Not "necessary" because it's a societal structure, "necessary" because it's deeper than that. Even taking the "all men are created equal" ideal as a given, that doesn't mean that they're all going to turn out that way. And, quite obviously, not all men are created equal-- else everyone would be as tall as me and I (and everyone else)'d have Fabio's body. Those with mental handicaps would still be Einstein. Vive la difference.
Because of the differences, it doesn't matter how much you level the playing field-- group A will find a reason to look down on group B. Brand of shoe? Length of pinky finger? Bush, landing strip, or shaved? If you remove all the barriers, people, by their natures, will create them.
Class is the elephant in the room you aren't supposed to talk about. Supposedly, to many people, since this is a democracy, class doesn't matter. But the hard facts reveal that it really really does. There is the persistent Horatio Alger type myth that this is the land of equal opportunity and anyone who workls hard enough can make it rich (and therefore those who aren't are neccesarily lazy/stupid.) But there is very little travelling between class in this country, most people never go very far from the class they were born into. Consider who runs for president, for example - in addition to it almost always being a white male, it is also almost always an incredibly rich white male. Thus the somewhat substantiated complaint by lower class white men that they don't have a lot of power just because they are men. They conveniently ignore the fact that they do still have more power and privilege than lower class white females or non-white people - but they are correct in that simply being a white male doesn't automatically make them rich and powerful.
We're not supposed to *have* class issues in the good old U.S. of A.
I think they're more complicated here because it's not widely acknowledged to exist the way it is in, say, a country with a caste system or even in the U.K. It's also complicated by the fact that *race* is such a huge issue here that it's hard to separate out what is a racial issue and what's a class issue.
We only really saw it start to hit in the '80s, but the roots were probably planted at least as far back as the '50s- increasingly there is no "middle class", only a lower class that is increasingly below the poverty line and an upper class that a) somehow manages to dwindle in number except, perhaps, for the "example" cases in sports and entertainment who are placed there to encourage the rest of us with the idea that we, too, could make it there some day if we just work hard enough and b) continues to want more and more of the profit margin, more and more tax breaks, and more and more poking noses into lower classes' personal business, and seems inevitably to get it.
If history is any indication, at some point this will give rise to a revolution; whether the revolution succeeds or not will depend in part (so I opine) on whether or not the military realizes that they are actually part of the lower subjugated class and acts accordingly...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandroot![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-26 05:01 pm (UTC)a necessary evil.
Not "necessary" because it's a societal structure, "necessary" because it's deeper than that. Even taking the "all men are created equal" ideal as a given, that doesn't mean that they're all going to turn out that way. And, quite obviously, not all men are created equal-- else everyone would be as tall as me and I (and everyone else)'d have Fabio's body. Those with mental handicaps would still be Einstein. Vive la difference.
Because of the differences, it doesn't matter how much you level the playing field-- group A will find a reason to look down on group B. Brand of shoe? Length of pinky finger? Bush, landing strip, or shaved? If you remove all the barriers, people, by their natures, will create them.
Thus, necessary evil.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-26 05:03 pm (UTC)Consider who runs for president, for example - in addition to it almost always being a white male, it is also almost always an incredibly rich white male.
Thus the somewhat substantiated complaint by lower class white men that they don't have a lot of power just because they are men. They conveniently ignore the fact that they do still have more power and privilege than lower class white females or non-white people - but they are correct in that simply being a white male doesn't automatically make them rich and powerful.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-26 05:22 pm (UTC)I think they're more complicated here because it's not widely acknowledged to exist the way it is in, say, a country with a caste system or even in the U.K. It's also complicated by the fact that *race* is such a huge issue here that it's hard to separate out what is a racial issue and what's a class issue.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-26 06:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-27 08:41 am (UTC)If history is any indication, at some point this will give rise to a revolution; whether the revolution succeeds or not will depend in part (so I opine) on whether or not the military realizes that they are actually part of the lower subjugated class and acts accordingly...