A significant amount of attention has been paid in the media toward a vanishing phenomenon in Western (and particularly American) culture: the middle class. The argument goes that, as skilled jobs have been sent overseas and corporations have moved offshore to avoid taxes, middle class jobs have been disappearing. The result is a widening gap between the rich and the poor. The middle class, though, provide a vital role in society.
The middle class is largely responsible for the idea of civic stewardship. The middle class does not connect the idea of private property with natural resources, for example, or even durable goods or significant sums of money (Mareeva, p. 344). This is why so many people who take part in such causes as Greenpeace or who vote progressive in elections are from the middle class. The wealthy have no interest in sharing, and many of the poor do not believe that progressive talk can come true.
The middle class serves as the glue in society. If the middle class erodes, leaving a huge gulf between rich and poor, the lack of cross-class understanding will shred any sense of a common culture (Cote & Kraus, web). Middle class people know what it is to have to live on a budget and have to do without; they know what it is like to unwrap their dinner and to wonder what to do when, on occasion, they run out of money before they run out of month.
The middle class preserves a more sophisticated level of discourse in popular culture. Research indicates that even the middle class uses their enjoyment of complex humor to assert their own sense of cultural advantage over those around them, even those in the upper classes (Wardrop, web).
The upper class possesses a sophisticated intellect and may share in the enjoyment of this type of humor, but the middle class, according to this study, compensates for their lack of wealth by spicing up the complexity of their entertainment.
Works Cited
Cote, Stephane & Kraus, Michael. “Crossing Class Lines.” New York Times. 5
Mareeva, S.V. “The Value Orientations and Conceptions of the Middle Class
Concerning the Desired Vector of the Country’s Development.” Sociological Research 54 (5): 336-349. Print.
Wardrop, Murray. “Middle Class ‘Use Comedy to Assert Cultural Superiority.’”
The Telegraph 6 April 2010. Web. 4 May 2016.
