Sorry

Folks -- It is the week before Spring Break here, which is usually pretty hectic, but in addition I also have to coordinate the annual Dorr Lecture for the Arts and Ideas Program, which this year is bringing in poetry critic Helen Vendler from Harvard. I have been running quite a lot, and haven't had time to have a coherent thought. I hope you'll bear with me, and I will try to post something soon (perhaps my response to p'tit boo, which I have begun writing). Don't abandon me, folks, I'll be back.

Freedom, Baby

It is with some trepidation that I venture into the arena of political theory, because it is definitely NOT an subject in which I have a thorough knowledge. But a comment by Joshua (whose comment prompted the title of this post), which reflects the ideas of many of you who have responded to my posts, leads me there reluctantly.

Many artists, including many of you who read this blog (and truth be told, me as well) are pretty liberal. We tend toward a leftist political orientation that favors programs to help the poor, to heal the sick, to educate the masses, to save the environment, to enforce equality in matters of race, gender, and sexual orientation, and to create economic justice. Some use their art to promote these ideas, some use their blog, some simply possess these values as foundations for personal behavior. At root, we want a society that is built on the respect and appreciation of all people. But when it comes to their art, libertarianism is the order of the day.

The artist should be completely free, giving no thought to anything other than the expression of their personal truth. The idea that an artist might have responsibilities as citizen, as members of a community or a society, that goes along with such safeguards as freedom of speech leads to cries of "Censorship!" To suggest that artists might simply think about the effect of their art, and whether it contributes to the improvement of their society, is greeted with arguments about "slippery slopes" leading straight to strict government censorship and the regulation of taste and expression. Thoughts immediately fly to government intervention and coercion, even when the suggestion concerns simple human civility. This response demonstrates a level of paranoia that may, in fact be justified -- it hasn't been that long since the McCarthy Era, for instance, and in the midst of a Bush presidency that labels any questioning of government actions as un-American, such watchfulness may be very, very necessary. Let me make this plain: government control of the arts, or control by any group outside the arts, is very, very wrong -- I condemn it without hesitation. But government control and self-control are not the same thing.

My political orientation combines a socialist economic stance with a Communitarian social orientation. According to the Responsive Communitarian Platform Text on the Communitarian Network website:

"A communitarian perspective recognizes both individual human dignity and the social dimension of human existence. A communitarian perspective recognizes that the preservation of individual liberty depends on the active maintenance of the institutions of civil society where citizens learn respect for others as well as self-respect; where we acquire a lively sense of our personal and civic responsibilities, along with an appreciation of our own rights and the rights of others; where we develop the skills of self-government as well as the habit of governing ourselves, and learn to serve others-- not just self. A communitarian perspective recognizes that communities and polities, too, have obligations--including the duty to be responsive to their members and to foster participation and deliberation in social and political life. A communitarian perspective does not dictate particular policies; rather it mandates attention to what is often ignored in contemporary policy debates: the social side of human nature; the responsibilities that must be borne by citizens, individually and collectively, in a regime of rights; the fragile ecology of families and their supporting communities; the ripple effects and long-term consequences of present decisions....

America's diverse communities of memory and mutual aid are rich resources of moral voices--voices that ought to be heeded in a society that increasingly threatens to become normless, self-centered, and driven by greed, special interests, and an unabashed quest for power. Moral voices achieve their effect mainly through education and persuasion, rather than through coercion. Originating in communities, and sometimes embodied in law, they exhort, admonish, and appeal to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. They speak to our capacity for reasoned judgment and virtuous action. It is precisely because this important moral realm, which is neither one of random individual choice nor of government control, has been much neglected that we see an urgent need for a communitarian social movement to accord these voices their essential place." [ital and bold my own]

