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0 pointsryanwaggoner8y ago0 comments

I highly recommend this book, which is dated but holds up pretty well. I found it funny, sad, but overall just brutal in its characterizations of class in America. It's only available in print too: https://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/...

My overall takeaways from the book were:

1. Class is correlated with income, but not identical.

2. Class is so ingrained in so many areas of our lives that it's almost impossible to change. You might as well just be comfortable with the class level you grew up in, because you'll probably always be there.

3. A big reason for #2: caring about your class in the first place is middle class. The more you care about where you fall in the class hierarchy, the more middle and upper-middle class you are. Lower class folks don't really care (and may even take a certain amount of "pride" in being lower / working class), and upper class people have nothing to prove to anyone.

But the book goes into excruciating detail about the way people dress, speak, decorate their homes, what jobs they have, cars they drive, etc, etc.

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Noos8y ago

I love this book, but it made me hate everyone :)

One of the takeaways I got from it was that every single upper class activity is designed to be incredibly expensive and time consuming, just because only the wealthy can maintain those form of activities. Having driveways made out of gravel, that constantly need to be redone at considerable expense, or having a yacht. Despite this, the true upper class is incredibly banal; Fussell describes them as totally uninterested in ideas, reading time and cheap disposable mysteries if they ever bother to do so. There's really a lot of Thurston Howell in them.

I think most people here would dislike how Fussell pegs liking science fiction and technology as a fairly low class activity. But it's funny how right he is, because among the upper-mids here...you hate social media in the same way, and the lower class uses it just as much.

But, oh that book is devastating. Fussell is a wonderful writer, and a keen critic.

hkmurakami8y ago

I think my most memorable passage from that book is that cats are higher class than dogs because they are (mostly) useless. :P

The upper class hobbies are definitely a thing. Equestrian > sailing > skiing > golf probably. Golf only being this low because it was "democratized" by muni courses and popularized first by Arnold Palmer, then by Tiger Woods.

Skiing is probably the most approachable of the activities for the upper middle class professional, but it's a $300/day activity that necessitates travel. A fairly devastating expense for many.

tetromino_8y ago

> a $300/day activity that necessitates travel

A $50/day activity at a local hill + a $150 initial investment (one that will last you multiple winters) in some decade-old used equipment at a local swap event.

Skiing is not cheap. But it's extremely expensive only if you have extremely expensive demands - such was wanting to ski while living in an area without hills or snow.

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afterburner8y ago

> and upper class people have nothing to prove to anyone.

Well, except for each other. And very much so.

monocasa8y ago

Oh god, yes. The upper class can take one-upmanship to absolutely absurd levels.

gt_8y ago

And the hack is found in #3. If you’re in the know but out of care, you’ve hacked the system.

SimbaOnSteroids8y ago

I was under the impression that the only important part was that you didn't appear to care.

AnimalMuppet8y ago

Not appearing to care helps you play the social game. Not caring makes you comfortable in your own shoes. In my view, the second is more important.

losteverything8y ago

This. Especially coining of top out of sight-ers and bottom out of sight-ers

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