Frankly I’m not sure if such people exist in sufficient numbers and have coherent enough interests to be one class or title, but it’d be something to think about!
It just seems like when ppl w real culture theorize about the officer class, we are exactly like working class writers writing about the working class. We are from it, but no longer of it
1. There are members of the class with the employment in that class.
2. There are members of the class who cannot do the employment in that class
3. These second type of members often engage in therization of what makes someone a member of the class, because they know that employment isn't essential.
E.g. There are aristocrats who do not have any of the features being an aristocrat but are members of the aristocratic class.
New Left Review is maybe the only Anglophone publication I can think of that convincingly pulls off the trick of assuming its readership is cultivated but not academically specialized.
I guess because Perry Anderson sets the tone there and his version of Marxism somehow lets him write as if continental "theory" is part of a general humanist culture.
Nov 9, 2023·edited Nov 9, 2023Liked by Gnocchic Apocryphon
I'm glad you made the point to include members of the left and right in this description. I think, because so much of anger toward this "officer class" is coming from conservatives right now, the general public is being taught that the intellectual left = the "officer" or "managerial-elite" class. It reminds me of the most recent alarm sounded in the New York Times about the decline of the humanities in post-secondary education (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/us/liberal-arts-college-degree-humanities.html).
The trend concerns me, not because of some self-serving fear (if anything, I'm from the poor and "aspiring" end of this class, so my stake is limited at best) but because of what the loss of these departments will do to our access to that knowledge. It's important to remember that the politicians and pundits pushing for budget cuts and quantitative results are also part of this class, and that cutting access to this kind of education for people lower on the economic chain protects their positions of power.
Thanks! He's definitely on my list to explore further. I know the gist of his stuff but I've never read him in any depth. This is a theme I'll probably be exploring for a while, so there's always room to add more insights!
Yeah since our officer class is SO boorish and bourgeois and uncultured then what do you call the people who actually have culture?
Frankly I’m not sure if such people exist in sufficient numbers and have coherent enough interests to be one class or title, but it’d be something to think about!
It just seems like when ppl w real culture theorize about the officer class, we are exactly like working class writers writing about the working class. We are from it, but no longer of it
This gets recursive quickly -
1. There are members of the class with the employment in that class.
2. There are members of the class who cannot do the employment in that class
3. These second type of members often engage in therization of what makes someone a member of the class, because they know that employment isn't essential.
E.g. There are aristocrats who do not have any of the features being an aristocrat but are members of the aristocratic class.
New Left Review is maybe the only Anglophone publication I can think of that convincingly pulls off the trick of assuming its readership is cultivated but not academically specialized.
I guess because Perry Anderson sets the tone there and his version of Marxism somehow lets him write as if continental "theory" is part of a general humanist culture.
(I apologize for jumping into your old comments like a weirdo but this post struck a chord with me)
I am unequivocally a part of this class by way, but I am part of it not because I watched mad men, not because i know Hegel.
*because I watched mad men
I'm glad you made the point to include members of the left and right in this description. I think, because so much of anger toward this "officer class" is coming from conservatives right now, the general public is being taught that the intellectual left = the "officer" or "managerial-elite" class. It reminds me of the most recent alarm sounded in the New York Times about the decline of the humanities in post-secondary education (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/us/liberal-arts-college-degree-humanities.html).
The trend concerns me, not because of some self-serving fear (if anything, I'm from the poor and "aspiring" end of this class, so my stake is limited at best) but because of what the loss of these departments will do to our access to that knowledge. It's important to remember that the politicians and pundits pushing for budget cuts and quantitative results are also part of this class, and that cutting access to this kind of education for people lower on the economic chain protects their positions of power.
Seems like adding Gramsci to this analysis might be really fruitful.
(He also uses the military metaphor for civil society.)
Thanks! He's definitely on my list to explore further. I know the gist of his stuff but I've never read him in any depth. This is a theme I'll probably be exploring for a while, so there's always room to add more insights!
https://johnganz.substack.com/p/remembering-gramsci
There is an officer class the even descends to their offspring.