In 2021, I moved from SF to a rural community in Washington where the average household income is $35,786. It immediately made me redefine my definition of wealth. I have never felt richer than the first big winter snow storm knocked out power, and I opened my door to a box of dry kindling on my doorstep. A neighbor knew more than I did how much I would need that kindling--it helped me make fires for days. It broke open the part of me that was desperately needing community, but found it hard to find in the socially-materially-wealthy of SF. I am now more freely giving my time to others, and have felt a growing confidence in my resiliency, like you said, "that is adaptable and driven by an understanding of invisible forces that shape the outcome."
Your last two posts have been so insightful. I was so impressed by your essay on self-care and your critique of the assumption that one could rely on self-love to sustain you that I sent it to my Episcopal priest son because it so reflected the message of the gospels. This essay gave me a lot to think about. I pondered the various kinds of contexts and communities of my eight decades and saw them in a different way. It is such a pleasure to discover in your Substack the kind of public intellectual that I had thought no longer existed.
Elliott, thank you so much. I spoke with a close friend about your comment because it so moved me! It means the world to me that my work has touched you, and I wish you the very best! Thank you for taking the time to let me know.
This is such a wonderful and illuminating essay, and I love how lucidly you write.
'Class, then, might better be understood as a form of contextual stability — the ability to set the rules of the game such that they consistently benefit you. One can excel in the first set of ways — the prepared chef, the ballerina, etc. — because one is assured of a context that will remain fixed: the kitchen with its tools, the shoes and the stage and the lighting. One’s excellence is dependent upon a function of power, and therefore one appears powerful precisely because one has the privilege never to leave the arena where one is strongest.' - This paragraph in particular gets at the heart of the matter so concisely. I found myself saying yes out loud when I read that, and at several other points.
"In this sense, class is deeply intimate, even if unconscious — and it determines a large part of how our lives are experienced by ourselves, not merely how others experience us."
I love this line. I feel like it's directly opposite what culture (and, at least for someone like me who's enjoyed the privileges of class) want claim.
Those in the higher strata say, "Sure, I've got a lot of money/access, but I'm still just a human, I'm like everyone else. I'm a good person. I fit in." Many of us don't want to see be seen wearing a fur robe in a convertible -- which is not very hard to avoid LOL. But these strereotypes reinforce the notion that class is largely external, performed. It doesn't change how we feel: "I don't think I'm better than you because I have money. It's just numbers in a bank account somewhere."
You offer a different perspective: *class is intimate*. It's operates on how we feel in our bodies. It's what we expect to happen when things go wrong, who we need and who we can see as separate from ourselves. When we feel afraid and when we feel relaxed.
It goes far beyond "class" in the way we typically consider it. Thank you for pushing our thinking!
---
Separately, this line really resonates with me: "If we are interested in creating a better world, we must first become better at understanding what advantage and disadvantage actually look like"
When I say my current life vision is to "explore media that can help us feel, see & reason about complex human systems", that's a lot of what I mean. I want to help better frame what "privilege" and "advantage" mean on a systemic level, rather than just saying "X people have Y percent less money than Z people".
When I work as a data proffessional, it's painfully obvious how the medium of data science often re-inforces existing measures of (dis)advantage, never questioning if we might understand them better (the best we do is trying to better understand how to "fix" them LOL).
As one of my favorite writers said, "Data is a form of attention."* I think our current data sources makes us pay attention to measures of class difference, not as much how it operates.
Makes me wonder if maybe Big Data can't save us... 😉
“The equation of the material elite with flamboyance is irresistibly persistent in American pop culture. Taylor Swift's "Bejewelled," …. But there’s a problem with this: when you really meet rich people, they are nothing like this. In fact, it is very difficult to tell a rich person from an ordinary person just by how they are dressed.”
Strangely enough, I’ve had the opposite feeling growing up. I used to think all rich people were nondescript, dressed in polos like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, and skulked around in the shadows of power, but what struck me when getting to know a few people who were in generational wealth, were, in fact, materialistic— how they cared about fine wines and luxury labels and cars, etc. In a way, I felt a little put out, like I expected them to have values that “transcended the material”. I wonder if it’s the nature of wealth in the East vs the West, where historically the East has always been poor, hence the need for even 2nd and 3rd gen inheritors of wealth to enjoy what their forebearers have not.
Regardless, an enjoyable read and food for thought! Thank you.
