But, but, in America, anybody can grow up to be president
Life is a race, and while we’re all in a sense sprinting for the same finish line, the simple truth is that some folks are born a lot closer to the tape than others. If we’re running a 100-yard dash and I get a 20-yard headstart, you might still beat me. But you’ll have to be 20% better than me just to finish in a tie, and the averages are certainly not in your favor. What if I get a 90-yard headstart?
Which leads me to a detailed new series on class in America by the NYT, forwarded on by Debby Levinson at the Pit’s Boston Technology Desk.
A team of reporters spent more than a year exploring ways that class – defined as a combination of income, education, wealth and occupation – influences destiny in a society that likes to think of itself as a land of unbounded opportunity.
And by all means, find your spot in the Great Chain of Being here.
As I have noted any number of times before, it is certainly possible for a child to born of humble beginnings to achieve great things. President Bill Clinton is a sterling example. But it’s critically important that we be smart enough to distinguish between the .0001% exception and the 99.99+% rule – something that Americans are almost pathologically bad at. And it’s worth asking ourselves, as we ponder how our upper classes view these questions, what political figure has ever been more reviled by our nation’s moneyed power elite than Bill Clinton?
Frankly, I’m not sure why Bubba gripes them so badly. Maybe it’s because he failed to understand his place – just because you’re the leader of the free world, that don’t give you no right to go gittin’ all uppity. But from a purely strategic standpoint, it’s a very good thing to have a poor white trash boy grow up to be president every few decades, because it further enables and entrenches the ideology of equal opportunity that is so essential in getting the underclasses to buy into their own lack of opportunity. As a cynical power broker, if I can get you to accept that your failures are all your fault, to internalize the belief that endpoints have nothing to do with where you start, and to valorize “success” as embodied in the “accomplishments” of those born into privilege, then my task is pretty much automated, isn’t it?
I believe in hard work and overcoming obstacles and competition and all that. But I also believe in a level playing field. Moreso than all the other things that bother me in life, perhaps this is my windmill….
lullaby pit 
I can’t figure out where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I’m a Florida Cracker Boy. I have a PhD in Chemistry from Northwestern, yet have never used it. Most of my jobs have been blue collar management except for the 10 years I spent in the wheat pit. I play poker for a living. My kid goes to Exeter. I think I’m a dichotomy. My lovely wife likes to refer to us as Bohemian.
We are the black sheep of our families.
Great post.
Aloha,
Jeff
Fortunately, you don’t seem the type to get too hung up on playing by the rules.
I can figure out roughly where I am on the scale, but as your post points out, it doesn’t give me any relative indication as to “how far I have come”.
Good post, but in some ways the illusion is necessary to inspire those who are willing and able to advance themselves up the economic and social ladder to do so. Most achievement boils down to desire and motivation. If a kid believes that having been born to a certain social-economic class he is doomed to that social position for the rest of his life (unless he is born truly exceptional for his class), he is less likely to be motivated to do something about it. As a result he is much less likely to advance up the ladder than someone else who honestly believe that effort and motivation can raise them up in society (all other factors being equal).
That said, I do agree that it is getting harder to movie up the scale and more should be done to level the playing field. The “field” however, will never be truly level, and any effort to do so will only end in disaster.
Good point. Too much class awareness of a certain sort can breed helplessness and even bitterness. You need ideologies that breed ambition and drive.
However, I’d argue that nothing would breed ambition and drive quite like a legitimately level playing field, you know?