Joe Bageant, hands down, writes the best description of life under our global corporate feudalism, empire, wealth bondage, what have you, that I’ve yet to read—“Welcome to Middle-Class Lockdown.”
I am inspired, and disturbed. This is required reading. Go read it. And then read it again. And then print it out and give it to friends. And enemies. And then go read it another time.
I feel like I’ve just heard John the Baptist preaching in the desert, and watched him eat locusts and honey, and now I know myself to be unclean. But whose baptism can cleanse me from this sin? (Hat tip.)
I found this piece overdramatic and a bit arrogant. He assumes every one is living in some quiet hell of inauthentic community just because he is. Concepts of community are evolving and new forms of community aren’t necessarily less authentic. Human beings need community and since it isn’t a side effect of rural farm life anymore, we have to create it. And we do. I’ll give him that it can be hard sometimes. Especially when you move to a new place. But, how is routing for a sports team or being part of an online community less authentic than needing a haircut from Jim next door? It’s just a freakin’ haircut, not some transcendent experience worthy of note. And, what about work? Lots of people find community in the modern workplace. And in school. And at church.
CP,
You wouldn’t know this because you grew up middle class, but that’s how we blue-collar-raised white folks with roots in Appalacia talk to one another when there aren’t any rich people around. Talking more “reasonably” is considered pretentious and citified (as my grandmother would put it). To an outsider, it might seem overdone. But among us, it’s done to show you’re not bullshitting or putting on a show.
I’m a part of probably two “online communities.” One is that Atlanta bloggers, and I’d consider that an authentic community because we know each other face-to-face (and drink-to-drink). The other is Unitarian bloggers. I consider that an authentic community because we share the same beliefs, which is to say we were in community already before you bring in the blogging.
But I’m not in community with my fellow Oklahoma fans. I don’t owe them anything and they don’t owe me anything. I’m not interested in getting to know them. And when I’m pissed, they’d better get the hell out of my way, no matter how good a coach Stoops in. I have no sense of being-in-this-all-together will my fellow Sooner fans. And that has to be the baseline of what authentic community is.
Now, now, chutney. Please don’t go making assumptions about my upbringing, especially because I’m pretty sure I never told you much about it. But since you asked … (OK, so you didn’t ask…)
My mom was one of 10 children and had to stay home from school for a year when she was 16 in order to help her mother take care of the youngest baby (because she was the oldest daugher). Her father supported 10 kids on a school principal’s salary. They never had money for dental care. My mom still has a ‘poor mentality’ even though she is now upper-middle class. For example, she won’t buy vegetable x if it is more than $x/lb. Our family was a one-income family until I was a 11. We lived in a suburb in NJ – most of the families in that neighborhood were blue collar, even if we weren’t. From age 11-18, I lived in middle-of-fuck Pennsylvania. Our school district was 100 square miles and had 1 stoplight. It was a twenty-minute drive to get a gallon of milk and you’d pass fields of cows and the local farmer’s market on the way. Wikipedia shows Appalachia being a bit north of where we lived, but not by much.
In short, I don’t know what the hell you are talking about when you reference my upbringing. ;)
In any case, a lot of the drama in this article comes in the form of whining, which is annoying no matter where you were brought up. What this guy needs is a good kick in the ass. Life in the middle class is not all that bad. And, if he doesn’t like it, well then he should pay off his debt and open a mango stand and leave the rest of us out of it. If he really wants to do it, he’ll find a way to do it instead of whining about why is so hard (aww, poor thing). This kind of whining seems more characteristic of an upper class liberal than a blue collar appalachian to me…
As for not being in community with your fellow Sooner fans, get with the program (OK, it’s easier if you live in Norman). There are road trips to away games to be taken all across the country with your fellow fans. There are tailgates and gettogethers to go to and online message boards to which you can post every minute for several hours a day, like my sig. other does (this is not an exaggeration – and I know people say “this is not an exaggeration” and don’t mean it, but seriously, this is not an exxagerationg – scary, isn’t it?) Anyway, the point is, for many people around here being a Sooner fan means being part of a community that shares food, stories, travel, rides, tickets and more stories.
Aww man, my disdain for my sig. other’s incessant posting has gone down as I’ve been writing this post. Dang it.
This discussion reminds me of one of the best quotes I’ve heard in the last year–
Today, most of us have not merely the hope but enjoy the reality of a degree of comfort, freedom, and peace unparalleled in human history. And we can’t stop complaining about it.
James Q. Wilson, Nov ’95, Commentary magazine
CP,
The people that I (and Bageant) have in mind are the Scots-Irish mutt people he talks about here. Are these your people? If so, I apologize. But I hope neither you nor your mother ever blew up a frog with a firecracker or drowned a bag full of barn kittens as a child—some of the markers of my people that Bageant mentions. (I have done the first, my father the second.) We’re not a happy people, and not very pleasant to have around.
What if Bageant is right? Is he still whining? Because if he is right, the weight of what he is arguing make his tone completely justified.