In 2021, I moved from SF to a rural community in Washington where the average household income is $35,786. It immediately made me redefine my definition of wealth. I have never felt richer than the first big winter snow storm knocked out power, and I opened my door to a box of dry kindling on my doorstep. A neighbor knew more than I did how much I would need that kindling--it helped me make fires for days. It broke open the part of me that was desperately needing community, but found it hard to find in the socially-materially-wealthy of SF. I am now more freely giving my time to others, and have felt a growing confidence in my resiliency, like you said, "that is adaptable and driven by an understanding of invisible forces that shape the outcome."
Your last two posts have been so insightful. I was so impressed by your essay on self-care and your critique of the assumption that one could rely on self-love to sustain you that I sent it to my Episcopal priest son because it so reflected the message of the gospels. This essay gave me a lot to think about. I pondered the various kinds of contexts and communities of my eight decades and saw them in a different way. It is such a pleasure to discover in your Substack the kind of public intellectual that I had thought no longer existed.
Elliott, thank you so much. I spoke with a close friend about your comment because it so moved me! It means the world to me that my work has touched you, and I wish you the very best! Thank you for taking the time to let me know.
This is such a wonderful and illuminating essay, and I love how lucidly you write.
'Class, then, might better be understood as a form of contextual stability — the ability to set the rules of the game such that they consistently benefit you. One can excel in the first set of ways — the prepared chef, the ballerina, etc. — because one is assured of a context that will remain fixed: the kitchen with its tools, the shoes and the stage and the lighting. One’s excellence is dependent upon a function of power, and therefore one appears powerful precisely because one has the privilege never to leave the arena where one is strongest.' - This paragraph in particular gets at the heart of the matter so concisely. I found myself saying yes out loud when I read that, and at several other points.
"In this sense, class is deeply intimate, even if unconscious — and it determines a large part of how our lives are experienced by ourselves, not merely how others experience us."
I love this line. I feel like it's directly opposite what culture (and, at least for someone like me who's enjoyed the privileges of class) want claim.
Those in the higher strata say, "Sure, I've got a lot of money/access, but I'm still just a human, I'm like everyone else. I'm a good person. I fit in." Many of us don't want to see be seen wearing a fur robe in a convertible -- which is not very hard to avoid LOL. But these strereotypes reinforce the notion that class is largely external, performed. It doesn't change how we feel: "I don't think I'm better than you because I have money. It's just numbers in a bank account somewhere."
You offer a different perspective: *class is intimate*. It's operates on how we feel in our bodies. It's what we expect to happen when things go wrong, who we need and who we can see as separate from ourselves. When we feel afraid and when we feel relaxed.
It goes far beyond "class" in the way we typically consider it. Thank you for pushing our thinking!
---
Separately, this line really resonates with me: "If we are interested in creating a better world, we must first become better at understanding what advantage and disadvantage actually look like"
When I say my current life vision is to "explore media that can help us feel, see & reason about complex human systems", that's a lot of what I mean. I want to help better frame what "privilege" and "advantage" mean on a systemic level, rather than just saying "X people have Y percent less money than Z people".
When I work as a data proffessional, it's painfully obvious how the medium of data science often re-inforces existing measures of (dis)advantage, never questioning if we might understand them better (the best we do is trying to better understand how to "fix" them LOL).
As one of my favorite writers said, "Data is a form of attention."* I think our current data sources makes us pay attention to measures of class difference, not as much how it operates.
Makes me wonder if maybe Big Data can't save us... 😉
*here's the source, an amazing podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0cuZImoZfhy3POimolRVsk
This is so good i am crying!!! 🤯
“The equation of the material elite with flamboyance is irresistibly persistent in American pop culture. Taylor Swift's "Bejewelled," …. But there’s a problem with this: when you really meet rich people, they are nothing like this. In fact, it is very difficult to tell a rich person from an ordinary person just by how they are dressed.”
Strangely enough, I’ve had the opposite feeling growing up. I used to think all rich people were nondescript, dressed in polos like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, and skulked around in the shadows of power, but what struck me when getting to know a few people who were in generational wealth, were, in fact, materialistic— how they cared about fine wines and luxury labels and cars, etc. In a way, I felt a little put out, like I expected them to have values that “transcended the material”. I wonder if it’s the nature of wealth in the East vs the West, where historically the East has always been poor, hence the need for even 2nd and 3rd gen inheritors of wealth to enjoy what their forebearers have not.
Regardless, an enjoyable read and food for thought! Thank you.