I believe in freedom of expression, and the preservation of that strong right; I also believe in personal responsibility for one's actions, and what those actions do in the world, and I believe in relationships based on mutual respect. Joshua, in a comment appended to one of my recent posts, writes: "If my friend, whom I respect, is just not getting it, I might grab his shoulders and shake him "Please, please, just listen!" I might say, "I have something important to tell you, forget everything else for just this one moment." I'm in his face, but I need to be there, because I care for him." The key phrase here, for me, is "because I care for him." Mutual respect does not undermine the need to speak truth, to argue vigorously, to get people's attention. But mutual respect does affect the way you do this. Joshua and his friend are not strangers -- they have a relationship that has been established that allows Joshua to shake his friend to get his attention. If Joshua were to go up to a total stranger and do the same thing, the likelihood that such shaking would lead to the stranger listening carefully is lessened, because the stranger will feel in danger. His focus will be on self-protection, not openness to a new idea. This is why I have called for artists to get to know their audience members, to get to know the people who make up their society, to become a part of their community; so that when they grab their audience's shoulders and shake them, the audience will listen because they have a bond.

If you believe that your audience is comprised of "ignorant redneck backward-ass country fucks," as Joshua characterizes his hometown community (and who am I to argue), and you can't find any point of contact or mutual respect, then the likelihood of communication happening between artist and audience is pretty low. Joshua can shake them all he wants, but all he's likely to get is a fat lip. For some reason, Joshua believes that I have told him "I cannot and should not say something like that." Not true. I have never said you shouldn't say it. What I have said is that an artist cannot communicate with his audience if he sees them in these terms. Continuing, he says: "I can and will. It may be mean and disrespectful, but it's my truth. And I love that I live in a society where I can express my truth freely every day. It's important, that freedom. I may disagree with you, I may say you're full of shit, but I'm not going to ever say you don't have the right to spout whatever you want to spout on your blog." I agree wholeheartedly. And I am alright with you telling me I am full of shit because we have an ongoing relationship that is based on (here are the words again) mutual respect. The same is true of George and me: I think we tell each other we are full of shit more than we applaud each other (which is actually, too bad, but that guilt is for another post), but early on we established a mutual respect for each other as thinkers and human beings. If some other person arrived in my comments box telling me I am full of shit, I probably wouldn't feel all that compelled to respond. Same with Alison and p'tit boo, who are currently whooping my ass. None of us are "friends" -- George isn't going to call me up to celebrate his birthday -- but we have established a relationship, and that relationship allows a level of honesty and directness. I listen, I think, I have even been known to alter my opinions because of George's, Alison's, p'tit boo's, Freeman's, MattJ's and Joshua's comments. But anonymous-reply blogger blasting into my comments box without a name or history? Garbage pail.

If you want to actually affect opinions (and there are some who profess to care only about expression, not about reception), then a relationship is necessary, one based on trust and foundational respect. As human beings, we are part of widening circles of community, from family to friends to world -- we are social beings. Art is a social act that is built on an exchange. I am proposing a simple thing: that the artistic exchange have a foundation of mutual respect, and a deep sense of responsibility.

Response to Alison

Since Alison and p'tit boo are double-teaming me over different issues, I think it might be best for me to address them separately, rather than in one long post. First, let me apologize to Alison for misspelling her name -- and I can't guarantee it won't happen again, much like I sometimes accidently type "Issac" instead of Isaac. It isn't meant as an insult.

So what do I really mean, Alison wants to know -- what specific plays am I talking about? While I tend to resist getting down to those sort of specifics, not because I prefer obscurity but because the focus tends to shift from general ideas to arguing about whether Play X is good or not, I'll take a stab.

Someone asked me about Brecht. Let's compare a Brecht play like, say, Good Woman of Setzuan to a Wedekind play like Spring's Awakening. Now, I like both of these plays, and have taught both in the past -- this is not about quality. To my mind, Brecht's relationship to his audience in Good Woman is much more embracing than Wedekind's. It is clear from reading Brecht's play that he believe's in the audience's ability to confront the problem of goodness in a capitalist society that rewards brutality -- if for no other reason than that the play ends with an appeal to them: Shen Te cries out, "Help!" If he did not believe that those in the audience were capable of hearing and responding to that cry, I don't think he would have had her make it. Wedekind, on the other hand, while also wishing to confront an injustice (the destructiveness of repressive attitudes toward sex), does so in a way that, to me, clearly implies he has no faith that his audience is capable of seeing the problem and changing it. His approach, it seems to me, is pure provocation -- scenes meant to leave the audience shaken, but not inspired to change. Both plays are dynamic, even brilliant, but it seems to me that the relationship with the playwright in both is very different. Brecht's play leads to discussion; Wedekind's, to guilt and anger.

