Are “white middle class norms” substantially different from, um, black middle class norms, hispanic middle class norms, asian middle class norms and the like?
I’m gonna try to answer this neutrally, but am worried about the risk of touching a political live wire in a context where it’s likely to do little good.
The history of the British Empire and then America in the 20th Century suggests that the “middle class norms” being referred to come initially from a particular culture which was mainly made up of white people, and other groups (both residents of other countries and immigrants to Anglo countries) have assimilated these norms in order to participate in the global economic institutions designed by and for people of that culture. It’s not obvious that “middle class” as a concept is a cultural universal, much less that middle class norms are the same across cultures.
This doesn’t necessarily make such norms objectionable, though for reasons I hope are obvious it’s understandable that people are touchy about it all around.
...It’s not obvious that “middle class” as a concept is a cultural universal, much less that middle class norms are the same across cultures.
The concept of “middle class” (in the “middle class norms” sense) is increasingly co-evolving with existing cultures in a way that makes it more of a cultural universal. And cultures which don’t adopt the middle class concept tend to fail at basic human flourishing, which is as close to a universal as it gets. Marx was well aware of this BTW; he thought socialism would be infeasible unless and until the “middle class norms”-based stage of history (originating from early-modern-age Europe at the latest, not the 20th-century Anglosphere) had fully played out in most of the world, at which point it would be superseded in a quite natural way. See also Scott’s post “How the West was won”, which is relevant to this question.
I agree that if you assume there’s a natural direction of cultural progress, a set of stages all cultures have to pass through (or leapfrog by assimilating into a more advanced culture), then the “middle class” could be a cultural universal in the sense of being an essential attribute of one of those stages. But it’s not at all obvious to me that Marx was right. Even if he was, it’s not obvious that the actually existing acculturation people do to participate in the global cultural middle class is entirely composed of culturally universal middle-class traits, rather than accidental traits attributable to the particular areas where this culture emerged first.
Even if he was, it’s not obvious that the actually existing acculturation people do to participate in the global cultural middle class is entirely composed of culturally universal middle-class traits, rather than accidental traits attributable to the particular areas where this culture emerged first.
Some such traits undoubtedly exist; for instance, people throughout the world learn English for no other reason than to take part in a successful culture where “middle class” traits are relatively common. But it’s not clear that there could be any alternative to English that would not be “attributable to [some] particular area”; for example, Esperanto is culturally European and perhaps even specifically Eastern-European; Lojban was indeed designed to be culturally and areally neutral but this doesn’t seem to help its popularity, since the Lojban-speaking community is in fact quite tiny.
Not necessarily; if anything, I was in fact agreeing with you that some portion of people’s ‘existing acculturation’ to middle-class culture is not, strictly speaking, neutral, due to historical path dependence if nothing else. But I still think it may be unproductive and even pointless for people to act overly “touchy” about such subjects. Should, e.g. Quebeckers, and perhaps Francophones in general, feel justified about their “touchy” attitude wrt. the cultural dominance of English?
I’m gonna try to answer this neutrally, but am worried about the risk of touching a political live wire in a context where it’s likely to do little good.
The history of the British Empire and then America in the 20th Century suggests that the “middle class norms” being referred to come initially from a particular culture which was mainly made up of white people, and other groups (both residents of other countries and immigrants to Anglo countries) have assimilated these norms in order to participate in the global economic institutions designed by and for people of that culture. It’s not obvious that “middle class” as a concept is a cultural universal, much less that middle class norms are the same across cultures.
This doesn’t necessarily make such norms objectionable, though for reasons I hope are obvious it’s understandable that people are touchy about it all around.
The concept of “middle class” (in the “middle class norms” sense) is increasingly co-evolving with existing cultures in a way that makes it more of a cultural universal. And cultures which don’t adopt the middle class concept tend to fail at basic human flourishing, which is as close to a universal as it gets. Marx was well aware of this BTW; he thought socialism would be infeasible unless and until the “middle class norms”-based stage of history (originating from early-modern-age Europe at the latest, not the 20th-century Anglosphere) had fully played out in most of the world, at which point it would be superseded in a quite natural way. See also Scott’s post “How the West was won”, which is relevant to this question.
I agree that if you assume there’s a natural direction of cultural progress, a set of stages all cultures have to pass through (or leapfrog by assimilating into a more advanced culture), then the “middle class” could be a cultural universal in the sense of being an essential attribute of one of those stages. But it’s not at all obvious to me that Marx was right. Even if he was, it’s not obvious that the actually existing acculturation people do to participate in the global cultural middle class is entirely composed of culturally universal middle-class traits, rather than accidental traits attributable to the particular areas where this culture emerged first.
Some such traits undoubtedly exist; for instance, people throughout the world learn English for no other reason than to take part in a successful culture where “middle class” traits are relatively common. But it’s not clear that there could be any alternative to English that would not be “attributable to [some] particular area”; for example, Esperanto is culturally European and perhaps even specifically Eastern-European; Lojban was indeed designed to be culturally and areally neutral but this doesn’t seem to help its popularity, since the Lojban-speaking community is in fact quite tiny.
I agree. Do you think there’s some other opinion I should hold differently because of this, either stated or implied?
Not necessarily; if anything, I was in fact agreeing with you that some portion of people’s ‘existing acculturation’ to middle-class culture is not, strictly speaking, neutral, due to historical path dependence if nothing else. But I still think it may be unproductive and even pointless for people to act overly “touchy” about such subjects. Should, e.g. Quebeckers, and perhaps Francophones in general, feel justified about their “touchy” attitude wrt. the cultural dominance of English?