I really want us to come up with a way to talk about this because "working class" clearly means a thing that isn't what "working class" means - ThreadSky

janecoaston.bsky.social • 2 days ago

I really want us to come up with a way to talk about this because "working class" clearly means a thing that isn't what "working class" means

Reposted from vocational politics posting account

Been banging the drum that there are two definitions of working class one is economic, so actual working class people you are describing, and cultural working class, an identity construction (ie. F150 drivers) and the discourse is mixing them up constantly, assigning the latter to the former.

Comments

connorstedman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yeah this is an important discernment and communication project.

etxgov.bsky.social•2 days ago

Cowboy Cosplayers.

emperorcheese.bsky.social•2 days ago

But driving a new pickup truck that costs more than yearly wages for a significant percentage of people is still 'working class..'

effinvicta.bsky.social•2 days ago

People don't think of pickup trucks as the expensive luxury vehicles they are now for American manufacturers. They think of them as the working vehicles that were sold 20, 30 years ago, mostly without extended cabs, let alone full ones.

tracinski.bsky.social•1 day ago

There is no class. It is all culture war now.

guspowers.bsky.social•2 days ago

We always joke in Massachusetts about the "working class" being the South Shore millionaire's kids. "My dad's a plumber" driving truck types, where being a plumber means owning the business and living in a seven bathroom-ed McMansion.

thefred.bsky.social•2 days ago

It's very simple. Silicon Valley billionaires are working class. School teachers are ruling class. I don't make the rules.

bikedc.bsky.social•2 days ago

Working class has been tormented to where it just means has a job and doesn’t get government benefits….

daralind.bsky.social•2 days ago

Class isn’t socioeconomic status, it’s a mix of economic, social, and cultural capital, with “working class” in particular getting reified into a set of cultural signifiers (which in the 20th-21st century are usually things you buy)

Class is really a language you speak to keep an out-group out!

joestieb.bsky.social•2 days ago

Is it tho? That sounds like culture.

daralind.bsky.social•2 days ago

(Bourdieu, 1984)

joestieb.bsky.social•2 days ago

daralind.bsky.social•2 days ago

Seriously, though, this is why talking about economic capital vs social and cultural capital is important, or referring to people by income level or socioeconomic status level if you are trying to talk about purely economic or economic + social capital without the cultural capital trappings

joestieb.bsky.social•2 days ago

I think class, if means anything, should be tied to a type of work and/or a level of wealth

That’s at least how most historians use it.

daralind.bsky.social•2 days ago

That would seem to run you right into the problem Jane was posting about, ie the exact problem my post was trying to fix?

rroseperry.bsky.social•2 days ago

And there's got to be a way to include race, which may get folded under social capital, but may not.

joestieb.bsky.social•2 days ago

Yes those things intersect but are conceptually different

They would include race depending on context

drtaragoddard.com•2 days ago

Was just talking to my students about this, how in the US "working class" is an identity rather than an economic class, at least among the people who typically use it for themselves, pundits, and politicians. It is a huge thing in TX, where cowboy is more often cosplay than reality.

janecoaston.bsky.social•2 days ago

God help me there's like one conservative who kind of gets it, and he spent like two years talking about how we needed the comforting paternalism of Mother Church https://www.newsweek.com/i-was-wrong-gop-will-never-party-working-class-opinion-1819644

thebombshelter.bsky.social•2 days ago

I don't think Ahmari's concept of the faith jibes with my grandmother's, much less Dorothy Day's.

andybop78.bsky.social•2 days ago

Got Damnit, him??

thediscoveryofzero.com•2 days ago

I mean, Liberals vs. Real Americans has always felt eerily similar to Jews vs. Volk.

tonyaiselijah.bsky.social•2 days ago

__

Anyone in ANY "church" or religious institution of ANY kind will die soon for not repenting. GET OUT of them if you want to live.

andrewparker.bsky.social•2 days ago

I wanted to say it was as simple as culture vs. socioeconomics, but the J.D Vances and Ben Shapiros of the world aren't adopting the culture of anyone working class, just taking on the fetish objects associated with it.

strategerey.bsky.social•2 days ago

The first definition is 'Nickel and Dimed' or 'Evicted'; the second is 'Yellowstone'

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