Here is a thought that I have. To the relief of many of you, It will probably be my last post.
I think all social systems are built on power structures. There are big fish that eat big, and little fish that get the left overs. This is easily identifiable in India where the caste system is in place. The untouchables or pariah caste is the lowest of low, the down trodden. From the bottom, there are increasing levels of how much one gets to feed off the culture.
In our culture, the power structure was started by white males, and as a consequence, white males are still at the top of the food chain. It is intresting to note that some immigrants, despite being white, where not giving privilege for their race. In fact, Irish had a lower social status than slaves and were often asked to do jobs that slaves would not do. An example was the building of the New Orleans drainage canals and boat dock workers in New England. Both of theses occupations employed Irish because their deaths were not as great of a financial loss as slaves.
Something that is great about our culture is the idea of ascendancy - you can raise your social class. Ascendancy is slow through social classes, but it is possible. Ascendancy in our culture seeks no other goal than more MONEY. That is because our culture is capitalistic. Having more money, as seen in our culture, gives a person more value. Thats why most everyone is involved with keeping up with the Jones. We all want to be valued more. This is more than just a shallow undertaking, it is at the core of who we are. When the stock market crashed during the Great Depression, folks jumped from windows not because they had lost all their money and would not be able to make it, but the had lost their self worth. Culture gives us an deep sense of who we are and our intrinsic worth. Our culture is built on capitalism plain and simple. Money gives us esteem. Volumes could be written about this.
I believe race and gender does have something to do with why a person can not get more power (MONEY). The culture, particularly those at the top, have an investment in keeping things the way they are. It is more difficult for you to rise through the system if you are of particular races or female.
Once you have risen in the system, and you make a lot of cash, what do you do to ensure that things stay as they are? You support causes that do little to help others ascend. I think modern diversity is little more than throwing crumbs to peasants and saying "let them eat cake". If you make it to our Ivory Tower, by God, we'll open the doors and let you in. We will embrace your struggle and share the wealth. We all get rich, be happy and thumb our noses at the poor unfortunate hacks at the bottom. Then we'll beat the war drum and say it was angry white guys that oppressed you. We'll pit those at the bottom against each other and keep them fighting over race long enough that their chance at ascendancy will pass.
If you are really interested in diversity, encourage socio economic diversity as a criteria for university admission. Then pay the down troddens' way through school. This creates great opportunity for ascendancy.
In short, everyone wants a piece of the American pie. Is Cornell West really suffering because of his race now. Or John Edwards with his two Americas speech. Come on, its a classic bait and switch. These fat cats are making it big off the American Dream.
How bout you?
Since you say you want comments... I am happy to oblige.
I have three major problems with your post, although I agree with most of it. Those three problems are, in no particular order:
1) Illiteracy.Cornel West only has one "l" in it.
2) Oversimplification.You say:
Our culture is built on capitalism plain and simple. Money gives us esteem. Volumes could be written about this.
But that's really a gross overstatement. Our culture is built on a lot of things. And let's say that you're even remotely right, that if we laid out all the things upon which our culture is based on a great big table, that capitalism and money make up a plurality of our cultural foundations... you're still ignoring a TON of other stuff. Limit the scope of your grand, sweeping statements about culture a little. It will help give you a little credibility. You're complaining about a very particular part of a very rich, wide culture. Get some perspective. Speaking of perspective...
3) Lack of Perspective.You say:
Once you have risen in the system, and you make a lot of cash, what do you do to ensure that things stay as they are? You support causes that do little to help others ascend. I think modern diversity is little more than throwing crumbs to peasants and saying "let them eat cake". If you make it to our Ivory Tower, by God, we'll open the doors and let you in. We will embrace your struggle and share the wealth. We all get rich, be happy and thumb our noses at the poor unfortunate hacks at the bottom. Then we'll beat the war drum and say it was angry white guys that oppressed you. We'll pit those at the bottom against each other and keep them fighting over race long enough that their chance at ascendancy will pass.
The thing is that life on the bottom has never been so good. EVER.
Now, if you want to just go ahead and say "well there shouldn't be a bottom -- everyone should have anything they want or need" you're just an idiot. If you say "well everyone should have all the necessities" you're just being juvenile, because you don't understand how fluid the definition of "necessity" has been over the last three thousand years.
