“…Maybe they’d be O.K. if somewhere along the way they’d had true friends, defined as a group of people who share a mutual inability to take each other seriously…”
An article in the NYT titled “The Rank-Link Imbalance” really caught my eye. In short, it says that the training required to produce Leaders, in business or politics (and in geeks these days as well, I’d argue) produces intelligent, driven, get-ahead people who don’t know how to be human.
To paraphrase, they remember first names without effort, but can’t create/keep friendships. They know how to create a political alliance, but when it comes to, say, hitting on a woman with grace and style, they fail.
I’ve been the victim of this particular brand of nonsense far too many times, whether it’s the guy who’s pretty cool in the boardroom, but can’t hold a normal conversation, or the clumsy buffoon who assures you he’s a god in bed, and then is so insensitive a kisser, you wonder if all his other girlfriends lied to him, too…
Mostly, in my experience, these are men who don’t just miss the subtext, the hidden currents in a conversation or situation – they don’t even know the subcurrents exist. They want to talk, but they haven’t taken time away from their job to do other things, and therefore, everything’s about work; they know a lot, but not about too terribly many things. They lack social sensitivity. As the author (David Brooks) says,
…they have all of the social skills required to improve their social rank, but none of the social skills that lead to genuine bonding. They are good at vertical relationships with mentors and bosses, but bad at horizontal relationships with friends and lovers…
I haven’t gone out with any women, but I’d bet there are any number of modern women with the same issues.
This strikes a chord with me; I’ve been thinking a great deal recently about rank recently, about social or vocational climbing versus friendships, and the tradeoffs involved. I made a discovery/assumption sometime early in highschool; wealth means nothing without class, and class means a great deal more than wealth. In other words, it’s better to live frugally, but in good taste, than to win the lottery and blow everything on bigger and better Hawaiian shirts, Hollywood mansions, and giant suburbivans.
Race and class have a complex relationship in the US; the vast majority of the population shops at Walmart, works blue-collar jobs, and worries about health insurance, car payments, and a crashing economy. Then as we approach the top 1% of the 1%, wealth rises in a sharp and ever-steepening curve, until you reach the Bill Gates and Brangelina crowd, many of whom have been known to spend the equivalent of a college education on a red carpet gown. But let’s face it; after a certain point, money becomes immaterial. Certainly, millionaires and billionaires live differently, but – I’d argue – not as differently as people who make 30K vs. those who make 300K. As that curve rises, lifestyles are increasingly similar. They compress.
But humans are a tribal, stratified species. We need class and social status to tell us how to relate to one another, to tell us almost everything – from the kinds of jokes we tell to the eye contact we’ll make, the clothes we wear, the way in which we take care of our bodies. We differentiate amongst ourselves, not based on money per se, but on the status symbols money can buy. And when those symbols aren’t enough to produce strata, we call into play another set of criteria; class. Class, more or less, is inherited status. For example: having the right forks implies you have the resources to purchase them. Knowing how to use them implies stability in that inheritance (you’ve had them long enough to learn how). Knowing when to use them, on the other hand, implies a history of stability, implies one generates social standards, rather than simply acknowledging/adhering to them.
