Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Wed, 9 Sep 1992 15:43:46 EDT
From:         "Daniel A. Foss" <DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU>
Subject:      Reply to bob pasker

Well, no, Proust represents one of the numerous huge gaps in my erudition. If
your allusion is to the superfluity of autobiographical drivel, it is there
because it is plausible to nobody including me how this particular combination
of formal educational credentials and low socioeconomic status coupled with
extreme social incompetence could have occurred; whence my outlook on social
stratification and social policy.

Tell you what, pasker (you like the names in lower case which is refreshing),
say we take a bunch of the poorest and most deprived street kids in the
country, selected exclusively on the demonstrated ability to sell things on
the street, we leave it to your imagination what kinds of things might be in
question, and transfer them to a lush boarding school environment. We stricltly
compel learning of what we want them to learn, which happens to be what they
are most likely to want to learn. Which is, Appropriate Behaviour for purposes
of passing for Upper Middle Class. Table manners, luxury shopping for complete
wardrobes of articles whereof they are acquainted already with, e.g., sneakers.
Home furninshing. Gourmet food. Antique chachkas and bricabrac. If they learn
how to do this right they get a house in full ownership at the time of job
plscement, which I'll get to momentarily.

They get a complete training down to the last tivial hence all-important
detail in how to hang out with age peers who were born into the Upper Middle
Class, beginning with elementary stuff like, "It got good reviews." We give
them cars and fat allowances for good peer relationships with both genders.
We give them mock high school experience to facilitate knowing conversation
about how lousy school is.

This last has become an international style, by the way. A Scandinavian
sociologist reported that an 11-year-old boy, who insisted upon wearing
only genuine made in USA Levis jeans, hand-scrawled on his pants the words
"SCHOOL F***S." The mother inquired as to whether this was correct English.
The Institute checked with US sociologists, who informed the Scandinavian
sociologists that "SCHOOL S***S" was correct usage.

Any program entrant should be permitted, of course, to learn anything he or
she liked during the course of fake education where the content might overlap
with what is ostensibly "taught" in real schools; though the methods used
would be open to experimentation. And of course a full range of educational,
that is, entertaining, tinker toys would be made availble to play with. The
final part of the preparatory program would be expensive dining and exotic
restaurant selection, for the purpose of sexual preparation for mate selection.
Then we supply them with faked computer records of MBA degrees and fictitious
course grades at prestigious colleges and business schools.

They are then guaranteed jobs with fat salaries learning by doing. The penalty
for screwing up is return to the socioeconomic status whence they came, for
which they are now too superannuated to make a living selling things on the
street, while still young and fresh in the "Real World." We then match
performance against "real" "symbolic analysis specialists," the "problem
identifiers" and "connectors of identified problems with solutions" extolled
by Robert B. Reich in The Work of Nations. As even Reich allows that the
"symbolic analysts" learn by doing in addition to having the "real" degrees,
we can *objectively* assess wherein alleged "skills" upon possession whereof
social privilege is rationalized consists.

Conservatives, who believe in genetics and breeding and hereditarian theories
accounting for the transmission of money and status from one generation to
the next would confidently bet on the actually well-born to beat ont the
"fakes." I say they'd be misplaced in their confidence because our crowd would
be leaner, meaner, more ambitious. Liberals, now, who account for more of an
admixture of environmental influence into the mix making for upward mobility,
would be scared to death of the outcome of our "program."

There is even a technical sociological term for imputing skills to people
because they "look the part": Neo-ascribed status. Those who emphasize this
component of status attainment are a little "fringe"-ish at the moment, but
there are all kinds of studies of competitive advantages enjoyed by reason of
height, looks (your face not your race), and other occupationally irrelevan,
or are they, factors.

Why wouldn't you buy a used car from Tricky Dick Nixon? Just his face. That
messed up his entire life, almost feel sorry for him.

Daniel A. Foss