In the “Theory of the Leisure Class” by Thorstein Veblen, he critiques the upper class for their behaviors regarding their dress and speech. He observes that their odd behavior stems from capitalism and the effect is has on their need to consume goods that are seemingly un necessary. He starts off by critiquing the way they dress and the emphasis they place on the value of clothing and its ability to show ones status. His tone remains critical throughout the entire reading, stating that he sees it as wasteful to place such an emphasis on clothing for status rather than for the obvious use of clothing.… Read the rest here
Tag Archives: class
Frameworks of Social Engineering
How can we truly go about with categorizing populations? In the case of Stalin’s USSR and Nazi Germany, populations were categorized by class and race respectively. Chapter 6 of Beyond Totalitarianism, Christopher R. Browning and Lewis H. Siegelbaum examine the different “radical recategorizations” of the populations in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. <Christopher R. Browning and Lewis H. Siegelbaum, “Frameworks for Social Engineering: Stalinist Schema of Identification and the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft,” in Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared, ed.… Read the rest here
Spencer’s Social Progress
Author: Herbert Spencer, English philosopher
Context: 1857, prior to Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”, on the tail-end of the first Industrial Revolution
Language: inquisitive and scholarly; here he asked what social progress really meant and whether it should be redefined
Audience: the intelligent but uninformed, more specifically those interested in philosophy and anthropology
Intent: to direct scholars’ attention to another way of thinking about society and social progress; until this time most were under the impression that social progress meant that societies were improving the standard of living.… Read the rest here
Mobility in Class & Current News with Adoption
Today, History 254 discussed the mobility of classes and ascription of identity. What does ascribing entail in this context? In this context, it is the government ascribing an identity of nationality to citizens in hopes of creating a more united society. Although this plan backfired, the tactic is important in relation to today’s discussion. When the government assigned identity, they also created a reformed class structure in some ways. A question discussed today was, is there mobility between classes?… Read the rest here
A classic struggle of “us against them”
In her article “Us Against Them” in Fitzpatrick’s Stalinism: New Directions, Sarah Davies describes a society in the Soviet Union that is fraught with discontent. In the mid to late 1930’s the elite party leaders were attempting to reconstruct a class system–albeit a different one than before–and the people were growing weary.
The long-term goal of the revolutionaries was to abolish the class system and bring to fruition a country ruled by the working class, but it was a goal that proved to be nearly impossible. … Read the rest here