Posted by Dinah on March 1, 2002, at 18:29:01
In reply to squares, posted by trouble on March 1, 2002, at 12:13:18
Trouble,
I hope it goes without saying that I asked the question of you in particular because of your expressed hatred of principles, not because of any perceived class differences. I figured that anyone who hated principles on principle couldn't be too fond of middle class values and thus would be an excellent person to explain why.
> >Yo Dinah!!!
>
> This is so amazing. Every day this week I've been thinking about you and this one issue, ever since you described yourself as "upper class" in a play post to the ladies.Well, actually I said I was an "upper middle class woman moralist", not an "upper class woman moralist." And I used that term because it had so tickled my fancy when you so disdainfully referred to those type of women in an earlier post. It would be more accurate to say that I am a solidly middle middle class woman moralist.
>
> All week I've been trying to get my mind around your social status, but haven't brought it up b/c I'm ignorant and haven't formed any intelligent thoughts really.
>
I can only assume that you mean that as a subtle dig at me and I can tell you I just won't bite. From your writing style and literary allusions, I am quite certain that you have a much better education than I had.> Let me ask you:
> Are you rebelling from the cultural imperatives of your social and economic class? Or is that another silly stereotype?My own humble opinion is that most stereotypes are a bit silly. :)
>
> B/c culturally, especially in my sub-culture (aesthetics, downward mobility, "alternative" diets, sexuality, music, lifestyles and medicine),
> the idea is that suburbanintes are not thinkers, they are achieving conformists. Affluent women are particularly conformist, they hold one another to very high standards, and one pays a price for the slightest deviance, especially regarding personal appearance, weight gain being the most severe infraction. They are also expected to be militant gatekeepers of the household budget, their husbands hold them accountable for any irresponsible or frivolous expenditures.
>
Well I can't speak for affluent women, but as a life-long suburbanite I must admit that I can't recognize a bit of any of that in myself, my family, or anyone I know. I suggest that you send a few of the members of your subculture to the suburbs for a while on a reconnaissance mission.> Bourgeois values are all about success, and the appearance of success. Decorum, carriage, propriety, measured speech, euphimisms, non-extemporaneous (is that a word? sorry!)social intercourse, hierarchy, obedience, promotion of the status quo, skeletons in the closet, you don't call attention to yourself, talking about your marriage is vulgar and embarrassing, calling attention to yourself in speech or appearance is vulgar, spontanaity is frowned upon, neediness is unheard of, no questing, no inner journeys, there is no such thing as mental illness in the suburbs, if a friend or neighbor is hospitalized, we'll find a way to avoid the subject.
>
Again, not in my experience. My suburb has a healthy balance of the fat and thin, the loud and soft spoken, the needy and those who need to be needed. Although I will admit to a certain fondness for measured speech and euphemisms in myself, I refuse to generalize to my entire suburb or to suburbs in general. In fact come to think of it, there are a good number of people in my suburb who seem to delight in trying to shock me.> Obviously there are a lot of stereotypes there, but over the years I've done my own kooky social experiments involving squares and have found that there is a definate structure to the bourgeois social system and violators will be penalized. There are so many words you cannot say! You can't
> say the word "grassroots", or "existential", or "rubric", or "capitalist", "sexual orientation", "hate", "dismissive," "grandstanding", anything that suggests thinking on a less than superficial level. It's unseemly. I can say them, but you can't.
>
I must assure you that I have heard all those words used with a fair degree of frequency. I must also tell you that I haven't found a high degree of correlation between the use of those words and more than superficial thinking. Actually I must say, to my regret, that a fair number of people who use those words and a fair number who don't share a certain superficiality of thinking. I find that superficiality of thinking comes from sharing a common vocabulary and set of ideas (whatever they might be) without closely holding them up to scrutiny and from groupspeak. And I have heard a fair amount of groupspeak from counterculture types as well.> Oh Lord Dinah. It's too much, and I'm all over the map here. Do let's get together on this, it's not just an intellectual exercise for either one of us, right? But I am so happy that it's out in the open now, as our differences will become more apparent the more we talk, and many differences will have to do w/ our class status.
>
Again, I think you exaggerate our class status differences.> Anyway, I don't hold your love of Principles against you, as I hope you don't hold my love of values against me. I believe there's a huge difference btwn values and principles, and like you I take them seriously.
I take most things seriously, trouble. Values and principles particularly.
>
> One's got my head and the other's got my heart, and when the two start wrestling I usually side w/ the latter.
>
> I'm off to work!
> trouble
>
> p.s. I miss Phil Donahue so much sometimes I could just cry.Me too.
But I still don't understand. Were all of Phil's guests confusing your misconceptions about suburbanites as middle class values? Because I must tell you, much of what you wrote would be considered a severe lapse in middle class values by those who actually hold them. So again I ask you and anyone else who has a memory and understanding of middle-class-value bashing to enlighten me. How do middle class values differ from the values of any other given class. And why are they so despised?
poster:Dinah
thread:19047
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020223/msgs/19077.html