And then there’s that uncomfortable fact that some aren’t suited to intellectual work.
“The mantra on more college, more college... is a good theory, but could everyone
learn in the higher spectrum of knowledge? And if you cannot learn to be ‘smart’ but
possess a strong back and a strong work ethic... [s]hould that be diminished to tiny
wages with no benefits although the occupation be a societal necessity?... I was raised
to respect all working people and so I continue and muddle on,” commented Leo
Baranovsky.*
So there are lots of reasons why college, which is such a no-brainer investment for
professional-class kids, may not be as good or as safe an investment for working-class
kids. They’re not ignorant and lazy. They just live in a different world.
Moreover, those who try to move from a familiar world to a new one often
uncomfortably end up with one foot in each. The class culture gap can create
uncomfortable rifts between class migrants and their families. “My dad was a taxi
driver,” an Irish professional wrote me. “After every degree, he would say, half joking
but wholly in earnest, ‘what can you do now?’ When I got my first PhD and could teach,
he stopped asking. I know he was happy for me, but fundamentally he was pretty sure
these professional jobs were bullshit jobs. 15 years later I’m more on his side than I
thought.”
When a Harvard-educated lawyer went into public interest law, his working-class parents
found his career path mysterious. “What did they expect?” I asked. “Isn’t this what they
wanted?” Nope: “What they wanted was for me to stay in [the Rust Belt city where he
grew up] and buy a big car and a big house. Sort of like the real estate agent my mom
worked for.” What they wanted was to keep him home, in body and mind—just with
more money. That’s not what they got.^114
Incomprehension may bleed into hostility. “That’s the education talking,” class migrants
often hear. “I feel like I have changed sides in some very important game,” noted one.^115
Lamont mentions the disapproval of “people who forget where they come from.”^116
“Admitting to ability or intelligence was a great sin and indicated that you were ‘stuck on
yourself,’” noted another class migrant. She worked in her hometown as a carhop to
make money for college and went to great pains to fit in. She thought she’d succeeded
when the handsomest boy around asked her out. But then he stood her up, and she
gradually realized the whole thing had been deliberately planned. “Perhaps in their view,
it was retribution because they were somehow being stood up by me. I was deserting my
class; they knew their place.”^117
- Why Doesn’t the Working Class Get with It and Go to College?