How Thick is Your Bubble?
I’ve been meaning to write about Charles Murray’s excellent piece on the new class divide that everyone has been writing on, but I’m glad I haven’t yet. This quiz, which measures the thickness of your bubble, was illuminating.
I don’t have a bubble, but my kids will. I was born to a blue collar father, I’m not afraid of cans of beer, I enjoy fishing, and I don’t get holier than thou if a person smokes. At the same time, I am in management, I’ve attended Rotary lunches, and I don’t consume much mass entertainment.
This dividing line is new and it both feeds and is fed by atomization, atomization which arises from our hyper-individualistic solipism. Even die hard lefties can sound like Ayn Rand when discussing their space and their stuff and their rights. The hippie boomers and the cult of me has won. Me doesn’t want to be with you, especially if you aren’t a mirror of me.
My kids likely won’t live in a neighborhood like the one I grew up in where there was my blue collar family on this corner and a doctor on that corner. We kids played together, our parents carpooled us to school, and we weren’t too acutely aware of our differences because they were material. We all had parents who were married and our lives weren’t that dissimilar.
Things have gotten much uglier since then.
Right in the middle for me.
I suspect most middle class americans (low and high) would fall in the middle unless they’re complete asshats, but then I don’t identify with the elites and don’t try to.
Now, whether they admit it or not is something different.
Murray’s data does keep the middle classes grouped together and then shows how their habits and the habits of the upper classes converge. It’s below middle class where the real divergence occurs. But, that divergence is bad for society. That’s where the single motherhood, crime, etc. marinate.
I scored between 5 and 8. I suspect my number is higher, but there were a couple questions that didn’t apply or I honestly did not know the answer to.
It makes sense to me that I’m close to the middle on this. I grew up in the Midwest, in a white collar home (my dad was/is a preacher and public school teacher) and I myself am very intelligent (140+ IQ). However, my dad preached at predominantly blue-collar churches, and I’ve chosen to do manual labor to pay my bills, so I have a balance between blue collar and white collar sensibilities.
Both groups have their pros and cons. White collar people tend to have good aesthetics, particularly in food and music. Blue collar people tend do have a better (or perhaps more humane) sense of ethics and morality, and are quite friendly and helpful. If I want to talk music, I’ll go to my SWPL friends; if I want to talk cars, I’ll go to my redneck friends. Either way, I’ll have a good time.
Interesting quiz. Substituting some American-context-assuming questions to their Canadian equivalents (e.g. Montana’s instead of Outback) in my head, I took the quiz, and scored between 9-12. Smack dab in the middle, which, given my middle-class upbringing and tastes, but my experience in factory work, and association with blue-collar folks as well as middle-class and some wealthier folks (incl. some of my family), makes perfect sense.
The part of Kipling’s ‘If’ that states:
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
is one I’ve always identified with, and upheld as a middle-class ideal – to be able to relate to both those in socioeconomic levels above and below, in some ways.
I scored between 13-16, but for some reason I didn’t get my actual score. To be fair, though, my score might be slightly skewed. For example, I’ve worked in a factory, but it was a summer job one of my dad’s friends gave me. It was still a shit job and I was surrounded by speed freaks. And though my dad was blue collar, he had a college degree from a good private university. He was blue collar by choice.
“On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12.
In other words, even if you’re part of the new upper class, you’ve had a lot of exposure to the rest of America.”
I suspect my 2 years in the Air Force contributed a hell of a lot of points relative to the shortness of the duration. +military, +uniform, +workthatmakesyourbodyhurt, +friendswhocouldntgetCincollege, etc. etc. etc. I guess if we want to shrink everybody’s bubble, the answer is mandatory military service!
Ha!
Or factory work.
I’ve read two excerpts from the book, but not the book itself. One of Murry’s concerns is the elite class making decisions for others with absolutely no understanding of their values, behavior, incentives of the lower class.
I remember my first encounter with the class gap 25 years ago. A young female psychiatry resident assessed the mental health of a male patient who had been involved in a fight. She included his fight as a factor in his diagnosis. She had no awareness that fighting would have been NORMAL , mentally healthy behavior for this man.
I scored a 9-12 sized bubble, and have raised my kids to be fully aware of the modern Govt-dependent class.
Interesting find.
One of Murry’s prescriptives was music to me; he states, The best thing that the new upper middle class can do is to drop its condescending “nonjudgmentalism”. Married, educated people who work hard and conscientiously raise their kids shouldn’t hesitate to voice their disapproval of those who defy these norms. When it comes to marriage and work ethic, the new upper class must start preaching what it practices..
Husband and I both scored between 9 and 12.
Interesting post and quiz., Ulysses.
I scored between 9-12 as well. Both my family were blue collar and I know a lot of blue collar people. I also agree with Simon that both groups have their pros and cons. The poor are simple in both their goodness and badness, likewise the rich are more “complicated”.
Both my family
Should be “both my parents”.
I don’t think the author of the quiz really understands what a bubble is or its consequences. The term bubble implies isolation from others. None of the questions there address that. You can be in a bubble at the low end or the high end. he should have just labeled it, “People I find interesting enough to talk to”.