Life Styles
According to Max Weber, in his essay “Class Status, and Power”, capital, income and wealth are by themselves not sufficient indices for specifying life styles. It may assume a variety of life styles depending upon, within the same income groups, the character of consumption of choices. In dealing with “class” and its life style, one should be concerned with the distributive behavior of an individual and families in the same economic system.
Harold Finestone, in his seminal essay, “Casts, Kicks and Color”, besides the Cat culture of the Negro, had pointed out the spuriousness and authenticity of life styles and class cultures. The self-consciously created artificial style of life through its presence would suggest a lack of inevitability in the living patterns that classes adapt. As the individual passes through various stages of class experience, it would not present any easy succession of life patterns which the individual can accept as “natural” or “authentic”. Each stage in the class history of the individual presents a problem of learning new class patterns. The greater the individual mobility, the greater is the amount of flexibility; learning becomes necessary for each stage. The greater the mobility, the greater will be the consciousness of adopting new patterns of conduct demanded by each change in status. Instances of rapid mobility are thus psychological equivalents of the predominant Negro experiences in American Society. In both instances, life styles are artificial and discarded at will. It can be acted out only with some degree of self-irony and self-satire. This expresses some discomfort which the individual experiences when behaving in an unnatural way or in an ordinary way.
Authenticity in life proceeds from an environment in which one is placed. The individual without any reflection thinks it to be the destiny of his life. While there is abundant literature on the artificial nature of Negro life styles and on the adaptive capabilities of mobility minded whites, the same kind of reporting is not available for the White Middle, Upper Middle and Ipper Class life styles. The present American styles of life are predominantly self-conscious creations, which permeate almost all aspects of American life with a few exceptions. Lacking sanctions, these patterns are not lived with the comfort that comes from being taken for granted, but are rather known to be artificial. The major life styles of the 19th century are defunct now and have been replaced by new sets of living patterns, unique to American History.
Harold Finestone, in his seminal essay, “Casts, Kicks and Color”, besides the Cat culture of the Negro, had pointed out the spuriousness and authenticity of life styles and class cultures. The self-consciously created artificial style of life through its presence would suggest a lack of inevitability in the living patterns that classes adapt. As the individual passes through various stages of class experience, it would not present any easy succession of life patterns which the individual can accept as “natural” or “authentic”. Each stage in the class history of the individual presents a problem of learning new class patterns. The greater the individual mobility, the greater is the amount of flexibility; learning becomes necessary for each stage. The greater the mobility, the greater will be the consciousness of adopting new patterns of conduct demanded by each change in status. Instances of rapid mobility are thus psychological equivalents of the predominant Negro experiences in American Society. In both instances, life styles are artificial and discarded at will. It can be acted out only with some degree of self-irony and self-satire. This expresses some discomfort which the individual experiences when behaving in an unnatural way or in an ordinary way.
Authenticity in life proceeds from an environment in which one is placed. The individual without any reflection thinks it to be the destiny of his life. While there is abundant literature on the artificial nature of Negro life styles and on the adaptive capabilities of mobility minded whites, the same kind of reporting is not available for the White Middle, Upper Middle and Ipper Class life styles. The present American styles of life are predominantly self-conscious creations, which permeate almost all aspects of American life with a few exceptions. Lacking sanctions, these patterns are not lived with the comfort that comes from being taken for granted, but are rather known to be artificial. The major life styles of the 19th century are defunct now and have been replaced by new sets of living patterns, unique to American History.
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