Read on Twitter
Comments about the working class over the last few days have been fascinating for showing up tensions in liberal idealism. There's a conflict between ideals of equality & compassion against the obsessive desire to be managers monopolizing control of every aspect of life.
Tom Wolfe highlighted this tension in Radical Chic; it shows up in relation b/t the managers & the makers. There's a craving for high artisan handicraft among the managers, but disdain for the masses dragged into maintaining the mass culture the PMC depends upon for their wealth.
It shows up most frequently in education talk. I've heard a story recounted with contempt about attending a school where 1/3 of the students were there for the academics, 1/3 were in FFA, and 1/3 in vocational training. This was considered low and a sign of total backwardness.
But uh, who grows the food the lawyers eat? Who fixes the pipe leak in the grocery store? Why is it so uncomfortable to be near the serving classes? Do you want them working at 14, or developing their skills elsewhere... where are they supposed to go? Inner conflict.
Is it any better to go to a school like I did, where 1/2 the students were on track to be professional managers and the other 1/2 retail services workers? No one was interested in providing anything like FFA or skill-training for the future retail worker class.
As far as I can tell that seems to be the liberal vision of education: anyone can be a scientist, even a maid's daughter, however we have no interest in the maids and landscapers themselves. We don't want to offer vocational training (we're trying to automate those away!)...
We don't want them to go straight to work, we don't want them mixing with us, we want them to be grateful for the equality we're trying to bestow on them by keeping them in school all day, we want them to learn to code when we destroy their jobs...
All these contradictions are spiritually exhausting. No wonder they're just settling in for a narrative of "No, of course the Democratic party isn't the party of rich people, also don't you ever say the words 'working class.'"
