The Runaway, 1958. Oil on canvas. The Saturday Evening Post.
Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA
Yesterday, "Doctor Dockworker" asked me:
...Do you think that the disappearance of the middle class is a good thing?
People, from time to time, talk about it as though it were bad.
Do you think that people should direct the discussion to that of a class-Less societe?
This is my rushed reply:
Regarding the middle class, its disappearance can be provisionally good or bad depending on the circumstances, but since I'm an anti-capitalist and capitalism does depend somewhat on the ideologization by and for the middle class, it also being a sort of model consumer and investor of commodities, the middle class often being the middleman of capitalist administration and policing, [a buffer as it were,] I won't lament its destruction. It might be more difficult to analyze the fantasy of the middle class and how this is played out in various classes and individuals. Ya can critically destroy the ideology but this is hampered because ya can't easily destroy the fantasy. Subconscious registers may absorb external data rather quickly, but when subconscious things are expressed, they may be naturalized or even eternalized, so this can lead to existential and historical vagueness.
I think it's possible to dramatically change the world in a few generations, that is, if there was some unanimity on the matter. It would be a form of brainwashing because anything other than what is ipso facto IS not organic, because essence is Now if looked at from a certain perspective. Yes, essence changes too, as does the nature of a species, but this must be seen more from an a-historical perspective than from the historical record, because history is a projected fantasy of the human Imaginary, usually used to glamorize a tradition of conquest and rule. But what about historical development and even progress, one may ask? Well yes, the ancient Egyptians didn't have iPhones, but we can't build such pyramids. And this is an ideology of historical progress, which is second-hand rationalization for repression which attends the psychic disturbance by any socio-symbolic tremors, large or small. Yeah, the savages didn't have extravagant parties in Ibiza and elsewhere, but such parties didn't have the abandon of a potlatch. Etc etc etc. Also, we should ask ourselves if an exaggerated propertizing logic is the basis for such historical that is ontotheological hubristic judgments, exaggerated because it must legitimize lack, which is always already the case in a class society, or one of ruler and ruled. Anyway, back to brainwashing, who would supervise it? Who really knows what's right for society and humanity? I would have grave doubts about exemplary humans as much as I would about human exemplarity.
I would like to be in a classless society, but I don't think a classless society is the be all and end all, and classlessness may not improve human existence ultimately. A discussion of class without a serious discussion and deconstruction of power is futile I think. Also, a discussion of human aggression or narcissism generally is necessary, though I don't necessarily believe in the eradication of such things, perhaps a different displacement which may be the only possibility.
