[lbo-talk] anxious

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Sep 6 09:08:25 PDT 2005


I have always been convinced that living in Manhattan or Brooklyn produces a severe case of metropolitan insularity  out of which the rest of the world is seen in a foggy, cloudy state. Cristobal Senior

WS:

Of many places in which I happened to live or visit on 4 continents, these two seem to have the least amount of insularity and fogginess about the rest of the world.

While Latin American literati certainly have a higher level of world awareness than many if not most Users in similar socio-economic positions - we seem to be comparing apples and oranges here. US has generally higher standard of living than all but a handful of Western European countries, so comparing people of the same socio-economic status results in comparing people of different class and educational backgrounds. In other words, you should compare and average Manhattan-ite to, say, an average office clerk or a plumber in Buenos Aires, rather than to Buenos Aires literati class.

My impression based on casual observations is that Manhattan (or generally East and West Coast - I cannot say much about South or Midwest) symbol manipulating classes (intellectuals, academics, etc.) tend to be more world aware and less chauvinistic than their counterparts in most other countries in the world. At the same time, I am also under the impression that the middle and working classes elsewhere tend to be more world-aware and less chauvinistic than their counterparts in the US.

Wojtek



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