professionals. The professional-class values of sophistication, boundary breaking, and
creativity are all useful for getting and keeping a job if you’re an order giver who has to
signal initiative. Working-class whites value stability and dependability—dispositions
useful for getting and keeping a job if you’re an order taker.^71
For many in the working class, becoming a member of the professional class is an
ambiguous achievement—you have more money, yes, but you also have to adopt new
folkways, like two-facedness. The dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you
feel comfortable—just with more money.^72 Brashly wealthy celebrities epitomize the
fantasy of being wildly rich while losing none of your working-class cred. Trump
epitomizes this—after all, his original fortune was made in garish casinos that sold a
working-class brand of luxury (aka “garish bad taste”).^73
Bridging the class culture gap is difficult—for professionals as well as the working class.
The first step is to recognize elite folkways as just that: folkways, not “good taste.” Many
habits of the professional elite—from artisanal religion to a life of self-actualization—
require a college education. America doesn’t provide that, so we need to take the
working class as we find them. We don’t fault the poor for failing to value the same
things the professional class values. We need to extend that courtesy to working-class
people of all races. Many of our truths just don’t make sense in the context of their lives.
- Why Does the Working Class Resent Professionals but Admire the Rich?