Elites vs. the Working Classes

Here’s two common “sides” in the argument about the current cultural and political showdown and divide between elites and the working class:

Elites are unjustifiably condescending toward and dismissive of the working classes and don’t recognize how much their preferred policies may have made things more difficult for them, and this has legitimately angered the working classes.Segments of the working classes possess cultural pathologies that have hurt and continue to hurt them, pathologies that are not the fault of the elites, and some reactions of the working classes to the anger the elites have provoked — supporting and voting for certain candidates and public policies — are irrational, ignorant, stupid, bigoted, or hateful, and will in the near and long term do more harm to the working classes (as well as everyone else) than any of the policies the elites have supported or would prefer, or any of the policies and behaviors by the elites that have angered the working classes in the first place.

They’re generally presented as mutually exclusive. But both of these points can simultaneously be true — and, likely, both are true. To admit the truth of one does not, and should not, immediately entail denying the truth of the other.

Elites vs. the Working Classes was originally published in Aaron Ross Powell‘s Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

 

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