Dirt: Cutting Class
As I browsed various online forums trying to learn about college, I came across a book published in 1983 with an intriguing title: Class: A Guide Through the American Status System by Paul Fussell. I bought a copy and discovered a new lens to understand education. The book claimed that the criteria we use to define the tiers of the social hierarchy
... See moreRob Henderson • Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class
When I grew up in the 1970s and ’80s, the cardinal value of the middle class was stability. Most people had a fixed place in the world and defined themselves through what they were doing in life. As for today, being part of the middle class looks more like the main character in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike: laboring during the day as a constructi
... See moreNicolas Colin • Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age
In the class structure of Smart America, meritocrats occupy an important level. Above them sit the always-getting-richer very rich, whom they regard with loathing and envy, and at whom they direct a continuous barrage of critical fire. Most of the books and columns and gossip aimed at the 1 percent come from people just a few percentage points belo
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