America now has a large and growing upper class that still thinks it's middle class and has absolutely zero idea how to effectively work with its fellow members of society in a constructive way.
I recall this hitting me most deeply during the pandemic when, engaged with the staff of the Governor of our state, I realized something about those in power. The guy in charge of much of the health planning was an incredibly competent and smart guy who happened to be in an ethnic minority - not a DEI hire at all, incredibly capable. He had gone to an absolute top school and was smart and capable. And he had absolutely zero idea how regular people of his ethnic group lived or were suffering in the pandemic. When he talked, it was clear that he thought everyone in the world lived and reacted to situations exactly like he and his college friends did and would - the people of his class. The whole of our upper class college educated population thinks this way, and they can't put themselves in others' shoes at all. The guy didn't even get that the people he supposedly "represented" by his ethnicity lived in multigenerational housing situations that put them in a higher risk class for COVID. Instead of coming to them with solutions for their situations, he was looking for ways to bring them to his level of understanding. It was eye opening, for sure.
I suppose it's optimistic to think that everyone has the potential to be a college professor, that manufacturing line operators can simply walk upstairs and draw up new manufacturing line designs on a computer, that police will start to make split second decisions the same way a college professor would decide when watching it in slo-mo on his computer, etc. But we should probably realize that the upper classes need to start thinking of the world as one where they work with and for the broader population that at the same time works for them, not demanding compliance from them but negotiating for mutual success, meeting them where they are.