Elitism and social class

[filkferengi]

Back in 1998, it was our first WorldCon and first ever listie gathering thereat. After dinner, a dozen or so of us went back to Alayne McGregor's room for further chat. Well, actually, mostly to enjoy Douglas [from bookcase_claudi]'s floor show. He had just quit smoking and was still wound pretty tightly. One of the things he was pretty passionate about was the elitism in fandom--i.e., the pervasive feeling that we're better than everyone else just because we're fen. I disagreed rather intensely then because, after all, we're listies, and we're all inclusive and cool like that. [uh, yeah]

Still, that discussion ties in rather neatly with what ataniell93 was saying on-list the other day about not feeling like middle-class, but rather like an impoverished aristocrat. Although my mom's actual socioeconomic realities were far divergent therefrom, I had a similar experience. My great-grandparents were sharecroppers in middle Alabama. My grandparents lived sometimes in the country and sometimes on the edge of town and were millhands [textile mills mostly]. My mom was a secretary for 25 years [none of this "administrative assistant" nonsense, either] and then boss of a small office for 10 more. She wanted to go to college, but girls from south Georgia in the 1950s just didn't do that back then. [It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I even found out she'd gotten a scholarship to the local business school; the woman has severe self-esteem issues.]

We were able to escape to a small wooden house in the suburbs when I was 7 [given the state of Atlanta schools back then, I use the word "escape" advisedly]. At the time my mom was dating a divorced man with a daughter about my age. We were both saving our money, but I remember feeling distinctly supercilious, because I was saving my money for *college* [spoken in proper tones of reverential awe], whereas she was only saving her money for a car. Of course, the school system was still good back then.

Socially we thought of ourselves as middle-class, although economically we were probably lower-class. All my life I knew it was my "manifest destiny" [to swipe a phrase] to be the first one to go to college. Most of the kids in my high school grew up in split-levels and much larger houses, but it didn't bother me unduly [after all, I probably had more books than all of them put together. ;)]; I just figured, in terms of social mobility, my family was just a generation behind some of the others.

Now I live in the suburbs in a small brick house only a little bit bigger than the house I grew up in. It was what we could afford back in [my spouse's] student loan days; since we never had kids, we never needed anything bigger, and we like it. The yard is largish, so no one's peering into our windows, but we're still within 12 miles of downtown and the airport. And we still have enough books to share with the *whole* list.

The differences between perception of superiority on the part of more "educated" people and the sometimes actual economic superiority of "less-educated" people has been the subject of many romance novels of varying quality and of recent discussion hereabouts. I never really thought of the dichotomy of it until recently. After all, while we don't have as much money as some, we have sufficient for our needs and are actually quite comfortable, in our own, low-profile, low-stress way.

So I understand some of Miles' feeling of carrying the weight of generations, although in my case, it's more like 3 than 11, and there won't be a next one.

Comments

[ann-mcn.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Good post, good points. Don't forget that here in the South, we had the tradition of impoverished aristocrat, too, whether or not our families were blue bloods.

My back ground is some different from yours. My father was the son of a doctor, back 100 years ago (born in 1909) in Birmingham, when doctors weren't wealthy, and his brother was a doctor, too. Papa had a degree, and after WWII, worked in various civil service jobs, which is about as middle class as can be. Mama had a music scholarship (first in her family to start college), but gave it up to work as a secretary and help support her family. All of their children are college graduates, and we are all readers and accumulators of books. We always had less money than the people in the neighborhoods around, but more books than the rest of the street combined.

In the US, we are very, very, very unclear in our definition of "class" and usually class and income are used synonymously, which is wrong in so may ways. In the 12 years since I divorced, I have slipped down the economic scale into low income, but that doesn't define who I am, but only what I can buy.

[filkferengi]

The obvious answer to this being, what *does* define who you are? As southern women [I have only limited experience with other regions], we tend to be defined by what we're doing for other people. Now that your nest is, if not empty, at least diminishing, you're hitting some of the issues Lois was dealing with in _Paladin of Souls_, about new roles and challenges for a new time of life. I look forward to your ongoing adventures [because they go on to such cool places ;)].

[ann-mcn.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I've been wrestling with this for some time now. You can look at women's lives as divided into three stages, Maiden, Mother, and Crone, and even the women who have no children often act in a mothering, care-taking way. The two early stages for me have been approximately 25 years each, and now I am wrestling with the cosmic, What am I to do now? issue. It is often labeled "empty nest syndrome" but that is misleading; I am not bewailing that the chicks are flying away -- heck, I'm shoving them out of the nest like a Mama Wood Duck, but I am frustrated by the lack of purpose in my life (What am I good for?). Heh, unlike Ista, I don't have the wherewithal to chuck it all and go awandering. (don't have her looks, either, or a god who speaks aloud to me, although I have ranted at Him numerous times.)

[hornedhopper.livejournal.com]

My mother is from New Orleans. Her family was, actually, prominent, especially before Huey Long. Due, however, to the unfortunate choices made by my great-grandfather, *our* side of the family had lost its money. In New Orleans society, however, if you had the name and family connections, you still were accepted in the society, itself. In our family, "impoverished aristocrat" is known as "genteel poverty." (g)

Having grown up in the egalitarian Southwest, however, a *name* from somewhere other place meant squat to anyone else. Since my attorney father was too ill to practice, my mother supported the family by working as a secretary, also. To everyone else, it was just poverty; to us, it was, at least, genteel! (said with twinkle in eye)

Since it is a kind of memory, I'm going to cross-post this to my own journal, as well.

[filkferengi]

Oh, goody-more cool stuff for me to read! Has it sparked any cool discussion with the spouse, or the prodigious progeny?

I'm a tired old Fan.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

My first WorldCon was 1977. Unless you count the 1975 NASFiC... jeez.

"One of the things he was pretty passionate about was the elitism in fandom--i.e., the pervasive feeling that we're better than everyone else just because we're fen. I disagreed rather intensely then because, after all, we're listies, and we're all inclusive and cool like that. [uh, yeah]"

Within Fandom we are inclusive of all kinds of folks, even those who might be considered uncool anywhere else. Nerds, Jews, Blacks, even [gasp] Women! But the notion that SF Fans as a group are innately superior beings goes back to the 1940's. "Fans Are Slans!" I am not just making this up either: http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue65/classic.html

Re: I'm a tired old Fan.

[filkferengi]

So, we obviously need to get them all reading Lois. That way, when folks are feeling supercilious, at least it's for a cool reason. ;)