Paul Fussell’s 1983 book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System is a caustic examination of a topic that Americans supposedly don’t think applies to them, hate discussing, or most likely, both. Although Fussell often seems to be shooting from the hip (in a way that makes the book a fun read), his detailed taxonomy of America’s nine class tiers, ranging from “top out-of-sight” down through the middle and “prole” classes to “destitute” and “bottom out-of-sight,” still rings uncomfortably true, although many of the details have changed. It’s probably impossible to read the book without examining your own behavior, wondering which class your speech and attire place you in and whether it’s apparent to everyone else. The awkwardness of all this is Fussell’s point. In the 40 years since the book’s publication, Americans seem to have become more class conscious (at least from my vantage point), while the marketing strategies that exploit our simmering class anxiety, as Fussell describes it, have become more sophisticated, further increasing our unspoken awareness of that insecurity. The
#199: Rust Never Sleeps
#199: Rust Never Sleeps
#199: Rust Never Sleeps
Paul Fussell’s 1983 book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System is a caustic examination of a topic that Americans supposedly don’t think applies to them, hate discussing, or most likely, both. Although Fussell often seems to be shooting from the hip (in a way that makes the book a fun read), his detailed taxonomy of America’s nine class tiers, ranging from “top out-of-sight” down through the middle and “prole” classes to “destitute” and “bottom out-of-sight,” still rings uncomfortably true, although many of the details have changed. It’s probably impossible to read the book without examining your own behavior, wondering which class your speech and attire place you in and whether it’s apparent to everyone else. The awkwardness of all this is Fussell’s point. In the 40 years since the book’s publication, Americans seem to have become more class conscious (at least from my vantage point), while the marketing strategies that exploit our simmering class anxiety, as Fussell describes it, have become more sophisticated, further increasing our unspoken awareness of that insecurity. The