…and ten books, some articles and a few lonely chapters later. It’s so interesting, and I wish there was more time. I want more books to read, more articles to analyse and more interesting thoughts and theories from people. I could observe the world forever, its acceleration and what people do in it and with it.
Last night I watched a movie called The Giver. It’s a sci-fi movie and how the world has become free of all sorts of emotions, wrongdoings and free will. The total opposite from today, I would say. This new world is supposed to be an equal place for everyone living in it. But it is grey, cold and harsh. Not to them, but to outsiders who know what the other side of the apple looks like. This world is controlled to its maximum but again, nothing they can see. The people’s memories have been deleted but one, the giver, still holds them and remembers them, and want to feel “alive” again. So, of course, there is the chosen one, the receiver, who can turn their grey, blindsided world into a rainbow of colours and emotions again. And all the bad things that comes with it.
The point with this world/society, as I see it, is to have a none Class society. But not in the way Marx thought about it, like a “wake up and do what pleases you” (lightly put) free society, but a more controlled one actually. It has to be controlled to not go back to how it was though. But in this (the movie’s) none class society (which still is divided into different groups), there is an exception: The elderly, who holds the power and fill an authoritative position. That’s not about class. It’s about status. Status refers to who we see as subordinates and superiors in a society, whereas class refers to our position in a society.
– A split society – Power, intersectionality and social stratification (Edling & Liljeros, 2010) is a good little book, that also touch areas like gender, age, sexuality and ethnicity. It’s in Swedish though – Don’t know why I wrote that, but one chapter is about class so…
A none class society wouldn’t be possible without bad consequences, but there is nothing telling us how big the gaps between the upper, middle and lower class has to be. Everyone can change their future. Some need to work harder than others, is that fair or just makes them stronger? And with success, does the certain ways of the upper class (that some people seem to strive for) come automatically? And is it necessary for the “newbie” to make his or her stamp when up there? And why, if so? How come class also is about health? How can a VP, with all the stress and long workdays that means, have a better chance to live longer than his secretary, for example? Aren’t we told that stress is bad for us? Or is there different types of stress? Some good, some bad. And why is class so important to us, in the first place? It’s not important to us in a way where we think about our health and living a longer life, that’s for sure! Is it because we’re just so used to it since forever, used to the hierarchy and to belong to a certain group?
If you don’t know a different world from the one you live in, you can’t see the faults in it or what you’re missing. And if you would get told about the things you are missing out on, and don’t know of, you can’t know if that is better than what you know in the world you live in right now. Is it worth taking a chance for what someone else says is better? Experience war and peace, sickness and health, injustice, power, luck, the colours of the rainbow, freedom and imprisonment, hate, sorrow, right and wrong. Love. Happiness.
Well… Thankfully, we don’t live in a world like the one in this movie. Not that the world we live in is that great either, at the moment. But it makes my subject, social psychology, a little bit more interesting at least.
( And this is hopefully a bit more interesting than a bad hair day, Andy! )
