There is a competitive animosity, inescapably classed, that is shot through discourse around “slop” and cultural degradation. Harder, still, is the fact that we are obviously enduring a kind of widespread social degradation, concurrent with, and certainly not unrelated to, a rise in global fascism. I only hope at some point that people realize that capitalism itself frames all of these matters of culture and aesthetics as competitive activities, and that both the anti-intellectual and “pretentious” aesthete are responding to one another through the prism of competitive, classed relations. I know well from being poor that relationships with aesthetics or education feel classed. They become classed, certainly. Society frames these aspects of life to you when you’re poor in such a way where you’ll want to refuse their content based purely on how it seems to be a weapon used against you.

When the wealthier person has access to art, education, or any culturally refined activity, it feels like it was a weapon designed for them. Is this the truth? Well, no, but the poor person isn’t mistaken about how society is structured, either. At that moment, it may be a functional truth that the wealthier person’s relation has become like a weapon, even if they themselves doesn’t realize they are bloodying the other person with it. They were given the space to take up an interest, where the poorer person had that space completely denied. This is a fact that is deeply felt by the disadvantaged person, and it is a hard reality to parse when confronted with it. You do not have the time or space to think through life, just as it continually assaults you with the fact of uneven and unfair social development. A sense of guilt is embedded in your psyche before you ever know what to do with such feelings. You are confronted by an environment that impresses guilt upon you for failure, and this environment ventriloquizes its inhabitants to play the role of temporary oppressors, strictly contained in movements of appearance on the surface of social relations.

For the poor, or even lower-middle working-class, it is not as easy as just deciding you want to take up some edifying activity. Often, you have not grown up in a space that can inculcate of respect for such activities. Poor people grow up in chaotic environments that aren’t conducive to sustained extracurricular activity, and are more physically and mentally strained in their schooling. Of course, we can’t say this is absolute, that the poor never develop an appreciation for the arts or that they never excell in school. In my poor family, all three siblings developed differently from one another in this regard. Not every poor person I grew up with refused education or artistic appreciation. More often than not, more than any kind of supposed moral failing, those around me were being failed by society, and were struggling to stay afloat. We all had various resentments, and there were illusions at play, but no resentment was mistaken about how society was abusing us. Society told us we had obligation, but made it clear that it had little obligation to us. Even with welfare, it did not come without society stressing that we were a burden. No one had any ease of conscience about their poverty. Eventually, the kind of welfare that I had as a child was gutted completely. Society reneged on even that small of an obligation. Mostly, poor people did not raise any objections. Nobody was ever proud to utilize such services. Most felt ashamed.

While the wealthier person engaging in whatever higher activity may not be doing so to signal status, the fact is they have been afforded a much different life up to that point to enable them a certain indulgence or pursuit. That is the reality that is highlighted to the poorer person, that drives resentment, and exacerbates a sense of pride. They will be led to say to the wealthier person, “I can be happy while refusing your terms. I reject everything that makes you happy.” I get nervous about the way culture now appears to people. The wealthier forefront their lack of forgiveness to those who have failed a supposed moral duty to have good taste, and those opposite want to gouge out the eyes of the snobs who thumb their nose, and so double down.

We need to take such matters out of moralistic language about people failing their duties to be educated. As if anyone on the left should ever frame education as a matter of individual responsibility in an environment that has not established the infrastructure to make such a thing possible. Any demand to self-educate should be less an ultimatum towards the poor, and more something paired with a willingness to help establish an environment conducive to such pursuits. The whole problem to begin with is that these problems around education appear as individualized failure, while the histories behind such discrepancies are invisibilized.

Oddly enough, this is why I try so hard to re-frame political and critical theory. These exact social dynamics are explored in the work of the Frankfurt School. I think psychoanalysis can also help people get a handle on what the environment does to them. Dialectics, Marxism, etc, are tools that can help you move past surface appearance. It is actually more the poor who need these tools. I know what their obstacles are, and I am always trying to find a way to move people past the resentments that place such pursuits out of reach. I just wish people understood the landmine that is social resentment. There is so much enjoyment people get from doubling down and calling people stupid, and so much enjoyment in reusing the demand of the classes above you, but both sides are being played by class society and capitalism. These are matters that can be taken out of individualized, competitive terms, and addressed as social tools that can bridge the space between us. Not to make society perfectly harmonious, but to render us as people, who, at the very least, can share basic social desires.