Finally, I earned something!
I was awarded the above Certificate of Achievement, suitable for framing.
And you can get one too! All you need to do is answer a simple 20 question test that Virginia Postrel linked in her very amusing “Can You Pass the ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ Test” article.
The idea is to to determine your level of engagement with — or isolation from — mainstream American culture. If you are totally isolated, you live within a bubble and score zero.
I’m said to not have a bubble:
On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 13 and 16.
In other words, you don’t even have a bubble
I would have scored higher had I watched an entire Oprah show, or had the first question been worded the same way as the one in Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: the State of White America, 1960-2010. While the book asks, “Have you ever walked on a factory floor?” the online test puts it this way, “Have you ever worked on a factory floor?” Not quite the same thing, and even Mitt Romney would probably be able to say truthfully that he has walked on a factory floor. Oddly, if he was running the company at the time he walked on its factory floor, he could probably say that he had worked on the factory floor. I worked on the floor of a former factory, and I worked as an auto mechanic as well as a construction worker, but as to why that sort of work (or the work of plumbers, electricians, welders) doesn’t count as “mainstream” in the same way as a factory floor job, I’m not sure. But I answered the question as it was asked, without reading in my own possible interpretations of it.
Similarly, I answered the following question honestly as I could, with a “NO”:
Since leaving school, have you worn a uniform as part of your job?
I have long considered a business suit to be a uniform, but as it is considered the uniform of the rich and powerful (as opposed to miserable attorneys who hate the law), it really wouldn’t have been fair for me to answer “YES.” I have also worn a jumpsuit to work, but I don’t think that is a uniform in the sense they mean. Clearly, they mean military, police, fire, security guard, maybe some receptionist, bellboy and certain waiters type uniforms. As to doctors’ or nurses’ white uniforms, who knows? Such questions can get complicated.
I’m glad that with seven points I have at least a hint of a bubble, because I don’t consider myself especially “mainstream.” I despise the new bureaucratic overlords and the public policy/public health/safety nazi/drug warriors classes who now run our lives. I hate most popular television programming and there are a lot of popular culture trends I don’t follow, and know little about. Yet the elite make me far more sick, because they are not as easy to ignore. It just fries me that men who couldn’t change a tire if their lives depended on it believe it is their right to run the lives of the dwindling core of men who can. It bothers me that welding and machine shop jobs go begging, while clueless kids (some with working class parents) go into a lifetime of debt in exchange for worthless degrees in post modernist gobbledygook. They look down on community college students taking vocational classes as their inferiors, but look at what happens a few years down the pike. The former end up demonstrating in the streets because there are hardly any jobs for humanities majors, while the kids who learned how to weld end up making six figure salaries, and even Jay Leno is jealous.
I called this tension “the war between the useless and the useful,” and it is pathetic to see the former being placed in charge of the latter.
The bubble needs bursting, badly.
Comments
8 responses to “Up with elite! And down with bubbleland!”
“Clearly, they mean military, police, fire, security guard, maybe some receptionist, bellboy and certain waiters type uniforms.” Eric, I do HVAC and we wear uniforms all the time, think UPS,Fedex or any service company worth anything, it lends an air of Professionalism.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to omit any uniforms. I couldn’t possibly know or think of them all. There are also innumerable store uniforms like Home Depot, Kroger’s, McDonald’s. What I meant is that a suit probably isn’t one in the minds of the authors, even though it sort of is.
Is a judicial robe a uniform? A nun’s habit? A clerical collar?
I lose on the “uniform” and anyway I think they’re attaching unwonted importance to that. I worked retail where I was both required to “look good” and wear skirts and heels AND help unload trucks. Think about that a moment. I’d have preferred a uniform.
Total is 14 of 20, but you know, some it like tv shows and movies… er… I don’t watch visual media a lot, not out of snobbery but because I didn’t grow up with it/never formed the habit.
I scored “between 5 and 8, you can see through your bubble”.
I have to wonder what they mean by “bubble”. I have good friends who are farther right than I am and friends who don’t think anything but what Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert tell them to think.
I recently lived in a very lefty area, Old Town Alexandria, where “far right” means you’re not sure if Bush was a war criminal or just stupidand guns are for those bitter clinger and now live in rural AZ where you put your gun on after your belt but before your hat.
One question that strikes me as very odd is Have you ever participated in a parade that did not involve global warming, gay rights, or a war protest?
That wording is very odd.
It makes me think the default position is that being in a global warmmongering, gay rights or anti-war deal is the default position.
Speaking of bubbles.
Right now, as the snow keeps coming down, I’m ready to protest FOR global warming AND gay rights. (Hey, guys in less clothing, what’s there not to like?) For that matter, given that I’m a woman fast approaching “a certain age” and that there are people out there who need a righteous kicking, depending on time of month and how upset at work/kids I am at any given moment, there are days I could demonstrate FOR war. How would they count that?
Actually what struck me was that in some ways that test IS a bubble. For instance, while I never worked on a facto– Oh, wait, I actually did, for a day as a temp worker. Ahah. BUT I worked for a summer as a field hand. They don’t count that. Apparently that’s high falutin’
What do you mean by your remark about “welding and machine shop jobs go begging”? I have a friend who was laid off from his welding job several months ago and has been unable to find another. (Although he has an interview today — fingers crossed!) If you know of any welding jobs in southeastern PA I’d be pleased to pass them on to him so he can apply.
“you scored between 0 and 4. In other words, your bubble is so thick you may not even know you’re in one.” Yipes, I’m bubble boy!
I would interpret the “uniform” thing meaning any mandatory set of clothing. I don’t think judges are required to wear their robes. Most “professional” uniforms, suit and tie, law robes etc, are not actually mandatory just good practice to demonstrate the authority of the position. So if you absolutely had to wear a bubble suit to enter a clean room on a regular basis, I would count that as a uniform.
It was easy for me to answer yes to that though. I was in the military, and having been in the military pretty much guaranteed I would get at least a 12 on the test.