Even playwrights change over the course of a career. It seems to me that Brecht's relationship to the audience in Threepenny Opera is different, more Wedekindian, than his relationship in Good Woman or Galileo.

[It is my fervent hope that my comments box will not be filled with people telling me "I never liked Good Woman as much as I liked Mother Courage blah blah blah." That's a different conversation.]

Allison asks me about Offending the Audience, and whether I think this displays hostility toward the audience. Sure it does -- Handke is pretty upfront about it with his title. That said, I think it is pretty tame stuff -- the buttons being pushed are fairly arcane, and once the first performance occurs, and people are tipped off as to what to expect, it's power to provoke is rather small. My opinion is that Handke would have been better off writing an essay rather than a play. Offending the Audience wouldn't be a top example of a playwright attacking.

What about something like Richard Foreman? I am not a big Foreman fan myself, but I find a couple things he does to be very admirable. First, he writes extensively about his plays, and publishes them in the program to help the audience grasp his difficult material -- that shows respect for the audience. In addition, he seems to have made a real effort to create a community around his shows. I don't get the feeling that he as a playwright feels hostility toward those in his audience, and by not talking down to them while at the same time helping them to reach further than they perhaps thought possible -- that seems like respect to me.

As far as the phrase "you are with the audience, or against it," the Bushite echo is unintentional. [A disclaimer: While I'm certain that the positions that I take probably have you all thinking I am a Bushie, you'd be wrong. I'm probably as radical as Alison and p'tit boo. My leftism tends to be based on moral reasoning about the way people should treat each other, and not materialist reasons.] As I said in another response: "When I use "for or against," I do not use it in the same way Bush does. His means: "You either agree with us, or you're our enemy." I use "for" to mean: "Do you, as an artist, respect us as people who share your humanity? Do you consider us as intelligent as you are? Are sensitive? We may disagree, or I may not have thought of things the way you have -- but do you respect my ability to think and to feel, and do you respect my basic right to disagree?" So many (maybe not you) write, "sure I respect them all," but when the rubber meets the road, the attitude is "these people are superficial, exploitative, and unethical human beings," and that's where I flinch. I disagree with many of the actions and attitudes of the middle class, but I think that communication might happen, and as a result change might happen, if we meet each other in mutual respect.

I know I am talking about something that is hard to pin down: attitude. And ultimately I can only infer Wedekind's attitude from his writing, which is, of course, open to interpretation.

I am concerned for our world, which is becoming more and more polarized. This is the Bushie Effect, which has created a situation where people just stake out a position and shoot at each other. Democracy cannot thrive in such an atmosphere. Neither can theatre.

P.S. I hope, when I have any time, to read some Adorno.

A Thought to Ponder

A friend of mine -- not a theatre person, but someone interested in theatre -- emailed me about an article in American Theatre magazine. She says: " I read the article in American Theater and found this interesting. Sarah Jones says: “I think Bernie Gersten at Lincoln Center Theater coined the term ‘theatrons’: the units of energy that are created in an atmosphere in which actors on stage are communing with the audience. That kind of energy is unmatched in any other medium. On Broadway, I love the idea that 600 of us are going to get together every night and do something that no one has ever done before and no one will ever do again.”
I think this goes a long way towards addressing what my particular beef is with theater. It’s not so much that I want the actors to “pander” to me or make me feel good or only do something that is “heartwarming”. But I want to feel that we are in it together. That they are WITH the audience, not against it. I can look at very hard things with the actors and director if they are looking WITH me. But if they are shoving my face in it, well, no thanks. I can find abuse all over the world. I certainly am not going to pay to get it.

