Class, Mentality, and Exceptionalism: Hopes for Wealth-transcending Community Building
Often, it is quite refreshing to simply be out of that never-ending emphasis on egalitarianism that American society and people often insist as a present reality. The Brits laugh out the "myth" of America, where supposedly a whopping 98% of people identify themselves as some sort of "middle class." The Brits, despite living on a continent so often associated with welfare policies to create egalitarianism, often seem to have absolutely no fantasies about how or why everyone in the country should be labelled "equal" in some fashion.
Walking around East London a few days ago, it is not hard to see that their realist line of mentality is, in fact, highly appropriate. This little slice of South Asia seems like a whole world away from the central neighborhoods that is home to LSE and much of foreign tourist-student traffic. The same lineup of short stone buildings along the street somehow managed to become a view completely different only a one-hour bus ride away. Small ethnic markets and restaurants with their talkative owners occupy the first floors while the most non-British looking people hoist their laundries upon the most stereotypically British architectures.
It is here that the practicality of "make-do-with-anything" immigrants sweeps away British pompousness, and the stature of "everlasting British greatness" is reduced, to the dismay of the Anglo-Saxon "natives," a simple struggle of day-by-day survival. All extravagances of street-cleaning, facade-repairing, and overall "gentrification" are nowhere to be seen, but nitty-gritty-ness of having absolutely no illusion of some long-dead British imperial pride is vehemently omnipresent.
But,then, to say that somehow we the foreign students (i.e. long-term tourists) are really that particularly different from these "low-status" permanent immigrants scratching out a living on the immediate border of utter poverty, well, is nothing but an oversimplification. After all, even the most practical-minded person at LSE can agree that this academic community is bound together by some sort of common ideal (whether it be high social, financial, or moral status), within a shell impossible to be penetrated by mere concerns for putting food in the mouth, without any "grander visions" in the background.
The fact is, as much as we all try not to show it in the open, the LSE student body can also be divided into its very own "central" and "East London." Every day on campus, the biggest line is for lining up to get food from the charity Hare Krishna. For some, the sight of the world's brightest social science students stooping down to the position of penniless beggars invokes sheer insult. But for most, practicality trumps everything else. To survive through year, for some, is not much easier, and definitely not more deservedly honorable, than anyone scratching out a living in East London.
Society will always be a mosaic, however, even at the most basic level. Consultants and investment bankers from reputable multinational firms do reside permanently in East London, and many a student with too much pride bleed their measly bank accounts for a flat in central London. In a city where high prices and high tuition fees are constants for everyone, the building block of different social classes become not money itself but a fundamental attitude toward life under the given conditions.
Those who are practical will sacrifice excesses to feed personal pride, saving up for the few occasions will money is definitely worth the experience. Those who are not, well, will simply lavish themselves under any condition, seeking a lifestyle irrationally incongruous with their being full-time students with no income. Such difference in mentality, ultimately, should transcend people of all financial backgrounds. There really should not be some definite correlation of wealth with luxury.
Perhaps the American "middle class myth" is socio-culturally justified. The idea of class, in this day and age, has become simply too associated with money and material abundance. By setting that sensitive idea aside, people can actually deal with each other in an equal setting as members of one single community. It is only under such premises that, hopefully, people can spot those who take their facades of life in comfort way too seriously, and those who can face the ups and downs of social living without resorting to some conspicuous display of exceptionalism.
Walking around East London a few days ago, it is not hard to see that their realist line of mentality is, in fact, highly appropriate. This little slice of South Asia seems like a whole world away from the central neighborhoods that is home to LSE and much of foreign tourist-student traffic. The same lineup of short stone buildings along the street somehow managed to become a view completely different only a one-hour bus ride away. Small ethnic markets and restaurants with their talkative owners occupy the first floors while the most non-British looking people hoist their laundries upon the most stereotypically British architectures.
It is here that the practicality of "make-do-with-anything" immigrants sweeps away British pompousness, and the stature of "everlasting British greatness" is reduced, to the dismay of the Anglo-Saxon "natives," a simple struggle of day-by-day survival. All extravagances of street-cleaning, facade-repairing, and overall "gentrification" are nowhere to be seen, but nitty-gritty-ness of having absolutely no illusion of some long-dead British imperial pride is vehemently omnipresent.
But,then, to say that somehow we the foreign students (i.e. long-term tourists) are really that particularly different from these "low-status" permanent immigrants scratching out a living on the immediate border of utter poverty, well, is nothing but an oversimplification. After all, even the most practical-minded person at LSE can agree that this academic community is bound together by some sort of common ideal (whether it be high social, financial, or moral status), within a shell impossible to be penetrated by mere concerns for putting food in the mouth, without any "grander visions" in the background.
The fact is, as much as we all try not to show it in the open, the LSE student body can also be divided into its very own "central" and "East London." Every day on campus, the biggest line is for lining up to get food from the charity Hare Krishna. For some, the sight of the world's brightest social science students stooping down to the position of penniless beggars invokes sheer insult. But for most, practicality trumps everything else. To survive through year, for some, is not much easier, and definitely not more deservedly honorable, than anyone scratching out a living in East London.
Society will always be a mosaic, however, even at the most basic level. Consultants and investment bankers from reputable multinational firms do reside permanently in East London, and many a student with too much pride bleed their measly bank accounts for a flat in central London. In a city where high prices and high tuition fees are constants for everyone, the building block of different social classes become not money itself but a fundamental attitude toward life under the given conditions.
Those who are practical will sacrifice excesses to feed personal pride, saving up for the few occasions will money is definitely worth the experience. Those who are not, well, will simply lavish themselves under any condition, seeking a lifestyle irrationally incongruous with their being full-time students with no income. Such difference in mentality, ultimately, should transcend people of all financial backgrounds. There really should not be some definite correlation of wealth with luxury.
Perhaps the American "middle class myth" is socio-culturally justified. The idea of class, in this day and age, has become simply too associated with money and material abundance. By setting that sensitive idea aside, people can actually deal with each other in an equal setting as members of one single community. It is only under such premises that, hopefully, people can spot those who take their facades of life in comfort way too seriously, and those who can face the ups and downs of social living without resorting to some conspicuous display of exceptionalism.
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