Associating Class and Morality
It goes way back and was a fundamental operating principle of European aristocratic ideology: the lower the class, the greater the chance for immorality. America has supposedly broken all ties with the aristocratic mode of thinking, yet this very element still infects opinions today:
“People at the top of the class ladder are at least partially celebrated while those at the bottom are called leaches, parasites, and welfare queens.”
Status Metaphor
The size of a home has long been considered a measure of one’s status in a community. America’s most brilliant economic mind, Thorstein Veblen, invented the term “pecuniary emulation” to explain the direction that the country’s economy was moving. Today, we know his idea better by the term “conspicuous consumption” wherein one lavishes money they probably don’t have to acquire things they don’t need, like “McMansions” with more bedrooms than family members. Veblen could have informed the author that a divide exists in which those from the blue-collar class would be more subject to situating a bigger house as a metaphor for success than those from the white-collar class as it is the basis of his entire economic ideology:
“Chelsey: Another reason that Nathan is so attached to the house is that for him, a big house is a sign of success—that he’s overcome his background, class, etc. So it’s much more important to him as a status symbol than it is to me. It doesn’t even matter to him what the inside looks like as long as people seeing it from the outside are impressed with its size.”
White Collar Legacies
The legacy of growing up in white collar families is not the confident assurance of having money that one might think, but rather a propensity toward over-management that often focuses too much glare upon the dark side. One white-collar spouse whose father earned the not-inconsiderably salary requirements of a mechanical engineer recalls a legacy not of freewheeling good times but constant worry:
“I got this boatload of inheritance from someone who was wearing clothes and sleeping in sheets that would make bad rags for poor people.”
Yes, but What Does That Mean?
Sometimes a metaphorical phrase pops up that seems completely obvious to those who use it, but can be very ambiguous to those who don’t. An example occurs in the book which provided context by the speaker, but even with that context, the meaning still really isn’t completely clear:
“We used to laugh that people say `Never let the sun go down on your arguments.’”
Is this advice signaling that a conflict should be reconciled before a couple goes to sleep? Or is it a more abstract philosophical bit of wisdom encouraging each side to maintain an open mind on the issue rather than seeking a solution simply for the purpose of reconciliation?
Social Jargon
Much of the text of the narrative is composed of answers provided by the couples participating in the research to the standardized questions being asked. The result is often a peek into the social jargon of those from hailing from various different cultural milieus:
“`It was nice to have somebody to actually hang out with that didn’t swing a hammer.’ For William, having a wife and children meant entertaining less and therefore spending less. Second, William, who worked in construction at the time, was intent on socializing with people who `didn’t swing a hammer.’”