[lbo-talk] Americans' anxiey over fitting in economically with neighbors & perceived peer groups

kevin island kevin_island2003 at yahoo.com
Tue Aug 22 13:46:54 PDT 2006


True that the advice offered is mostly about the individual. (The usual: define goals, make plans and stick to them, stay upbeat ...) But the piece is unusual in this respect: it suggests that a shared awareness of the real circumstance of other people could be helpful. That's something.

Not long ago, several messages here mentioned "Little Miss Sunshine." One of the best things about the movie: It showed how much we can depend on the favors of middling functionaries. Grief counselors, police officers, contest organizers, etc. They can exercise their discretion to give you a hard time, or they can give you a break. It showed that the individual can-do spirit is not always all. (The same with family solidarity.) By the end, the would-be motivational speaker seemed to get it.

Kevin

"B." <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:

[A pretty thought-provoking piece on the kinds of quotidian power games and day-to-day social relations that folks stress out about and hide from others all the time. The conclusion to the problems below isn't FULL-SCALE ANTI-CAPITALIST CAPITALIST REVOLUTION!! (It's an advice column and so rises to a tired 'You might rise above it all, Zen-like, and live your own internalized, segregated life from this nonsense, ignoring the fools out there -- easier said than done), but it touches on some important stuff I generally don't find outside of folks like Ehrenreich, et. al. - B.]

[From piece: '[A weathier-seeming couple] had both been given money by their families (something they felt they had to hide from friends), and they actually did have a mortgage. [...] But, as Boss points out, no one looks at someone with a used car and modest home and says, 'Wow, they must be putting a lot of money aside for their future!' As she puts it, 'Those kinds of people are] just not on our radar screen.']

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