What I Didn't Say

WHAT I DID NOT SAY

• That Allison and p'tit boo are capitalists, not "radicals." Perish the thought. I said that an attitude of "scarcity" underlies a capitalist viewpoint, and that an attitude of emotional scarcity -- that there is only so much understanding and sympathy to go around -- reflects this orientation. Nevertheless, p'tit boo has it exactly right: "how can we not come from a capitalist perspective ? That would be like you telling us we are coming from a human perspective.... Can we help it ?" Exactly. And exactly what I have been saying about the middle class as well, by the way. Of course, George might respond to you as he did to me: you are "refusing responsibility for the world in which [you] move [saying:] "we are victims, therefore our situation is beyond our control." This is a key quality of anyone who describes himself as a victim of forces outside his self." I don't think that is what you are saying, and it certainly is not what I am saying (see below). I think it is hard to argue that human beings are not affected by the environment in which they live -- not controlled by them, but affected by them. You can't be condemned for speaking English if you grew up in an English-speaking environment, but you can go out and learn Chinese if you want to. Which brings me to the next thing I did not say...
• That the middle class should be absolved of responsibility for the world's injustices. Creating straw men and then heroically knocking them down is one of George's favorite tactics lately, and I'm not certain what that is about. In this case, he shifts the focus from what I was writing about (the pain and frustration felt by the middle class, which deserves understanding, even respect) to what he is interested in: judgment and condemnation of unethical actions by members of the middle class. I am not an apologist for unethical behavior, crime, exploitation, and dishonesty by anyone. Those actions must be judged and condemned harshly. But unless you believe that millions and millions of people who make over a certain amount of money (and just what is that amount -- just more than what you make?) are all active criminals -- that the middle class is comprised of variations on the image of a "mid-level New York corporate lawyer who is finding a way around an FDA restriction for his drug-company client" (another Hunka straw man), this argument doesn't hold water. The fact is that most middle class people are working schlubs who push paper 40 hours a week, not Snidely Whiplashes exploiting the poor and the sick. They also run non-profits, teach young people, counsel the poor, lead churches, heal the sick, and run restaurants. They are being lumped together. I also did not say:
• That the theatre should be used as "a hankie for the well-intentioned tears of the rich." In fact, I said nothing about how plays should be written or performed, what they should be about, or anything about production at all. I was discussing the attitude of hostility and disdain toward the middle-class as human beings. This is about more than artists, this is about the world as a whole. The tendency to dehumanize groups of people in order to feel better about attacking them currently permeates every corner of the globe. The terrorists do it so they can blow themselves up killing innocent people, and the anti-terrorists do it so they can fire missiles into cities and bulldoze homes; the anarchists do it so they can smash windows and burn cars, the concervatives do it so they can exploit foreign workers and ruin the environment; the rich do it so they can feel good about their obscene incomes, the poor do it so they can feel good about robbing their neighbors; the white do it, the black do it; men do it, and women do it. If there was a global religion, it could be based on the creation and dehumanization of Others. It isn't any prettier when it is artists dehumanizing the middle class. We justify it on the basis on reciprocity: I did it to them, because they did it to me. p'tit boo denies hating and disrespecting anyone"purposely," but then says "And even if I did, well I am being disrespected and disregarded on a daily basis silently and passive agressively through the sexism," which I guess makes it alright. Goose-gander. There's another variation that leads to the same result. Allison writes, "Yes, of course all people, on an individual level, ought to be treated with respect for who they are, not whom they represent." [ital mine] But once there is more than one, apparently they are fair game for dehumanization and demonization. Or is there some point at which we reach critical mass for demonization? Under ten? Under 100 -- say, the capacity of an Off-Off Broadway theatre? Once it's Off-Broadway theatre, feel free to bash away? I don't understand how you can respect people one at a time, but disrespect them in groups. Seems hypocritical to me. Seems like it leads to comments like, "Some of my best friends are black" while simultaneously talking about "them damn niggers." And the final thing I did not say:
• That all pain is equal, that all victims are equally damaged. Obviously. In fact, I said this explicity, even giving it its own paragraph for emphasis: "I am not pleading for moral equivalence: the pain of the middle class is not the moral equivalent of the pain of the oppressed." But we are back to the first point: understanding and sympathy are not scarce resources -- they can be produced at will. p'tit boo agrees: "I don't believe there aren't resources to go around or that the pain of one person can be compared or takes away from the pain of another person." George also agrees: "Nowhere do [Allison and p'tit boo] suggest that the pain of individuals, whoever they are, of whatever class, is unworthy of assuagement." [Again, note the reference to "individuals."] But then there is this from Allison: "I wasn't saying that one should not feel empathy for the dilemmas of young people: I was saying that it is somewhat obscene, in this world where there are people who are unambiguously suffering, and especially when much of that suffering is caused by the economic structures that create our own privilege, to posit these privileged kids as "victims." Are we arguing about a word? Victim means: "One who is harmed by or made to suffer from an act, circumstance, agency, or condition." Not good enough? Pick another. They have been programmed, tested, categorized, and controlled. They have been tested in 8th grade and "tracked" for college, college tech, or labor -- in 8th grade!!! So pick your word. What would you call them? Privileged? And let's examine the word "obscene"? It is "obscene" to extend your sympathy widely? You'll have to explain how MORE understanding is better than LESS. Unless you think it runs out, and then we're back to the beginning.

