liberal technocrat and conservative "deplorable"

来源: career 于 2016-11-14 21:31:42 [档案] [旧帖] [给我悄悄话] 本文已被阅读：次 (3685 bytes)

http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov16/PC-serfs11-16.html

...there is no meaningful class difference between the well-paid liberal technocrat with the $1 million (mortgaged) house on the Left/Right Coast and the rural conservative "deplorable" wage earner. Both must sell their labor and neither earns a livelihood from wealth-generating capital.

If we extend this analysis, we find that the entire self-described "middle class" is in fact nothing but the better paid slice of the working class, i.e. the class who must sell their labor to pay their rent/mortgage, buy food, etc.

Both are precarious, but not equally so. The well-paid technocrat believes his skills will protect him from unemployment, and he is equally confident that the "wealth" in his mortgaged house and stocks/bonds 401K retirement account is secure and permanent.

He feels superior to the "deplorable" wage earner, but this superiority is contingent on 1) asset bubbles never popping (ahem, which they always do, eventually; 2) software that's eating the world will not eat his job or the premium he is currently being paid, and 3) the skills he currently has won't become over-supplied as the global work force expands into the sectors that require high levels of education.

So what inhibits the awareness of shared class membership and interests? Two dynamics come to mind: the liberal/conservative ideological divide, and the politically correct speech acts that differentiate the two.

The urban liberal technocrat feels morally superior to the "deplorable" wage earner because he 1) considers himself a "winner" and the "deplorable" a loser and 2) he has mastered the politically correct speech acts that signify his superior "progressive" status.

There are two ironies in this presumed superiority:

1. The urban liberal technocrat is one credit/asset crash and one pink slip away from a rapid and catastrophic decline in living standards to "loser" status

2. Making politically correct speech acts the defining factor in establishing moral and political superiority depreciates the "difficult" (costly) act of actually behaving morallywith the "easy" (cheap) act of mouthing sanctimonious politically correct signifier phrases.