Looks like at least 20% of Americans who grow up rich become working class or poor. Surely there must be some stories about these people and their experiences out there nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Intriguing story a follower sent me.
"My parents were millionaires and I'm a bricklayer"
These kind of stories seem equally important to understanding how class operates
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"people with dark personalities are more likely to broadcast or feign victimhood, perhaps to gain sympathy and other rewards, while also getting others to excuse their transgressions. Does Tony view himself as a victim? He does." unherd.com/2021/06/tony-s…
Zodiac's comment somewhere in the back of my mind as I wrote this
But that comment isn't totally right. When Dr. Melfi referred Carmela to her colleague and mentor, Dr. Krakower, he was blunt in his advice to Carmela to take the kids and leave Tony
More recent example is Kurt Cobain spreading the myth that he slept under a bridge as a teenager. Real story is he ran away from home for a while and slept in apartment buildings
Would estimate 80% of ppl in creative professions who claim hard luck stories (especially those who attended top colleges) had rich parents who could easily have bailed them out of any serious situation
"you must play a complex guessing game in which you act as though attending your Ivy League school were a Shameful and Horrible Secret, while simultaneously making it obvious which Ivy League school you attended...it’s about subtle class signaling." washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/…
Nick Carraway telling the reader, "I graduated from New Haven in 1915" is an early example of this
Buried signals communicate information only to intended recipients. Only those "in the know" would understand "Boston" is coded language. This allows the speaker to identify other insiders while not attracting unwanted attention or being seen as a snob
Fascinating essay from 1987 on Soviet youth, just a couple of years before the collapse of the USSR nytimes.com/1987/07/26/mag…
"years of eroding official credibility...Gorbachev's efforts to revive the Soviet Union depend on his ability to engage the young...The country's young are—not universally, but in sufficient quantity to spell trouble—spoiled, alienated, and indifferent"
"Soviet analysts have discovered a general failure of the institutions designed to mold Russian children into bright-eyed young Socialists. Komsomol [communist youth organization] doesn't work, school doesn't work, the army doesn't work, even work doesn't work."
The Sopranos is about American decline, evident in the outcomes of the young male characters
Jackie Aprile involved in organized crime, botches a robbery, ends up dead
Chris Moltisanti hooked on drugs, drives while intoxicated & murdered
AJ suffers depression & panic attacks
In any other show, the main young character would show promise and gradually rise within the organization. In this one, Chris Moltisanti succumbed to addiction, had an absentee father, and his boomer uncle stymies his dreams of becoming a screenwriter before killing Chris
Christopher Moltisanti betrayed his fiancé in favor of his job, and his boss ends up killing him
This has been called the “dictator’s dilemma.” It’s hard for a dictator to know who supports him if everyone says they love him
The dictator wants costly, reliable indicators of your support /2
You can’t just say he’s a good dude. You have to say he’s extraordinary. He can climb the walls like Spider-Man. He can disappear and reappear in another location
Signaling spirals emerge. People build monuments and gigantic images dedicated to the dictator in public squares /3