Dirt: Cutting Class

reating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success.

What defines the middle class today is less stability than the dream of climbing up the economic ladder and, simultaneously, the nightmare of potentially falling down it. Values such as risk-taking and self-reliance rather than stability and solidarity become more central in the day-to-day experience of most households. Instability is creeping in t

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“There is something that we rely on as working class individuals: hope. Our hope is so important. We hope to be a music artist, an actor, a performer, an academic in my case. Now I want to become a professor, if I suddenly see that actually, most people in the industry are there through nepotism, that’s a real shock,” Ahmed explains. “It tells us t... See more

Ownership is inaccessible to most people. It’s either bought (through stocks/investments), created (starting something of your own), inherited (born lucky), or earned (employment-based equity). None of which are easy to attain. Few families have extra income to invest. Starting a business is harder than ever (entrepreneurship rates in the US are ha... See more