Transcript Class Passing - The Great Pretender: The Art of Passing

Class
Passing
Lina Medaglia-Miller, Ph.D.
The Great Pretender: The Art of Passing
GSSC 1073
May 2010
What is Class?

Social classes are the hierarchical
arrangements of people in society as
economic or cultural groups. Class is an
essential object of analysis for sociologists,
political scientists, economists,
anthropologists and social historians. In
the social sciences, social class is often
discussed in terms of 'social stratification'.

In sociology and
political philosophy,
the most basic class
distinction is between
the powerful and the
powerless. Social
classes with a great
deal of power are
usually viewed as "the
elites" (the “fat cats”)
within their own
societies.
The Fat Cat stereotype

Various social and political
theories propose that social
classes with greater power
attempt to cement their own
ranking above the lower
classes in the hierarchy to the
detriment of the society
overall. By contrast,
conservatives and structural
functionalists have presented
class difference as intrinsic to
the structure of any society
and to that extent
ineradicable.
“Social class” definition derived from Wiki
Distribution of wealth


How is the
world’s
wealth
distributed?
The richest
20% of the
planet own
82.7% of
the wealth.
Conley (2008), You
May Ask Yourself

Closer to
home, in
the U.S.,
the top 1%
of people
hold 34.3%
of the
wealth.
(See Wolff, 2004, Recent Trends in Household Wealth)

Here’s
another
way of
visualizing
those
same
statistics.
Predictors of wealth





From rags to riches? Is
‘making it’ up the class
ladder a possibility?
Who are your parents?
Who are your mentors?
To what clubs do you
belong?
What is your
gender/sex?
What is your
heritage/ethnicity?
Abject vs. Relative poverty





No food
>>> bad food
No education >>> substandard education
No housing >>> substandard housing
No work
>>> working poor
No health access >>> poor health access
Criminalization of poverty







Socioeconomic value =
materialism
Non-consumer = subversive
Non-consumer = without value
Elimination of social burden
(Brazilian street children, mental
health patients)
Loitering (no ID, no $) = crime
Guilty by association
“Dead-beats” pay on time, in
cash
What defines a person’s
“class status”?
Category 1







Geographic location
Type of job
Income
Education
Family of origin
Title
Property
Category 2







Etiquette
Friendships/connections
Clothes
Teeth and hair
Complexion
Language
Air of entitlement
Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 –
March 14, 1883) was a German
philosopher, political economist,
historian, political theorist, sociologist,
communist, and revolutionary, whose
ideas played a significant role in the
development of modern communism.
Marx summarized his approach in the
first line of chapter one of The
Communist Manifesto, published in
1848: "The history of all hitherto
existing society is the history of class
struggles."
Marxist analysis of class




People
organized
around Means
of Production
Who owns the
MoP?
Who has to
work with the
MoP?
Who lives
outside the
MoP?

Pyramid
of
Capitalist
System
Class struggle





Economic
exploitation
Super-exploitation
Hierarchy of class
oppression
Bread and circuses
Opiate of the
masses

What are the “opiates of the people” in
our culture?
Types of Class Passing






Lying about your address
Misrepresenting your job
status and income
Claiming more degrees or
education
Lying about your ‘pedigree’
Using a fake title
False property claims
Don Draper (Jon Hamm)
of TV’s “Mad Men”
The Art of Class Passing









Take etiquette lessons
Develop powerful
connections
Buy expensive clothes
Fix teeth and hair
Develop a taste for art, fine
foods, and wines
Speak with confidence and
entitlement
Learn the grammar and
dialect of the rich
Marry someone with status
Create a false history that is
difficult to disprove
Impostor ‘Clark Rockefeller’ did
most of the things listed here.
Why might a rich person pretend to be poor?

Romanticizing Poverty: The
Romantic movement began
around 1800. It was an art
movement through which
intellectuals and artists
expressed, among other
things, their belief that the
average worker was more
honest and noble than the
rich. This culminated in
numerous artworks and pieces
of music dedicated to ordinary
people.
Corot’s “Old Man on Trunk,” 1826
Appropriation by imitation


Ironically, this
political/artistic
movement was
appropriated by the
rich, who imitated
the poor in dress
and demeanor.
Rich and powerful
people do tend to
imitate art styles
and behaviours
that are considered
trendy.
Appropriation by imitation


But also, psychologists
speculate that there is a
degree of guilt in the
elite’s desire to be closer
to those whom they have
exploited or oppressed, in
order to be forgiven.
When the privileged act
like those without
privilege, there is a
pretense that there is no
hierarchy.
Defenses

What defense mechanisms do you think
are utilized during such appropriation (the
elite acting as if they are poor/ordinary).

What
examples of
this kind of
class
appropriation
do you see in
the 20th
century and
in our culture
today?
The End