On the middle classes and cultural compression.
For the concluding episode of the 2024/25 Reading Club, we discuss C. Wright Mills' White Collar, plus some additional short texts on what mass culture is like today.
credit: Ryan Zickgraf, based on The Wilson Quarterly/Russell Lynes 1949
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- Does Mills' account of the “economic psychology” of the White Collar worker still ring true today?
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What about their "political psychology"?
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What is the state of White Collar trade unionism today?
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Is there no possibility of the middle class leading a political movement?
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Do the distinctions of high- middle- and low-brow still make sense today, in our era of levelling-down and slop?
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Should we defend democracy in the economy and elitism in culture?
Readings:
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White Collar: The American Middle Classes, C. Wright Mills, 1951 (esp final two chapters)
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Highbrow, Middlebrow, Lowbrow, Russell Lynes, Wilson Quarterly, 1976 reprint of 1949 article (pdf attached)
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Post-Mass Culture, Dylan Riley, Sidecar
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Unionizing the “Cultural Apparatus”, Nelson Lichtenstein, Jacobin
