America is a highly stratified class society, with class consciousness present in almost everything we do. But because our racial and ethnic divisions are more pressing, we don't even really get a chance to think about class stratification.
Living in a less class-stratified society feels like having a great weight taken off your back, that you never knew was there. It's impossible to describe how different America is to people to have only ever lived in America.
It's not as simple as saying "there are places where top college grads will marry construction workers, and private equity people will invite fry cooks to their dinner parties". Because that doesn't tell you *why* they do that, or how they think about it.
It's not that those other places are far more economically equal (usually they are *somewhat* more equal but you still have billionaires, vast salary differences, and plenty of working poverty). It's that both income and education gaps somehow put up fewer social barriers...
The simplest way I can describe it is that in those other societies, highly educated and rich people know that less educated and poor people exist, and they think of them as *people* rather than as statistics, or as ghosts that they pass on the street.
And in terms of American class stratification, San Francisco is the worst place I've ever seen. The different classes don't even seem to know that the others exist. It's like parallel cities overlayed on top of each other, out of phase.
2/I've been reading about the 70s, when high gas prices and inflation (not matched by wage increases) created real scarcity for Americans. They turned to the selfish, every-man-for-himself attitude of the 80s.
I worry that something similar is happening now...
3/Have you ever heard of "self-expression values" vs. "survival values"? It's one way political scientists measure attitudes in different countries. And over the last 10 years, America has shifted dramatically toward the "survival" end of the scale.
10% of graffiti looks really good, and 90% looks bad. We need some sort of voting or rating system for graffiti artists so that we can get some quality control around here.
Actually, I have a friend who was a graffiti artist in Japan, then got arrested for illegally painting on stuff. It made him famous, and now his wall art is in high demand at trendy Tokyo shops.
OK I'm thinking about how to implement this. How about:
1. Graffiti artists spray-paint unique personal QR codes that let passers-by send tokens to a crypto wallet
2. If you get enough tokens, the city hires you to do graffiti on officially reserved walls
It's interesting how the tankies and assorted other Cold Warriors have become incredibly strong on Twitter, but they've so far failed to gain any real political influence. Even Ilhan Omar doesn't even slightly buy into their bullshit.
On Twitter you'll get ratioed to hell and back for saying the U.S. helped the Soviets beat the Nazis (which is obviously true).
In real life, the Representative who's thought to be the most leftist on foreign policy is denouncing China over the Uyghur repression.
The tankies are the purest illustration of how Twitter lets a few bad actors look like the voice of the public, and of how limited and ineffectual that apparent influence is beyond the confines of this website.