Tuesday, November 15, 2011

What inequality?

flock of wealth in Montana
LINK  to David Brooks' slightly tongue-in-cheek comment on the sorts of inequalities currently regarded as acceptable in American society and those that are not.  His description strikes me as largely correct.  So too his conclusion:
"Dear visitor, we are a democratic, egalitarian people who spend our days desperately trying to climb over each other. Have a nice stay."
 What I'd have liked to have read is his analysis of why one sort of inequality is acceptable and another is not and his interpretation of what this tells us about ourselves. 

As I've been thinking about this piece, Enich has been thinking about our discussion on Friday.  What he wrote could be in conversation with Brooks, so I re-post his recent comment.

Enich's Amcon Thoughts: Social Class, Value Systems and Space: I was thinking a lot since Friday about value systems and what input they have on mobility in various societies. We mentioned how in an agri...

1 comment:

Enich said...

I really enjoyed this article! I love the way satire can put the subtle (or not so subtle) ironies of how our society is arranged.

The portions where he addressed the boasting of your social class or other prowesses seemed especially relevant to class on Friday. It's bizarre, for example, how we're supposed to hide away our moral fortitude but display pretentiousness in the form of college sweatshirts.