This article is too perfect of an example of a serious problem solved by a simple answer. Because of that, my mind immediately jumped to the flaws in the simple solution. The first flaw is that classism is a hard flaw to admit to, and the second is the feasibility of engaging many people (who aren’t already committed to breaking down their biases) in this activity. While a world where everyone treats everyone else as an equal is ideal, a prerequisite is an engaged and aware demographic which is very hard to find. However perhaps the article has inspired ten people to try to connect more in cross-class relationships, and that in itself would be a benefit to society as well as the individuals.
What the article doesn't talk about, is the lack of awareness. I think people in the middle and upper classes of society don't even realize that they automatically are drawn to those of similar economic classes. I attend a school that is filled with extremely fortunate people. But the problem is that people assume that everyone within the school is in the upper economic class. Not everyone can driver their own car, some families only have one car. People forget that financial aid helps a lot of people at our school. It's so easy to forget though, because we go to such a privileged institution and it isn't something that the majority of our school community forgets about. And that translate into the rest of society, because we are used to being surrounded by those who are well off economically. We as a society need to be able to interact with different economic classes.
This article is too perfect of an example of a serious problem solved by a simple answer. Because of that, my mind immediately jumped to the flaws in the simple solution. The first flaw is that classism is a hard flaw to admit to, and the second is the feasibility of engaging many people (who aren’t already committed to breaking down their biases) in this activity. While a world where everyone treats everyone else as an equal is ideal, a prerequisite is an engaged and aware demographic which is very hard to find. However perhaps the article has inspired ten people to try to connect more in cross-class relationships, and that in itself would be a benefit to society as well as the individuals.
ReplyDeleteWhat the article doesn't talk about, is the lack of awareness. I think people in the middle and upper classes of society don't even realize that they automatically are drawn to those of similar economic classes. I attend a school that is filled with extremely fortunate people. But the problem is that people assume that everyone within the school is in the upper economic class. Not everyone can driver their own car, some families only have one car. People forget that financial aid helps a lot of people at our school. It's so easy to forget though, because we go to such a privileged institution and it isn't something that the majority of our school community forgets about. And that translate into the rest of society, because we are used to being surrounded by those who are well off economically. We as a society need to be able to interact with different economic classes.
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