Something weird is going on with white boomers and millennials in implicitly seeing work as class preservation rather than actual production or material advantage-seeking.

Thought experiment: what would your parents say if you became an electrician, and made more money doing it?

Once I worked with a family friend who serviced heavy machinery for mills and such.

He observed that the white bosses couldn't keep the businesses afloat, but the indians could, because the former had class anxiety about doing the actual work.

To keep a mill going, the owner needs to be out there in coveralls getting greasy, personally inspecting the details. Guys in white collars who think they can just hire people to do the work while they do the "business" side can't actually hack it.

I used to want to be a mechanic. I studied hard and trained for it in high school. My parents thought engineering would be more class appropriate.

They were right in my case, but I see a lot of acquaintances flunking at life because they are stuck in a class preservation bubble.

I'm reminded of ibn Khaldoun's observations on the cycle of prestige. Noble houses are founded by savage desert people who don't care about class status. They come from Outside, not just physically, but mentally. They stay humble and do the work.

In the degenerate later stages of a culture, you have a lot of class anxiety, disdain for the real work, loss of disciplined focus on fundamnetals, and no "group feeling". Gee that sounds a lot like Boomerism...

The punchline is that I think if our society is to be fixed, it has to come from culturally outside. Cultivate that desert iron in your soul, and don't be afraid to toil on "low status" stuff that you know is on the path to victory. Throw off the yoke of boomer class anxiety.

The interesting thing is that ibn Khaldoun does not romanticise desert savages. They would rip down a building to make temporary seating they are proper savages, without many virtues. But it's only them who have the bravery and solidarity to achieve royal authority