If I moved back to Soonerland, I would soon not be a Sooner fan anymore, because that last time I lived there I couldn’t stand Sooner fans. Of course, the only thing worse than the cockiness of rabid Sooner fans is the bitterness of rabid Stillwater fans, who can be the worst kind of sore winners imaginable. ;-)
CP and CM,
The three of us are very, very wealthy by global standards. Do we deserve our riches? Whose interest—besides our own—does our being rich serve?
What if we are being bought off by a 21st century bread and circus? What if we are rich only (or even partially) because others are made to be incredibly, radically poor on our behalf? If so, are we not accountable to them, as fellow persons with inherent worth and dignity? If so, shouldn’t we be critical of ourselves for taking our bread-and-circus bribes?
If so, isn’t complaining about this shitty situation the very least we can do?
What’s the point of life if you can’t enjoy peace and prosperity if you are lucky enough to get it? Every human being deserves to live in prosperity and peace. There are systems that keep poor people poor and rich people rich and that sucks. There are things we can do to fight that system. There are things we have no control over. But I’m pretty sure that selling my car and opening a mango stand is not going to do make a positive global impact. And neither is complaining about how hard it is.
What if Bageant is right? Is he still whining? Because if he is right, the weight of what he is arguing make his tone completely justified.
That’s hard to say because I don’t think he’s got it all right.
What I do think he’s got right is that it is hard to convince people that selling your stuff and living in the mountains is really what you want. Financial security is something not many people understand sacrificing.
My last two comments seem to contradict themselves. Hmmm… Let’s just say that the reason I find his post so annoying is that I’ve done this kind of whining about my life lately (not about trying to leave the middle class per say, but risking my financial security to follow my passion full-time) and someone I love and respect very much told me to get over myself and find a way to follow my passion without quitting my job for a while and that is working out very, very well. Instead of spending time whining about how hard it is to follow my passion after work, I spend time actually following my passion after work. I’m not saying that no one should ever quit their jobs to follow their passion. I think that’s so cool. But, I know that sometimes people (like myself) impose obstacles on their life that aren’t there and then complain about how hard it is to overcome them.
(None of what I just said is meant to comment on your life at all, by the way.)
Yes, complaining about it is the *least* we can do. And that’s why we shouldn’t do it. Not only does it require little effort, it causes no changes whatsoever. What we can do is work or volunteer in areas that improve the situation.
Complaining just makes you unhappy, and increases the sum total of unhappiness in the world, which hurts both you and the rest of the world.
chutney, i wonder if some of this has to do with southern-ness beyond just rural/poor/blue-collar-ness? i say that, though i do think that the sea of red on the county-level electoral map may prove me wrong on this point. but be that as it may…
i think that one cannot truly understand the south if one did not grow up here. and yes, oklahoma is the south. and the real south is dying. at the hands of wal-mart and christian fundamentalist fascism.
because i read this, and i need to reread, as you recommend…and it made me cry.
he’s not whining about his life–he’s not trying to sell “selling your stuff and living in the mountains.” he’s whining about the fact that he can’t just give it up and go fishing (which is what retirement is supposed to be, eh?). because this country can and should be a place where we know our neighbors and we care about people in need more than getting that new pink razr cell phone or the new chevrolet death star.
americans seeking financial security has nothing to do with the fact that somehow in the last 10 years, American Idol has become NEWS. and genocide/ unwarranted spying on US citizens/ science isn’t that big a deal.
I agree w/ CM! And it’s not just because both our screennames are two letters long and start with C!
We’re also arguing this one out at my blog. The majority opinion seems to be that he’s a big whiner and things aren’t that bad, but there are some detractors.
IMHO, he is way over idealizing the past and needs to spend less time bitching on the internet and more time making friends.
CC
Thanks for the heads up, CC. There’s also a good discussion over at WealthBondage.com.
hmm…i feel like there is value in being provocative. maybe that’s just the punk rocker in me…
Fouralarmfire,
Jesus agrees with you on that. That’s pretty good company by my standards.
[…] I find support for this story in biblical scholar Walter Wink’s “the Powers-That-Be” series. Wink notes that in Pauline theology Christ is regaled as victorious over the Powers-That-Be, or “powers and principalities in high places” which are “not flesh and blood.” In gnostic terminology, these are the “archons.” We can imagine new names for the Powers today: Consumerism, Imperialism, Racism, Culture Industy, Militarism, Wealth Bondage, Middle-Class Lockdown, and so on. Don’t let the abstract names fool you: the Powers are very, very real. They control us, compel us, deceive us. Their methods have been studied by philosophers like Marx, Adorno, Foucault, Hardt and Negri. Our own true natures are hidden by the Power’s deception, and we begin to feel a deep unease. The Powers feed on the unease, promising release, but they only offer what Boucher calls a “Sham Heaven.” Inevitably, we crash after our spiritual sugar high, leaving us wanting more. This is the shape of Boucher’s “grand unified conspiracy.” Yet there is good news. All is not lost. There are Messengers, Boucher tells us, who would tell us the secret of release. The Powers stomp them out, but the Messengers still manage to visit our spiritual prisons, not in spite of but because of their deaths. Jesus was one of those Messengers, Boucher says, and we read the Gospels wrong if we imagine the story to be taking place in Real Time. Just as there are many empires yet one Empire, there are many messengers but only one Messenger, the two locked in a life or death struggle. […]