The middle class are damned if they do, damned if they don't by the author's argument.
They are at once chastised for "inoculating" themselves from working class culture, and for embracing it.
They are at once chastised for "inoculating" themselves from working class culture, and for embracing it.
The twenty-somethings are filled with a sense of meaninglessness because their lives are meaningless. They allowed their careers to define who they were, and are now surprised when the market created a large, ticketed carousel for them.
I wonder how many people commenting on this thread are confusing / conflating them?
And yet if the middle class ask their representatives to scale back the very same social programs that provide the uber cool, uber cultural working and welfare classes that the author is idolizing here they are demonized in the extreme.
Sure, the middle class give the working and welfare class schools, access to universities, free healthcare, lots of cash welfare, houses to live in cost free and lots more, but don't you know that they're literally the devil incarnate? Who do they think they are to have parties in warehouses? That's what we do when we've claimed our welfare for the week! Those damned culture vultures!
Point being, not only do the middle class provide universities and health-care by paying taxes for them, they make up a large portion of the actual professional labor force at those institutions.
I'm very, very left-wing, but having newspapers print long articles more-or-less pointing and laughing at any of the workers who actually keep whole countries running is pretty goddamn insulting, and that includes when they label those workers "middle class" or "hipsters".
Dignity in labor applies to the white-collared, too.
My colleagues might manage a token one day strike now and again, but basically that is your lot. What is termed 'action short of a strike' can actually be more effective in certain circumstances. Cutting off the flow of data really bothers the management but the everyday work of the institution continues; students continue to be taught, to have work marked and to receive feedback designed to improve their understanding of the material.
Although admittedly it has now backfired, as it's now easier to have children on welfare than it is for many working would-be parents.
The working class WILL stop working and in the very near future, as basic jobs such as checkout staff, or taxis, become automated. It's an impending crisis.