If, on the other hand, what you are saying is that there needs to be more mobility and more opportunity... and that the power structures need to have fewer barriers to entry, well, I can see the merit in that argument.
In theory. In practice, I've got some problems with it. It's interesting that you seem to think that those who have "ascended" in the power structure somehow have a moral obligation to help others do the same. I'm not certain that's the case. I don't "support causes" to help others ascend... but I do keep a lookout for those who might be struggling up the slope, and I do what I can to help them out on a case-by-case basis.
That's what a lot of people don't really understand about the "power structures" in our society: they aren't really built on institutions, but on interpersonal relationships. You don't ascend because someone puts a program in place where you can fill out Ascension Form AF-32, but rather because someone sees you on the way up and gives you a hand. And then you help them out later. And then you help their kids find a job, and they write a letter of recommendation for your kid, etc. etc. You have to put yourself into the web of interdependence.
For example, take a Senator. A Senator doesn't wield as much power as most people think. Senator Clinton, for instance, doesn't wield a great amount of power
qua Hillary Clinton. Instead, she serves as a focus for the interests of a large number of people: her contributing constituency. Does she have some personal leeway? Of course she does. Does she have access to a great deal of economic opportunity? Of course -- the Senate outperforms every single fund in existence. But Senator Clinton lives her life as a tool of other people in the most literal sense: hours of every day are filled with listening to what the people who have put her there want her to get for them. That's what
Senators do. And all those people who put her there have their own webs of interdependence. Is it institutional? Yes. But more than that, it's very, very personal as well.
Do the institutions we have facilitate that sort of interpersonal back-scratching? Yes, of course they do. But that sort of back-scratching takes place even without those institutions. Take a look at any communist country. The difference is that in those systems, back-scratching isn't part of the official system, so it takes place on a much more arbitrary and capricious scale.
We all get rich and fat and happy by making sure that other people are getting fat and happy and in many cases, even richer than ourselves. I purchased a home and filled it with nice furniture (something I never had imagined was possible as a kid) by selling myself out for hundreds of dollars per hour. I personally saw a
VERY, VERY small percentage of the money I earned in my legal career. But I still made more money in a short period of time than I ever expected to make in my entire lifetime when I was growing up. Did the partners at my firm get richer than me off my labor? Of course they did.
But they also provided me with that job, and gave me a chance to ascend. They offered a helping hand to me to improve my lot in life, in material terms. They became my colleagues, people's whose names are still in my Rolodex today (the ones that are still alive). I call them up and activate the "ascension-protection-device" when I have a legal problem that I can't handle on my own. They call me up when their kids and grandkids need someone to talk to about school, or when they need an introduction to someone. We play poker together, and drink together.
My point is a simple one: it's not really about institutions, but about people. That means, to a certain extent, that it's going to be about family, too. Gaining access to the right kind of people to "make it" in a material sense is very important, so I agree with you in the sense that you imply that gaining admission to universities (or, by proxy, to certain internships or activities) is important for advancing one's socioeconomic status.
But at the end of the day, it's still going to be my choice about whom I help up the slope and whom I do not. Will that decision have to do with race and gender? Yeah, sure. Maybe. Maybe I help out a girl because she's smokin' hot, and even though I'm married, I enjoy being around smokin' hot chicks. Maybe I help out some poor Puerto Rican because we're both brown and he's got a similar story about getting stopped by the police. But you know, a lot of white males helped me out despite the fact that I'm brown because I was (a) respectful, (b) talented, and (c) showed some promise and ambition. They invested in me, just like they'd invest in a mining company. And they hit a good vein -- not quite what they were hoping (I left the law as a full-time occupation) but they still have a valuable ally. I'm an asset to them, just as they are an asset to me.
And that's the key: just admitting a bunch of poor people to a university won't do any good, because no one is going to want to talk and hang out with someone who is clearly ill-prepared for study. For the love of God, the social and cultural shock is bad enough. Do you really want to exacerbate it by admitting people who are less academically qualified? You have to make sure that the people who get in are good-quality investments; it's not enough to just put poor people in a college and say "succeed." It doesn't work like that. You seem to be mistaking "credentialism" for the actual mechanics of social "ascension" as you put it. It's not about the degree, but about the people.
You said you wanted comments. There you are.
