The Troubling Myths of Opportunity and Mobility in the Democratic Convention

[phantom power]

Just because I don’t want to ignore the two main speeches from last night’s convention, as I feel I did in my initial thoughts on the convention, let me wind back to them. I found them to be mostly similar, and actually, mostly limiting. First Julián Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, spoke of an early life dominated by the sacrifice of a generous mother, winning a Menudo contest to pay off the maternity bill, working hard to provide opportunities for her twin boys. And then, this myth:

My family’s story isn’t special. What’s special is the America that makes our story possible. Ours is a nation like no other, a place where great journeys can be made in a single generation. No matter who you are or where you come from, the path is always forward.

...

That hasn’t been true for a while, I’m sad to say. American social mobility is among the lowest in the industrialized world. We like to tell ourselves these stories about rising from hardscrabble beginnings – indeed, it was the theme of BOTH the Republican and Democratic conventions – but there’s a selection bias involved. The people telling the stories can always reach back as far as they need in their history to find some poorer ancestor whose courage and confidence led to where they are today. The poor ancestors who had just as much courage, just as much confidence, but didn’t get the same breaks, whose progeny didn’t rise above a certain level regardless of their ability? They don’t get talked about because their descendants don’t have the microphone.

Moreover, I’m thoroughly unconvinced that this idea of sacrifice, especially when that sacrifice comes because the wages of increased productivity have been distributed to the corporation rather than the worker for the last 30 years, is virtuous at all. When Ted Strickland last night lauded the factory worker whose life consists of “eat, sleep, Jeep,” it didn’t offer much of a life worth living, in my view. Especially when there is enough prosperity generated in the country that nobody should actually have to drudge away in these lives of quiet desperation.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/09/05/the-troubling-myths-of-opportunity-and-mobility-in-the-democratic-convention/

[woo me with science]

1. The last comments here are particularly interesting.

We are awash in corporate propaganda that teaches sacrifice of one's life, precious time, and family relationships is a sign of virtue and necessary for any good American. These unquestioned mantras of "hard work" as the source of virtue and satisfaction permit the constant lowering of wages, withdrawal of benefits, reduction of vacations, and increases in workload that American workers have endured over the past few decades.

It is time to start questioning the propaganda we are fed every single day and challenging these lies about social mobility in America.

[phantom power]

3. I also kind of liked the "self-selected" observation

Everybody hears or reads the stories about the ones who worked hard, and it paid off. Why? Because they're the ones we point the microphones and cameras at. The fact that for every success story there's 1,000 people it didn't work out for is easier to ignore. Stories about those people are boring and sad, and nobody wants to tell those stories.

But if you start making policies around those 1-in-a-thousand demographics, you're making policies that aren't helping anybody, to a good first approximation.

[DirkGently]

4. Absolutely. I did think, though, that the theme of the night

was that Democrats are (or should be) the ones working to expand and improve mobility. In contrast to Republicans intent on locking in privilege and sanctifying the idea that wealth confers legitimacy.

[Wednesdays]

2. They say that because we're the party of ideals, not cynicism

I agree they're myths, but the myths had a touch of reality between 1933 and 1981.

[haele]

5. Well, there is winning an opportunity to be one of a few, and there is earning it being successful.

Only a few people can win the opportunity to be a president, an Olympic Gold Medal Winner, a congress critter, or create significantly successful businesses that they are in the "top 500" wage earners. And only a few people actually have the drive to do so. While such struggle to meet a goal is laudable, it is a bit like saying "Batman can do it, why can't you?".

Most of us count being successful as working to be able live and grow, to take pride in one's activities and accomplishments, to raise a family in comfort and be able to live to a ripe age in retirement without being a burden and still be able to leave something to one's children or to an endowment. Being wealthy might be nice, but the expectation of being able to just buy an accomplishment or being handed it with no effort rather than to do the accomplishment tends to cheapen the value of living.

Honestly, being happy and able to at least participate in the struggle for opportunities, for accomplishments, in itself is being successful. It's what the majority of people do while in the process of surviving - and it's not exciting, and it's not glamorous, but it's something real and tangible - and that in itself is valuable.

On the average body, there is only one head, even though there are four limbs, heart, lungs, eyes, ears, mouth, blood vessels, nerves, and of course, the stomach and intestinal system - a multitude of secondary and tertiary parts to the body. Even though the brain is "the most important" component, they are all in the body for a reason and the brain cannot thrive or even survive without them. So too, the rich man, the powerful man, the artistic man or the athletic man cannot thrive without all the "little" working men supporting them - and if they do not make an effort to sustain the workforce and keep it healthy, it negatively impacts their own ability to "succeed" and "grow" at their activities.

Haele