when structure is superstructure.
…class itself is not a thing, it is a happening.
— E.P. Thompson, 1968 Postscript to The Making of the English Working Class (h/t Gabriel Winant)
The United States is a country of sophisticated mongrels, and anyone pretending to be highfalutin is marked as a nostalgic. Phony class is always repulsive, but even the sweet dream of yesteryear is getting harder to evoke as time separates us from our European origins. Historical awareness is a necessary part of education, but contemporary action is quite another. The spirit and body of our work today is on our TV screens and in our vitamin pills.