Why Protect the Middle Class

Isaac asks a wonderful series of questions (getting to be a regular occurrence) that is prompting me to elaborate on my philosophy (which is one of the main reasons I decided to blog, by the way -- each challenge or even each misunderstanding makes me adjust and fine tune my ideas). So here is what he wrote in my comments box:

"Why for the love of god do you think the middle class needs protection? Why do you feel a need to stick up for us? We run the fucking world. We own it. Especially boomer generation middle class. The world exists to not only indulge their every whim and desire, but to tell them that they are entitled to that indulgence.I just don't get it. I don't understand why we should make ourselves feel good about this incredible waste of power and priviledge currently going on in the world. We have a criminally negligent society, and that criminal negligence extends to people's taste in art (they want art that makes them feel good about themselves, which is not always true in all cultures throughout time and can hardly be calleda particularly high purpose for art) and I don't understand the point in not pointing that out for fear that it'll make someone feel bad. Or offend them."

The short answer (which will be followed by the long answer) is this: because middle class "deadness" or "complacency" is the symptom, not the disease, and by attacking the middle class for displaying these symptoms, we are attacking the victims instead of the disease. Let me elaborate.

What is the disease? Late capitalism combined with scientific materialism. Scientific materialism, because its proponents have de-spiritualized the world, eliminating all sense of mystery, all connection between humanity and nature, leading to a deep sense of being cut off from anything that might imply meaning, purpose, or hope in the world; late capitalism, because it tells us that the hole in our hearts can be filled with expensive "stuff": bigger cars, bigger TVs, etc. These things must be paid for with money earned by spending more and more hours at work, and fewer and fewer hours with family, friends, or even alone reflecting. Also, Late Capitalism, through its mass media, tells us that the status quo cannot be changed.

The middle class are as much victims of this overpowering ideology as every other group in the world. Let me tell you a story. I sometimes teach a course on the Hero's Journey in Literature, Film, and Drama to incoming freshmen Honors students. These kids almost always are from upper-middle-class households in the suburbs. These kids tell me that, from the time they were in late elementary school, they are being groomed for college and a "good career." They are told to participate in extra-curricular activities not because they are interested, but because it will "look good on their resume" when they apply to college. They take classes not because the subjects interest them, but because the classes will look good on their college apps. When they finally head to college, they are pressured to major in something that will lead to a "good job," so that they don't "waste" their superior intellects. By the time they get to me, and I start talking about their lives as a hero's journey, and ask them what sorts of things really excite them, they stare at me, open-mouthed: they have been told what to do so long that they have never really asked themselves what they love, what makes them happy, what excites them.

