poverty and dolphins
Nov. 13th, 2011 02:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flamingswordI'm taking a look at shame and other bullshit class issues I've given headspace to, trying to understand why I've had them and how that informs my opinion of American class structure and the Occupy movement. The internet does not desegregate the older generations, but maybe there's hope for the current generation growing up in online culture; maybe the internet can cross class lines enough for them to see each other across the gap.
When I was a kid I had the usual horse-madness that descends on so many little girls, but you might not be able to tell beside the larger and more obvious dolphin obsession. Every cliche of wanting to be a marine biologist and live by the sea and and become an honorary pod member: I had the whole thing down. At one time I could tell you the difference between dolphins and porpoises, sailors lore about dolphins, their place in Greco-Roman legend, and offer to identify on sight any of several species of dolphins and cetaceans and tell you about the differences. I had never been to an aquarium, or seen a dolphin in real life, and eventually the dream died away, as dreams do. But for a while I was consumed.
So on hearing about it, one of my uncles bought me a gold bracelet of jumping dolphins. Alternating highly polished gold dolphins linked with frosted, textured gold dolphins, all the way around my grubby wrist when I would put it on, in my bedroom, wear it around for a few minutes then decide that I didn't like how it made me feel and put it back away in my tiny jewelry box full of plastic Halloween rings and neat rocks and sad, tarnished play jewelry. Thinking back on it, that bad feeling that I associated with the dolphin bracelet was shame. Every single thing I owned looked shabby next to that bracelet, and after a few times of humoring my mother when she asked that I wear it for some occasion, I never could bear to play with it or wear it anywhere.
The bracelet was given to me by my uncle Tex, who despite his name was an investment banker in Birmingham, Alabama. He lived in a mini-mansion in Vestavia Hills, the affluent suburb, but I didn't know that when I was a kid, I just knew that he lived in a big fancy house with fancy things. Nothing was made of plastic, not even the toys, mostly. The part of the family with kids used to travel out there for Easter, because his house could hold all of us. My cousins Douglas and Adam were about 8 years older than we were, even though Tex was almost 20 years older than my mom. He and my mom grew up in the same middle class household, in the same circumstances, but life took them very different places. My uncle lived in a mansion and we visited him. We lived in a trailer park, and none of the family ever visited us at our house. Thinking back, maybe Mom was ashamed, too.
This is all background to the real point of this essay: if I can't trust a rich member of my own family to buy me an appropriate birthday present for my circumstances, how can I, as an American, trust the rich upper class to know the circumstances of the poor or best judge their welfare?
When I was a kid I had the usual horse-madness that descends on so many little girls, but you might not be able to tell beside the larger and more obvious dolphin obsession. Every cliche of wanting to be a marine biologist and live by the sea and and become an honorary pod member: I had the whole thing down. At one time I could tell you the difference between dolphins and porpoises, sailors lore about dolphins, their place in Greco-Roman legend, and offer to identify on sight any of several species of dolphins and cetaceans and tell you about the differences. I had never been to an aquarium, or seen a dolphin in real life, and eventually the dream died away, as dreams do. But for a while I was consumed.
So on hearing about it, one of my uncles bought me a gold bracelet of jumping dolphins. Alternating highly polished gold dolphins linked with frosted, textured gold dolphins, all the way around my grubby wrist when I would put it on, in my bedroom, wear it around for a few minutes then decide that I didn't like how it made me feel and put it back away in my tiny jewelry box full of plastic Halloween rings and neat rocks and sad, tarnished play jewelry. Thinking back on it, that bad feeling that I associated with the dolphin bracelet was shame. Every single thing I owned looked shabby next to that bracelet, and after a few times of humoring my mother when she asked that I wear it for some occasion, I never could bear to play with it or wear it anywhere.
The bracelet was given to me by my uncle Tex, who despite his name was an investment banker in Birmingham, Alabama. He lived in a mini-mansion in Vestavia Hills, the affluent suburb, but I didn't know that when I was a kid, I just knew that he lived in a big fancy house with fancy things. Nothing was made of plastic, not even the toys, mostly. The part of the family with kids used to travel out there for Easter, because his house could hold all of us. My cousins Douglas and Adam were about 8 years older than we were, even though Tex was almost 20 years older than my mom. He and my mom grew up in the same middle class household, in the same circumstances, but life took them very different places. My uncle lived in a mansion and we visited him. We lived in a trailer park, and none of the family ever visited us at our house. Thinking back, maybe Mom was ashamed, too.
This is all background to the real point of this essay: if I can't trust a rich member of my own family to buy me an appropriate birthday present for my circumstances, how can I, as an American, trust the rich upper class to know the circumstances of the poor or best judge their welfare?
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Kicking the Concept in the nuts...
Date: 2011-11-13 07:37 pm (UTC)Why do we assume that the concepts of "Poor" and "Wealthy" are valid? Are these real, or are they just part of the reality tunnel we choose to inhabit? What would a society without these concepts, and outside of a collectivist society, look like? Are these concepts inherent when we speak of an individualist culture, or are they something we assume is inherent but is a game rule we choose to apply to the concept?
I do know this -- the concept of poverty and wealth are tied in with the concept of property ownership, or as I like to call it, stuffism. Can we postulate an individualistic society without a stuffist orientation?
Re: Kicking the Concept in the nuts...
Date: 2011-11-13 10:23 pm (UTC)