[lbo-talk] dregs and drugs

[ravi]

On 04/25/05 09:50, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Kelley:
> 
>> about your fellows. The implication was that people who dressed sloppily
>> didn't care about their fellows. A few people were rightly annoyed with
>> that because they can't afford to dress like a dandy.
> 
> I think that is the correct implication.  When I first came to this country
> I was surprised to see that the best dressed people were Black women, while
> most whites dressed like slobs (this was before the hip hop craze.)  I made
> similar observations elsewhere: in Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America....
> 
> Poor people tend to dress up well because dress is a message about a person
> who wears it.  The message sent by dressing up is "I care how others
> perceive me, and I want to be perceived favorably, even though I may be
> poor."  This is why poor people in many parts of the world pay much
> attention to their appearance and dress.
> 
> Casual dress, on the other hand send a message "I do not give shit how
> others perceive me, I wear what is most convenient to me."  It as uniquely
> American phenomenon that cuts across social classes - both the "trailer
> trash" and the "middle class" express the same attitude, they differ only in
> the price tags of their clothing.  This is the typical "I do not give a shit
> about anything but me, me, me" attitude that can be found in every aspect of
> this country's culture and society.
>  

ok, time to settle all this confusion. time once again, for my webified
version of paul fussell's class quiz:

http://www.exitleft.org/classquiz.html

don't even bother clicking if you do not use a web browser that is out
of the stone ages (i.e., do not use IE < 5.5 or netscape < 6. any
mozilla or firefox should work fine. opera: i am not sure). ;-) i know,
i know... i do not care about the working stiff, etc... sorry carrol.
thems the breaks. what the hell: it may not even work for newer browsers!

	--ravi