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Quote by Paul Fussell

“Guitars (except when played in "classical"—that is, archaic—style) are low [status] by nature, and that is why they were so often employed as tools of intentional class degradation by young people in the 1960s and '70s. The guitar was the perfect instrument for the purpose of signaling these young people's flight from the upper-middle and middle classes, associated as it is with Gypsies, cowhands, and other personnel without inherited or often even earned money and without fixed residence.”

Book:Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

Work

Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

This book delves into the complexities of the American status system, examining how social class shapes opportunities, behaviors, and perceptions. It analyzes the various factors that contribute to social stratification and discusses the implications of class divisions in contemporary American life. more

Author

Paul Fussell

Paul Fussell was an American historian renowned for his profound insights into 20th-century American society and culture. His works explored American military history, consumerism, and the changes in post-war American life. more

“That's one of the reasons why, say, Canada, a very similar country, has a health care system and we don't. In Canada, the unions struggled for health care for the country. In the United States, they struggled for health care for themselves. So if you're an autoworker here in the United States, you had a pretty god health care and pension system. Union workers won health care for themselves in a compact with the corporations. They thought it was a deal. What they couldn't see was that it's a suicide pact. If the corporation decides the compact is over, then it's over. Meanwhile, the rest of the country didn't get health care. So now the United States has a completely dysfunctional health care system, while Canada has one that more or less works. That's a relation of different cultural values and institutional structures in two very similar countries. So yes, the working class did continue to develop and grow here, but with class collaboration, that is, in a compact with the corporations.”

Health Care Class Consciousness

Book:Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire

Source: Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire

“The road to Hell is paved with evildoers, they'd tell us. And the evildoers were those who had bad thoughts. We always wanted to be good. We believed that to be good was to bow one's head, not to protest, not to demand anything, not to get angry. No one had clarified these things for us. On the contrary, we were always being offered a celestial paradise. The reward for being good. To respect one's neighbor was really to respect the landowner. And to respect the landowner was to conform to his whimsey. If there were no beans to eat after working on the plantation, it was because the landowner couldn't manage, the landowner was suffering losses. If there were no hammocks to sleep in, it was because the harvest had not left the landowner enough time to provide them. And there we were without food, waiting for the afternoon or the evening to go home to eat, a whole day without eating; or we'd go to sleep under the pepetos trees in the coffee fields. We used to confuse goodness with resignation.”

Religion Catholic Church El Salvador Class Consciousness Class Conflict

Book:One Day of Life

Source: One Day of Life

“I cannot let things remain as they are, because then I would not be free. If I cease to act because I fear the future, then I create a worse enslavement for myself. That much I know. While my people are not free, I am not free. If the freedom and justice I seek loose destruction upon the earth, then I accept that responsibility, but it seems to me that the real responsibility must be borne by those who keep me from my freedom. I must act!”

Solidarity Class Consciousness

Book:Heart of Aztlan

Source: Heart of Aztlan