>The bourgeois pretends its values are working class, the working class
>pretends it lives in a bourgeois paradise.
That's fabulous!
....and they are equally blinded....why do you think they call it "hegemony" ?
The degree to which all the layers of the working class -- from blue to dry cleaned -- identifies itself with the ruling class is truly amazing. But, added to that is the particular misery of the U.S. working class which, underneath it all, believes that its privations ARE the result of some private failing. After all, if anyone can succeed, why not them?
It is also at the blue collar layer, so far as I have directly observed, that the worse and most blatant discriminatory practices are carried on....which goes a fur ways to further erode any sense of consciousness or unity.
I tell thee though, the unconsciousness of the T.V. bound working class is understandable in a way that the self-righteous unconsciousness of, say, academic intellectuals is not. For a truly nauseating exercise in denial, no one can hold a candle to them.
Joanna