To take a more prosaic example, look at a teenage pop star like Britney Spears. Even before her devolution, you’d never put her in the same category as Paris Hilton (before her devolution, if you will). Spears and Hilton have vastly different backgrounds. Hilton’s family has owned hotels for decades; they’ve been in that top 1% for a long time – long enough for Hilton’s grandfather to have married a model (more on this in a bit), and her father as well. Hilton’s style, her body, her accent – all are the result of her family’s long acquaintance with wealth and power. When Hilton started acting badly, her grandfather disowned her; as I understand it, he said he was ‘ashamed’ of her behavior, and, in fact, she won’t receive an inheritance from him. But, let’s face it; Paris was never caught shaving her head. Her family wouldn’t let her be exploited by pimps/money-hungry ‘boyfriends,’ etc. She’s not been photographed (as far as i know?) flashing the world, time after time after time. Her relationships are public, but she’s not creating headlines every day with a pitiable custody battle. Hasn’t gotten pregnant. Wouldn’t be caught dead wearing half the outfits Spears shows in, all the time. In other words – and laugh, if you will – Hilton has an understanding of which boundaries she can push, safely, while retaining her status – and while she sets those boundaries lower than her grandfather, she’s still unlikely to start doing heroin. I submit to you that, on the other hand, Spears gained a great deal of money and status, but continued relating to it in the same way she had before she became famous. Remove the money and status, and her story looks much the same as a story we see playing over and over again on Cops. The custody battles, the screaming fights, the pregnancies, the younger sister getting pregnant, haircuts, drugs, rehab, drugs again, drinking, outfits that looked good on a seventeen year old girl looking ridiculous on a 25 year mother of two… So Spears and Hilton have similar careers, but their perception of what’s acceptable, and the kinds of actions they’re willing or permitted to take are very different.
Why? It’s determined by inherited, high-level (unconscious, if you will) behavioral norms – class, not status or wealth or power.
So am I saying that in the US, social climbing is a fallacy, that people are stuck with the class they’re born into, no matter what? Clearly, that’s not even close to true. How do people climb, socially, in the US? I’ll run over this quickly, so as not to bore the reader:
- Generationally. Immigrants work hard, their kids go to college and become doctors and lawyers, their kids are in business, and the great-grandchildren are millionaires when they’re born. Wealth and class are earned simultaneously, over several generations, and often as a group; Irish immigrants are a good example (they were the lowest possible class in NYC in the 1800’s, now everyone’s ‘just a little Irish,’ or Italians – or Indians and the Japanese. I’d argue we’re seeing a huge number of Mexican families starting this journey today.
- Marriage/Parents: Donald Trump earns a great deal of money, and marries a model 24 years his junior. Their (beautiful) child is born into a world of 5-star hotels and nice forks. Voilà le instant class.
- Instant money, the easy way: Ya win the lottery. You inherit from a grandparent ya never saw. Ya get a career selling (images of) your body. (Brittney Spears)
- Instant money, the hard way: You create a really cool business (like ebay), or inherit AND you’ve got enough brains to see the big picture, to change the way you’re seeing the world. (Bill Gates). They geeky kid creating computers in his garage is wearing power suits and handing over millions to help others. It’s the big picture thing that saves you from spending everything on nice cars.
- Education: This is a weird one; you can use education in the US to step yourself into earning more money. This is the generational approach; your father was a lawyer, so you get an MBA … the money and status increase at the same time. OR you can make a class jump without making a money jump. You can become a professor. This is, in many ways, an easier approach to class/social climbing; you don’t have to learn all the intricacies of class display and power. Professors are “supposed” to be absent-minded, right? They wear ratty clothes. They don’t comb their hair. They serve an important function; they facilitate generational climbing, and in so doing they attain an association with the rules of a higher class – even while they continue to live (as many, even most, do) outside the strictures of the white-collar world.
- to put it more simply, your English professor, in giving up his/her life to creating culture, and to helping others take that generational step up, rises in class as well – but still walks to work every day. S/he gains status, but not (usually) money. They’re more or less outside of the class struggle. Moreover, their children will have access to everything at the university from a young age, can see the ‘big picture,’ and are better placed to have money and status, at once.
So why is the NYT article so interesting? Because, back before most universities became glorified trade schools, class was largely based on social abilities. Class was classy. Board members quoted Shakespeare at each other. Now, the MBA is more and more popular. Geeks are billionaires. The internet makes it easier and easier to make ‘instant money’ – if you follow the rules, play the game the right way, you may find yourself at the top of the Rank – but without any idea of the Links (relationships, friendships, class rules, whatever) to keep yourself there, to play at that level.
Perhaps this is why so many Harvard and Princeton grads have tried to stick their tongues in my ear….
