Plague Journal, Another Dispatch
A friend sent me an article by David Brooks, published in the September issue of The Atlantic, How the Bobos Broke America Brooks uses his incisive analytical skills, a deft facility with language to outline the rise of the Creative Class to the apex of the pecking order of American influence, and a rising simmer of class warfare. Brooks describes a mounting enmity of bad blood, not unlike the clan warfare between the Hatfields of West Virginia and the McCoys of Kentucky. Waking this morning, Brook’s words were foremost in my mind.
I am of the Boomer generation. There is no mistake that by dint of good fortune, and the opportunity to receive a good education I fit into membership of the creative class. I consider the big picture and sometimes I shake inside. The American experiment in democracy is deconstructing under severe stresses. There is a division of society into “the have’s” and “the have not’s.” Climate change weather events of devastating fire, flood and drought must be included. And there’s the rise of China as a commercial super-power in Asia. Finally, not to be forgotten, panic seems to drive our tendency to insult our friends and allies.
Here are several excerpts from the Brook’s essay which I have formatted for emphasis.
Without even thinking about it,
we in the creative class consolidate our class standing
through an ingenious code of “openness.”
We tend to like open floor plans, casual dress,
and eclectic “localist” tastes that are willfully unpretentious.
This seems radically egalitarian,
because there are no formal hierarchies of taste or social position.
But
only the most culturally privileged person knows
how to navigate a space
in which the social rules are mysterious and hidden.
And one more selection:
If creative-class types just worked hard
and made more money than other people,
that might not cause such acute political conflict.
What causes psychic crisis are
the whiffs of “smarter than”
and “more enlightened than”
and “more tolerant than”
that the creative class gives off.
People who feel that they have been rendered invisible
will do anything to make themselves visible;
people who feel humiliated will avenge their humiliation.
Donald Trump didn’t win in 2016 because he had a fantastic health-care plan.
He won because he made the white working class feel heard.
2 thoughts on “Plague Journal, Another Dispatch”
As I mentioned, this article depressed me. There seems to be some elements of truth; perhaps this is the root cause of Trumpers willing to do anything, including exposing themselves and family to COVID, in order to “Own the Libs.” Reaction against the “more enlightened”? Not a good survival strategy.
Although there is some truth in the article, too many items just do not quite fit right. Like the picture in the author’s mind of the “creative” is a Steve Jobs billionaire wearing a turtle-neck, or a Jeff Bezos slumming it in a cowboy hat. The author attributes these thoughts to the Trumpers; but one wonders if the author may simply be feeling a bit envious. Or indeed if the author knows any creative people. Still, won’t matter if the thoughts become (even more) widespread, and the tumbrels take to the streets.
TUMBRELS!
You refer to a two wheeled cart used to convey tools or ammunition, or the condemned to the guillotine… A morbid thought but it has happened before that we know of.
Perhaps we should email Davids Brooks and just ask if a bit of envy might be at work in his description of the “creative class?” Perhaps Brooks is using the term, a descriptor for an object of blame to express a deepening condition of despair, rising from the certainty that “there’s no way out” of a capitalist, globalized system designed to enrich a minority of entitled, and a few lucky ones. Where does that mountain of excess value come from? From us the subjects, “free” under the aegis of monopolistic corporations, to survive for as long as we can.
What matters is the image of “creatives,” the media construction that is offered up via social media, television, and especially advertising. That couple portrayed in ecstasy driving a new Lexus,– do I feel kinship with them, with their implied way of life? If not, what am I feeling?