Explaining the sociology of class culturefrom @maisonrickie

Transcript

The upper class will always strive to maintain distance from everyone else. But have you ever asked yourself why? In a previous video, I spoke on American sociologist Richard Peterson's concept of cultural omnivoresism. Basically, the idea that the upper class's taste for culture has become a lot more eclectic. That high status Americans began consuming culture across many genres and categories. Tier were no longer just high brow and low brow forms of culture, but rather they liked everything. They liked the opera, and bluegrass, and indie rock. Whereas lower status groups were univores, consuming a narrower bad, usually within popular culture. The univore gets their morning coffee from Dunkin'. But the omnivore can also get their coffee from Dunkin', just ironically, while also being able to appreciate single origin pullover from a specialty roaster. I wanted to answer why this was the case and why separation is so important even when the upper class are consuming the same culture. And what I found were two interconnected reasons for the need of this kind of separation. The first one being the justification of privilege. In liberal democracies, the upper class must justify why they deserve more resources and status and power. They can't say because I was born rich. So in effect, they say because I'm more cultured, sophisticated, educated, and worldly. For them, it's not smart to admit their position came from structural advantage. So they use culture as a way to make their privilege appear earned and natural. And before some of you get mad at my comments, no one is saying this explicitly. This isn't an active thing, but rather it's unspoken. It's found between the lines. The second reason for why this separation is important is because of social reproduction. The upper class don't just need to justify their own privilege, but they also need to pass it to their children. But on the surface, in meritocratic societies, it's not always smart to just hand your children money and power. They need to appear qualified for elite positions. They need credentials, and network, and cultural competence to signal membership in elite circles. Cultural capital solves this problem because it can be transmitted through seemingly natural family life, and creates durable advantages that compound over time. And it's that massive cultural exposure that builds the breadth required for omnivorism. By age 18, an upper class child might have traveled to 10 plus countries, learned to speak multiple languages, learned musical instruments with private instruction, eaten at diverse restaurants across cuisines and price points, and met professionals across many fields through their parents' networks. By early adulthood, they have omnivorous best that feels natural, where they experience life as I'm just naturally curious and cultured, instead of my parents spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building my cultural capital. Omnivoreism works so well to achieve both the objectives of justification and reproduction because it's so effective at making privilege feel earned. Our current society generally expresses distaste towards explicit class hierarchy, which is why omnivoreism is so powerful. On the surface, it feels so democratic and inclusive, but it's the exact mechanism needed to do the work quietly. In a future video, I wanna get into just how expensive omnivoreism actually is. So if you want that, please like and follow and let me know what you think in the comments.