If anything in this essay reflects badly on Empirican white-collar culture, I do not absolve myself of hypocrisy. On the contrary, I admit that I have practically benefited from that culture and, rightly or wrongly, feel no gratitude. After all, should a work of cultural criticism, which intends neither to eulogize nor instruct, be apologetic and polite? Is there some kind of debt to be honored? Nah. I’ve paid my dues and I’m no longer beholden to the walking turds I worked with. Aside from an admitted proclivity to piss on, rather than hump, the boss’s leg, I’m objective enough to consider most of what I have to say to be true. So on with it.
Recently, on a Sunday afternoon, I took a bike ride and in a little public park saw four or five Latin-Empirican families having lunch together. The food was laid out on picnic tables, kids were playing, grandparents and parents were sitting around talking, bouncing babies and eating, dads and granddads, uncles and nephews, were standing around talking politics, shop, marriage, plumbing, cars, soccer…whatever. I tried to imagine four WASP families having a picnic like that in a public park, commingling the extended relatives of three generations—I tried, but I couldn’t.
As the surrounding neighborhood was overpriced, there were, indeed, WASPs around. But they were jogging with AirPods, walking dogs, pushing strollers, polishing cars, raking lawns, loading golf clubs into the backs of SUVs—there was even a guy on a little patch of grass at the side of his magnificent brownstone, sitting in what looked like a yoga position. In short, the WASPs were absorbed in solitary activities.
It then occurred to me that the basis of this difference—the solitary versus communal way of life—is mostly financial. I mean, most Latin-Empirican immigrants work service jobs—cleaning, maintenance, construction, retail, delivery, food, transportation, etc. Most earn less than $10 an hour. Most WASPs, on the other hand, work white-collar jobs and have incomes two to fifty times greater than those of their service-sector counterparts. As the incomes of the office worker and non-office worker stratify, so do their respective cultures. There are now two economies and two cultures in modern Empirica—the office economy and the service economy, the office culture and the service culture. While office culture reflects the isolated environment of the cubicle, service culture reflects the crowded, noisy environment of the restaurant or marketplace.
For instance, the engagement in activities of self-improvement, such as exercising, raking leaves or just walking the dog, is not social. And whether they’re building their muscles to destroy would-be evildoers, tightening their abs and gluteals so they can attract a mate, strengthening their hearts and lungs so they can, like Rod Stewart, remain “forever young,” WASP professionals tend to work on themselves in their spare time, /work/ being the operative word.
WASPS also value self-reliance, as marketers and politicians well know. Take the average WASP in pleated Dockers (WIPD), for instance. He may pretend to put family above all. But aside from water-cooler chit-chat about padding the Crate & Barrel coffee table so that baby Kyler won’t gouge out an eyeball, he really cares more about work than family. He knows that his job makes everything else possible. Sure, he may think of himself as moral, ethical and community minded, but such self-regard is only substantiated by his payment for things like private schools, nannies and piano lessons. And with the miraculous power of the Internet, he can handle most of this from his cubicle while he’s supposed to be working. He doesn’t even have to show up for his morality, which is, admittedly, convenient.
But the self-reliance of the WIPD is actually an almost total reliance on his employer (i.e., the company, firm or corporation that supports his lifestyle). If the WIPD were employed in the service sector, he would soon have to rely on the people, facilities and institutions outside his place of employment for basic needs, like medical care and schooling for his kids. In other words, his self-reliance is actually a total reliance on his level of income.
As white-collar professionals rely less on family and community for their way of life, so do they put less value on things public—parks, schools, transportation, health clinics, etc. They don’t need these public facilities so why should they pay taxes for them? Concomitantly, they develop a hygienic abhorrence of things public—things that have the ear-waxy reek and gummy residue of old currency. They fortify themselves against the world of the have-nots. They buy trucks in case they have to escape over the rubble of civilization, attack dogs in case the have-nots get in a go-for-the-gold frame of mind. Their offspring become projects in which they invest social and financial advantage. And they load up on gear.
Meanwhile, not everybody can work in the offices of a company, firm or corporation. Somebody has to drive and repair motor vehicles, build and clean buildings, grow, harvest, prepare and serve food, manufacture, ship and sell goods, etc. Because service jobs don’t pay enough to support the delusion self-reliance, the folks who work them are forced to rely on community facilities to a greater extent. They are also forced to rely on each other for subsistence and companionship. Let me put is this way: there are people in our society who can’t afford to be self-reliant, and there is no good reason to expect them to be. So, as they provide for what we need, why shouldn’t we provide for what they need?
-Jan DiVincenzo © Copyright 2005, Jan DiVincenzo. All rights reserved.