From David Anthony Hohol…
Now at the very beginnings of a new millennia, working class citizens continue to live a life of permanent insecurity never being sure that the current job will last or how much longer they will be able to live in their rented houses. The experience of living in fear continues to permeate daily life, as surviving from check to check in the name of the capital and production can often be a relentless endeavor. By extension, the working class lifestyle produces an almost frivolous mind-set, as living in and for the moment becomes no less than a way of life and planning for the future becomes a moot point. In other words, having fun when the chance is there to do so as well as compartmentalizing the future within the far reaches of the mind has become a philosophy of life and living for the working class masses of the Western World.
Today as in their beginnings, the best place to establish, maintain and perpetuate such a philosophy continues to be the local neighborhood pubs of communities the world over. If Mr. Durden was indeed correct in describing today’s masses as the middle children of history, without a great war and without a great depression, then local pubs and bars are like the foster homes for the bastard children of the working class. Seemingly always unable to fit and being unwanted by those they aspire to be, they cling together in tiny groups, tiny families and find meaning and acceptance only in each other. The working class is united in the great depression that is life, bounded by insecurity and dissatisfaction and grounded by a common distaste for the status quo and their inverted reflection of what they wish for but simultaneously never want to be- the dreaded, conforming, assured, amnestied, calculating, time obsessed, aura-less, ghost that is the Yuppie.
Yuppies dream of safe jobs, stable mortgages, manageable payments on their new sports utility vehicles, a top of line barbecue for the deck with a matching set of tongs, all the while seemingly rushing towards the end of it all, the emphasis on the destination and not the journey. Initiatively impaired and creatively stunted, yuppies revolt by living a violently nomadic almost disloyal social lifestyle, bouncing around a variety of sushi bars and cocktail lounges while constantly anticipating the next trendy place to temporarily frequent. Conversely, the working class lifestyle is defined by unsafe jobs, unstable housing and used cars, but their vocations themselves are defined by repetitiveness and this transcends to their social life which is about routine, routine and more routine. Finding a spot to go after work where they are called by name, where what they drink is in front of them before they order and where they are noticed and respected while being surrounded by others from their own social rung in the ladder becomes important, the emphasis being on the journey and not the destination. And with this, the fundamental lines of division although altered and evolved still serve the same purpose and produce the same result as they did during the Industrial Revolution. As a result the aims of both groups will forever be entirely irreconcilable. The Industrial Revolution no doubt cast the mold of Modern society and long before even my grandfather was born I believe the template for much of my life had already been set into motion.
Until the end of my twenties I lived in shackles, chained to a lifestyle that was of course possible to leave behind, as even the most maximum of maximum security prisons have had those who escaped from behind their walls. Nevertheless, it takes patience, calculating thought, dedication, determination and a little luck in order pull off the great escape. Even if one is successful there are absolutely no guarantees. I still feel haunted by my life on the inside, as it continually grabs at me, nipping at my heels, trying to recapture one of its escaped prisoners with all the furor of a viciously determined warden. Being inside the toweringly cold and incapacitating walls of the working class prison for so many years however, thickens your skin, develops your sense for opportunity and most of all your scent for blood.
The hospitality industry with it’s kaleidoscope of personalities and lifestyles, is no less than a educational experience that produces for those who open their eyes and take in all that they see, a working class degree in social psychology. Working in the business for a long period of time and being exposed to the wide variety of ideas and individuals that came through the doors, I came to posses the gift of intuitive verbalization, whether it be colorful small talk or high-end conversations on serious topics of the day, and became a sort of social contortionist able to naturally adapt to any given situation. Furthermore, I learned to learn to listen and not pry, to sympathize and not pity as over the years I developed the ability to tune myself in to another human being. By extension, people began feel as though they could tell me things they couldn’t tell others and the role of confidant became a standard in my life. All of these qualities helped immeasurably with my work that began immediately after graduating university, which included traveling the world as an educator, becoming a writer and learning about my self and my life that was which in turn produced the very words you are reading at this moment.
Combining my working mans social psych degree with nearly five years of post-secondary study, the benefits of a classical education and a university degree produced more of something I had been lacking, seemingly, my entire life to that point- that being something called opportunity. Opportunity is not divided equally in a democratic capitalist culture, not by a long shot, although such a culture continually trumpets the fallacy of equal opportunity for all. In today’s postmodern world ideas and technology have advanced immeasurably since the days of the Industrial Revolution, but despite the New World and the Technological Revolution, we are now in the midst of that is changing human relationships and instinctual drives by the moment, the economic dissection of society has changed very little and if anything, it continues to tighten its deadly grip on every society that subscribes to the human vice that is capitalism.
The upper class of liberal democratic societies make up a only a minute percentage of the overall population, but control the vast majority of a nations wealth living the life once reserved only for royalty. By extension, in most any modern urban sprawl there are perverse economic discrepancies, as there are those with millions and those with nothing separated by only a few city blocks and such incongruity represents the cult of self-interest that is a structural feature of any modern industrialized society. The dirty little truth of capitalism is that an entirely oppressive class system must exist. I mean it absolutely has to, as the high, the middle and the lower classes are a necessary construct for success.
By consequence those with money and thus power will have a tremendous amount of opportunity, economic and otherwise, compared to those who are economically weaker. Furthermore, those in the middle and lower classes are necessary and meet the needs of those in the upper class and are a means to the end of the entire capitalistic construct. Those in the upper economic stratosphere need the middle class to be the teachers, the police officers, the nurses, and those in the lower class are needed to clean the toilets, pick up garbage, cook their meals and work in their factories. Simply stated an industrialized society could not function if these roles were not filled. As a necessitating consequence of such a system those beneath the upper class often are given the opportunity to earn a wage of subsistence or in other words no more money than what will allow them to maintain their necessary position in society. What the larger portion of society thus does is work to live and not much more.
With that said, the postmodern middle class most often produces for itself a sufficient lifestyle and serves as a Rockwellian portrait of comfortable success, but the economic difference between middle class and those in the upper class is incredibly, even ridiculously vast. Middle class anxiety is therefore rampant, as they feel only one medical emergency or one lost job away from sinking to the masses of the lower class. The lower class continually dreams of making the leap to the middle, but are provided with the least amount of opportunity of all, and many live in a constant state of apathy and learned helplessness. The burden of financial stress produces more divorce, more substance abuse, more teen pregnancy, more crime and far less education. Industrialized countries sell this rigged system to their own inhabitants by defining success goals as accessible to everyone, regardless of socio-economic status, race or gender, when this is hardly the case at all. This boldly represents the discrepancy between social goals and the legitimate opportunities available to achieve these goals. Everyone is encouraged to achieve success when quite simply the paths to success are only open to some. The very value system that that is born from capitalistic ideology declares to the masses that certain common symbols of success are necessary to achieve self worth and societal acceptance, but the very structure necessary for the system itself to survive scrupulously restricts or at times entirely denies the majority of the population access to the channels that are needed to do so. The very way a capitalistic society is constructed to draw the greatest energies and efforts from all those under her wing in hopes of producing the highest standard of living possible actually produces the economically challenged majority. The biggest, most manipulative and dirtiest lie that has ever been perpetrated by capitalism is that there is equal opportunity for all. I mean really… I call bullshit.
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