These kids will do well in college, because that is what they have been trained to do. They will complete their education and get a good job that will allow them to live the life that their parents aspire to -- a comfortable life in the suburbs. But at night, they will lie in bed asking themselves, "Is that all there is?" And they will feel the hole in their hearts, and they will secretly dream of making a contribution to something larger than themselves, but they have been taught to be afraid -- to choose security over all things. As Lerner says, "They often turn to demands of more money as a compensation for a life that otherwise feels frustrating and empty." If they ever had any artistic leanings, they may become season subscribers to MTC or some other theatre, and they will arrive in their SUVs and eat in a nice restaurant before heading to the theatre. And you will all scorn them.

These people are victims whose souls have been oppressed by the Expectations of Late Capitalism. They have been locked up in spiritual prisons as strong and oppressive as the actual prisons that I teach in every Tuesday night. They are in pain, and they cover that pain up with what seems to be superficial laughter, but is actually a defense against despair. These people don't need to be attacked, they need to be encouraged to break out of their prison and follow their hearts. They need don't need to be told they are evil, but rather shown that it is possible to live without fear and to join something bigger than themselves. They need to be shown that there is fulfillment outside of "stuff." They have forgotten where their soul is.

So I am not saying that we should confirm them in their current way of life -- that would just add another padlock to the prison door. They might be shown, as Chekhov does, how tedious and boring their lives are as a starting point, but in such a way that a door is opened, not slammed shut. They need to be shown another life, one of imagination, of beauty, of risk, of contribution, perhaps of pain, but dignified pain, noble pain, pain with a purpose.

Encouraged thus, they might see that the "power and privilege" that they have can actually be used in a way that would contribute to the world, and fill the hole in their hearts at the same time. That it is an opportunity to fulfill themselves. They own everything, as Isaac says -- they can change things.

Many of them have been betrayed by the people they should have been able to trust: parents, teachers, friends, and they have believed what they shouldn't have: the mass media. And that betrayal is painful and damaging, and deserves understanding, if not sympathy. I think art should recognize this wound, rather than judge the behavior that results from it. Don't reinforce the old message, but create a new one. Do surgery to repair the wound, don't sneer at the bleeding.

Demonizing the Middle Class

It's been a busy couple of days, but when I finally find time to visit the blogosphere, I find George over at "Superfluities" bashing the middle-class again as a means of defending David Cote's review of Rabbit Hole by David Lindsey-Abaire. While I find myself, for once, on George's side as far as a reviewer's perogative to address not only the specifics of the production in front of him, but also the ideas and ramification of the play and production, I object to George's sneering at the middle-class in order to do it. He writes:

Ultimately, Mr. Cote's target, and he may not himself realize it (though I just suspect that he does), is the upper-middle-class suburban or suburban-minded community that the MTC attracts as its subscriber base, as its core audience, as the source of much of its private funding, and this is indeed a class question rather than a race or an age question. A complacent section of society, complacently feeling that art is doing its job when the audience "start[s] believing that the production in front of [it] is actually relevant, that [the play] is fiercely attacking [its] political, economic and moral assumptions."

Such an art, such plays, do no such thing: instead, they congratulate the audience on its perception of itself as open-minded, confirming that the great passions and pains of life, hemmed and hawed over for two hours in the confines of the Biltmore Theatre, are best and safely contemplated as a form of genial entertainment. That this theater is an economically and socially elite entertainment only serves as a further form of self-congratulation: I applaud Cynthia Nixon's portrayal of sadness, therefore I am compassionate and thoughtful, unlike those other yobbos at home watching American Idol. It is a closed round of self-approbation, this sort of theater. Its audience, contrary to its own belief, is not open-minded. Open-mindedness is not a characteristic of the spiritually but conceitedly dead.

