You Lived Through the 80's and Forgot to Get Rich?: Review

The myth of classlessness is buttressed, in Mr. [Benjamin DeMott]'s analysis, by what he calls the ''omni syndrome'' - the idea that, whatever our differences, ''each has access to all.'' Lee Iacocca asserts he is a friend of the guys on the line, while G...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:New York Times 1990
Main Authors: Ehrenreich, Barbara, Barbara Ehrenreich is the author of "Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class" and "The Worst Years of Our Lives," a collection of essays
Format: Review
Language:English
Subjects:
DeMott, Benjamin
EHRENREICH, BARBARA
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The myth of classlessness is buttressed, in Mr. [Benjamin DeMott]'s analysis, by what he calls the ''omni syndrome'' - the idea that, whatever our differences, ''each has access to all.'' Lee Iacocca asserts he is a friend of the guys on the line, while George Bush claims to favor pork cracklings over broccoli and to fall asleep to the music of Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle. In the grip of the omni syndrome, we lose the ''skills and arts'' of discerning differences. We cannot, at some basic, socially gritty level, tell one person from another, and we are left with an empty notion of the self, free-floating, unscathed by social structures or human contact - the individual of my radio-show caller's concern. These points deserve to be more than noted. Myths of a classless meritocracy are flattering to elites, including, of course, the even more ''imperial'' upper class. So, too, is the recent myth of an incorrigible ''underclass,'' whose failings are said to be so entirely personal and moral that nothing can be done. If it is the ''voice of the imperial middle'' that brings us these myths, then the question ''Why Americans can't think straight about class?'' can be answered more pointedly, like this: we have been misled by our pundits and scholars because they are members of a relative elite - the imperial or professional middle class - which has a stake in obscuring the causes and true dimensions of inequality.
ISSN:0362-4331