I had been thinking, before I read this article, how curious it is that today the ruling class goes to great extremes to underline its "common ground" with the working class. At least judging by the U.S., which is the bleeding edge of these developments, every effort is made to erase status differences. I know this goes back some ways, but it's really getting flatter and flatter. At work, my boss', boss', boss', boss', boss, boss is "Johnathan." There isn't a single person in the 7-deep hierarchy who is not addressed by their first name. It's an enforced and curious intimacy. Conversation in meetings is always collegial -- nothing is ever commanded. Joanathan has a blog and we are all encouraged to blog. Jonathan's blog is a deft instrument of self-advertising and marketing; though it is a one-way communique, it modestly inhabits the democratic space of the blogs, and all employees are encouraged to blog -- with some risible and pathetic results.
In former times, strict dress codes and protocols were used to reinforce class and caste differences and, at the same time, to render these boundaries eternal and unbreachable. I find it fascinating to ponder (in light of Fitch's article) how the symbolically flattened modern social landscape actually serves to erase difference and underline a different kind of subversion:
1. the belief that it is an equal playing field and that therefore if some have more than others, it is because it was earned 2. the belief that we are all in the same boat -- blogging on the net.....or whatever.
It is always the similarities that are stressed, the "common" interest. Almost makes capitalism look like a form of socialism, and the part of me that struggles to remain conscious KNOWS that this is wrong.
Joanna