The results of this complacency can be seen in the culture all around us, in our politics, in our schools, in our personal lives. In an odd way, this is no longer a culture of dynamic self-invention but deadly self-completion, exchanging the motion of the spirit for the security of the body and the bank account. We become complacent in our lives and bodies, feeling that we know it all and that, having achieved material and personal goals, we need no longer to change. More points for us; we are winning the game. We have, bizarrely, proved on the individual level that we are just as capable of internalizing and neutralizing rebellions, rebellions against our own limitations and the strictures of conformity, as the modern democratic society. We have set the system up, we have constructed a self that we can pay for with our jobs: all we need do is wait, then, until we pass on, expressing our discomforts to our therapists and watching them onstage, of no importance except as a bump on a relatively smooth road to the grave.

George's characterization drove me to the writing of another George, this one with the surname Orwell. In his essay entitled "Notes on Nationalism," Orwell writes: "By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’." Class feelings, which Orwell cites as an example of "transferred nationalism," exists "among upper-class and middle-class intellectuals, only in the transposed form—i.e. as a belief in the superiority of the proletariat. Here again, inside the intelligentsia, the pressure of public opinion is overwhelming. Nationalistic loyalty towards the proletariat, and most vicious theoretical hatred of the bourgeoisie, can and often do co-exist with ordinary snobbishness in everyday life." I don't know if George promotes the proletariat -- he may think that only the intelligentsia is worth a damn, when all is said and done -- but I think the rest of the quotation applies. In a footnote, Orwell continues: "Nations, and even vaguer entities such as Catholic Church or the proleteriat, are commonly thought of as individuals and often referred to as ‘she’. Patently absurd remarks such as ‘Germany is naturally treacherous’ are to be found in any newspaper one opens and reckless generalization about national character (‘The Spaniard is a natural aristocrat’ or ‘Every Englishman is a hypocrite’) are uttered by almost everyone. Intermittently these generalizations are seen to be unfounded, but the habit of making them persists, and people of professedly international outlook, e.g., Tolstoy or Bernard Shaw, are often guilty of them."

So are we all, sometimes, and we need to be called on it when we do it. You can't talk about ideas without generalizing to some extent. But flat stereotypes used as straw men in an argument does a disservice not noly to those who are being stereotypes, but also to one's own ideas. Here's a rule of thumb I go by: if you substitute "African-American" or "Jewish" for the the name of whatever group you are bashing, and it is offensive, then you need to rethink. This is why I try to avoid, for instance, talking about Republicans as a group -- I'd rather deal with specific ideas. Creating an Other of any kind, in my opinion, is rarely a good idea.

As far as the middle class is concerned, in The Politics of Meaning, Michael Lerner writes about a sociological study he participated in San Francisco “to better understand the psychodynamics of middle-income working people." He wrote:

"What we learned from the thousands of people who participated in these groups challenged many of the beliefs that prevailed among us, and, more generally, in the liberal culture from which we researchers had come. We had thought of ourselves as psychologically sophisticated when we started this work, but we quickly learned that our assumptions about middle-income Americans were mistaken, prejudiced, and elitist. For example, most of us imagined that most Americans were motivated primarily by material self-interest. So we were surprised to discover that these middle Americans often experience more stress from feeling that they are wasting their lives doing meaningless work than from feeling that they are not making enough money. We found middle-income people deeply unhappy because they hunger to serve the common good and contribute to something with their talents and energies, yet find their work gives them little opportunity to do so. They often turn to demands of more money as a compensation for a life that otherwise feels frustrating and empty. In the Left and among many academics it has been almost a rule of reason to believe that what people really care about is their own material well-being, and that believing anything else is just some kind of populist romanticization. But we uncovered a far deeper desire -- the desire to have meaningful work, work that people believe would contribute to some higher purpose than self-advancement." [ital mine]

Perhaps when one feels like bashing the so-called "middle-class," one might instead instead substitute for "middle class" the name of someone one knows and care about who is middle-class -- say, one's parents or in-laws -- and then decide whether the picture being painted is nuanced, fair, and complex.

I think there are better ways to defend ideas than demonizing millions.