A Class Meme

I've seen this around a time or two, most recently at Squadratomagico's, and I've meant to complete it for awhile. Part of what I think is interesting about it is the almost protectionist response (though thankfully not at Squadratomagico's) that it seems to elicit: "Those things may be true about me, but they don't mean I'm a member of a privileged class." Yes, that's true. But they're pretty good indicators of whether you might belong or not.

The idea behind this is not to incite some sort of class warfare, by marking which are true for you (put in bold), but to simply help you think about some things that might be markers of privilege. And in a time where questions of middle class versus wealth are coming to the forefront, not to mention questions of race and ethnicity (and those things are often tied to class, even in "enlightened society, whatever that might be). And part of why I wanted to put it up here is that class is such a sensitive word in American society, and my inclination is always to poke at things that are tender so we can figure out why.

So, here goes.

1. Father went to college.
2. Father finished college - he got an Associate's degree just after I graduated with my B.S.
3. Mother went to college. - this has been a point of shame for her, to the point that she's been known to tell tales about it
4. Mother finished college.
5. Had any relative growing up who was an attorney, physician, or professor.
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers.
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.
9. Were read children's books by a parent.
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18.
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18.
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs.
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
16. Went to a private high school.
17. Went to summer camp.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18.
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them.
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child.
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment.
25. You had your own room as a child.
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course..
26. You had routine and consistent medical and dental care.
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school.
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16.
31. Went on a cruise with your family.
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family.
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Part of what is so fascinating here is that class is such a moving target. If you think about moments where someone has provided a fairly nuanced demographic definition of a class - think Bourdieu's Distinction - the idea of class becomes not only culturally bound (in his example, French) but historically bound as well. What was a mark of distinction at the time of his study doesn't seem likely to be today.

That brings me to what I think is most fascinating about this meme: the things that I'd add to it if I were writing it. It's significant, I think, that for some periods of my childhood we were able to get by on a single income. Those periods weren't long - they mostly happened in my high school years - but they were there. I can't imagine almost any American family today surviving on a single income, let alone what my father made as an NCO in the military (which is also the only reason I had consistent health care as a child). Similarly, I'd ask questions specifically about what one's school did, though I would add that in because I took a very strict interpretation of the questions.

Ultimately, I guess I wonder what other markers of class we should be thinking about. Bourdieu, for example, offered familiarity with particular pieces of classical music as an example of one marker. Maybe that's the still the case if you were to ask someone like Bourdieu. But I can't help but think there's a third limit on the notion of class: where you're looking from. I do wonder what his study would have found the markers of "distinction" were who weren't from whatever privileged class he was imagining. I don't think, however, that I'd get the same answerif I were to ask my students or - even more tellingly, perhaps - their parents.

On some level, this parallax error of class perception I think might account for some of the distress about "Joe Sixpacks" and "hockey moms" in this election. It isn't just that classes live diferent lives. It is that they see them differently as well.

Thoughts from a "Lost" newbie

So, I'm sitting here watching the first part of the pilot to "Lost." I've not seen the show before, I'm not convinced I'll like it, and I'll fuck you up if you reveal anything about the plot to me because I'm not one of those people who is okay knowing the details of shows/movies/plays/books that I might be interested in seeing. This is directly contradictory to the story I told my best friend years ago about always reading the end of a book as soon as I get it so that if I die, I'll at least not have missed the ending.

Believe it or not, it was the only way to get him to stop telling me crucial plot details. He's my best friend: it was lie or kill him. Besides, he should have known better. I'm a fast reader, and if the book's good enough, there's no way I wouldn't finish it, death or no.

But that is all beside the point.

Having managed to avoid anything "Lost" related for ages, it occurs to me that the big mystery to it must be that it'll all be a dream in which someone copes with their fears of flying following September 11. I know. That's all so "Bobby Ewing" (for you kids, that's an old TV reference: go look it up - it'll be useful pop cultural knowledge for relating to your aging superiors and will help you understand why they distrust anything that smacks of dream sequences. Take your time. We'll wait.) .

Back? Good.

It seems to me that the mystery at the heart of the last twenty years of "big reveal" media is this: at the end of it, it's all about how there's something we distrust within ourselves. For ages, our stories were about how we battled nature. Or how we battled each other. Or how the things we created made us vulnerable. And, of course, us versus ourselves isn't new. It's the pervasiveness that fascinates me. So how do you make a disaster show a mystery if you don't make it about trust in ourselves? In the case of "Lost," what I find interesting is the start where we're thrown into the story immediately. And we're instantly confronted with a broken airplane, flames, screams, disaster. And disaster is a word that's taken on a different definition, a different meaning for most of us in the last seven years.

In the show now, there's a noise - maybe music, maybe something creepy in the forest in the dark. No one's sure what they saw. It sounds like a howl. Were I the sort to talk to the characters and offer them advise, I'd remind them that we always confront ourselves when we walk into the forest.

I like that in this show - as in "Heroes" - they've taken a chance and had characters speaking in a different language, that we're forced to grapple with another language. One of the things that was so compelling about "Heroes" to me was the brave choice to try and make us identify with people - by making us follow their story lines - who don't speak our language. Sure, eventually they gave in and had them learn the language, but they held out for awhile in the first season. And Season two, whatever else was wrong with it, made us grapple with multiple languages. That's worth commending, particularly when we can still read reviews that suggest it's laughable that contact with other cultures might make us smarter (it's true - check out the (admittedly out of full context) review from Cynthia Fuchs on Rotten Tomatoes.com of the movie "The Visitor" (a movie that is well worth checking out).

Anyway.

A colleague of mine commented that most of his students don't have the visual fluency to view a movie with subtitles because they can't keep up with reading and watching at the same time. He claims - and I've no real reason not to believe him other than hope - that most of the students in his class have never seen a foreign film. But beyond providing some additional skills to students, I like the use of multiple languages because it makes things a bit more like the world I live in. Now if we could just get subtitles for all those accents I don't understand plus all those languages, TV might be awesome. Even better when there are scenes with no subtitles - just language and intent and the need to muddle through it.

So anyway, what I think is this: you start a show with an unexplained plane crash, survivors are left to make sense of it, there's not only a looming threat but there are people you're not sure you can communicate with who your survival may well rely on. How is this not a microcosm for the world we live in now? How could America not deal with its fears but through media?

I ventured a theory in high school, in the midst of a short story we had to write, after reading "1984" and "Brave New World" that asked us to venture our own utopia/dystopia for the future (awesome assignment, Mrs. Hall!) and what I wanted to write about - and maybe I did, though I remember thinking that I couldn't pull it off then - was about a future world where all America could do was produce entertainment. It was all amusement parks and studio backlots; it's what we did best and what we valued most. And now I think it's where we think things through. This is why I'm so distressed by reality TV and "American Idol." If media is where we think things through, then reality TV represents our worst "what were they thinking" moments.

Anyway, I'm assuming members of the group must betray each other. That they'll have to turn on each other. If my metaphor will hold, then the lesson becomes not just that the Others (yes, I've heard much about the show) must be wrestled with and made familiar and understandable, but that we must as well.

Anyway, I should really pay attention to the show. This pilot episode - part I - is long. But I suppose thought provoking.