Possessions.\u00a0 Property.\u00a0 Things.<\/p>\n
This is actually the subject that first led me to believe that my attitudes are not middle class, but upper class.<\/p>\n
It’s also a category where upper-class attitudes that have functioned well for centuries sometimes run into problems nowadays.<\/p>\n
I believe that one’s class — mental class, not current economic situation — strongly affects what you buy, what you keep, how you treat it.\u00a0 This is hardly news.\u00a0 What I find interesting, though, is just how perverse some of the attitudes are.<\/p>\n
Specifically, the lower class tends to buy what they want, rather than what they need, and to do so on availability, rather than quality or price.\u00a0 Nutritionists and social workers often bemoan this, and attribute it to ignorance.<\/p>\n
I’m not sure it is<\/em> ignorance; I’m not sure just what’s going on, but it seems as if it’s not a lack of knowledge so much as a lack of belief.\u00a0 If you want a Big Mac now, maybe you know that it’d be healthier and cheaper in the long run to buy some groceries and make something at home, but damn, you’ve got five bucks in your pocket and here’s Mickey D’s and it’s not like saving a buck is ever going to matter, or like being healthy is important, because you know<\/em> that you’ll never save enough to matter, it’ll all get ripped off somehow, and your health isn’t important because you can’t afford a doctor and someday you’re going to catch a stray bullet or some stupid virus or some toxic chemical from the scrapheap you live in anyway, and it won’t matter if you’ve taken care of your heart or your colon.\u00a0 So you buy the Big Mac and live for the present.<\/p>\n If you ever have money, you want to show it off, so you buy something trendy and expensive.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You buy what you want while you can.<\/p>\n The working class, on the other hand, understands savings, and will buy cheap.\u00a0 Clipping coupons and hitting the weekly sales at K-Mart, stocking up on bargains, etc.\u00a0 You buy when the price is right.<\/p>\n The middle class buys what it can afford.\u00a0 “The one who dies with the most toys wins.”\u00a0 Possessions confer status.\u00a0 A car is a statement of who you are, your personal style and your current level of wealth.\u00a0 You replace things when better ones become available — new-model cars, software upgrades, etc.<\/p>\n The upper class buys quality, and keeps it.\u00a0 Price is irrelevant.<\/p>\n This was the point I tripped over sometimes as a kid.\u00a0 Friends would notice something odd about our household and comment on it — for example, that we ate all our meals with antique sterling silver flatware.\u00a0 We would shrug; it’s what we’d always done.<\/p>\n “But this stuff is worth money!\u00a0 You could sell it to an antique dealer for hundreds of dollars!”<\/p>\n Yeah, but then we’d have to buy new flatware; what’s the point?\u00a0 We don’t need the money right now, and we do need forks.<\/p>\n (Later, when I went to college, and eventually bought my own stainless steel flatware, I finally discovered the point — I like the taste of steel better than the taste of silver.\u00a0 But that’s just me.)<\/p>\n In fact, here’s a clear-cut example of class attitudes.\u00a0 Let us suppose you discover that the fancy china Grandma gave you is rare, collectible, and valuable.\u00a0 What do you do with it?<\/p>\n If you’re lower class, you sell it.\u00a0 If you’re bright, to a respectable antique dealer, after dickering; if you’re stupid, you pawn it.<\/p>\n If you’re working class, you get it appraised, then pack it up very carefully and set it aside somewhere, figuring it’ll appreciate and you can sell it for even more someday when you need the money.<\/p>\n If you’re middle class, you put it on display somewhere in your home, probably safely behind glass, and point it out to visitors.<\/p>\n If you’re upper class, you shrug, say, “That’s nice,” and use it to eat your meals, same as before.<\/p>\n This is where the distinction between nouveau riche and upper class becomes obvious; the nouveau riche think that money is for showing off, for establishing status, and will therefore buy the most expensive goods and display them prominently, while the upper class think that you buy things to use, and will therefore buy the best <\/em>stuff, regardless of price, and use it.\u00a0 Nouveau riche buy Rolexes; upper class buy whatever watch looks good and keeps good time.\u00a0 Which might<\/em> be a Rolex — or a Timex.<\/p>\n The nouveau riche build huge ostentatious mansions.\u00a0 The upper class live in whatever’s comfortable for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Possessions.\u00a0 Property.\u00a0 Things. This is actually the subject that first led me to believe that my attitudes are not middle class, but upper class. It’s also a category where upper-class attitudes that have functioned well for centuries sometimes run into problems nowadays. I believe that one’s class — mental class, not current economic situation —… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generalities-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.watt-evans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}