CB
>>> snit <kwalker2 at gte.net> 04/05/00 01:27PM >>>
i was just kinda hoping that someday someone would take the intro of that
book seriously and think about it about. but alas, from _hidden injuries
of class_:
as for -hidden injuries- perhaps this is what chris burford means when he says he spys a dialectical analysis. S&C show how the endless pursuit of badges of ability in the face of relentless indignities is 'useful' to capitalist society: "we do not mean that men and women are ignorant of the fact that class conditions limit their freedom--it is palpable from the interviews that they do know this. rather, the use of badges of ability or of sacrifices is to divert men from challenging the limits on their freedom by convincing them that they must *first* become legitimate, must achieve dignity on class society's terms, in order to have the right to challenge the terms themselves." [152-3]
"most of the ppl in this book are not..at that point of despair where revolt is kindled. on the contrary, they get by from day to day with a sense of balance, with a certain distance from the problems of class and class consciousness....[but] people never lose consciousness OF society. what humans do is create new patterns ...which deaden or distance the impact of [society] .... throughout this book we have treated personal consciousness as something other than a storage locker or receptacle for information; consciousness, we think, is an active human power. ...we hope to show how this defense is more complicated than simply 'shutting out' a bad society, more than an escape through willfully ignoring what is happening outside the self. we want to show how this defense works--and how 'successful' it is--by looking at a peculiar kind of alienation"