Tag Archives: American culture

An attempt to define the American middle class

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Determining who exactly is middle-class in America can be difficult as many Americans, of all income ranges, consider themselves to be middle-class. In the middle of a review of the tough American economy, one columnist provides an interesting definition of the middle-class:

So how come the middle class continues to struggle? To answer that question, we need first figure out what this nebulous thing called the middle class is. Let’s leave aside the fine sociological distinctions about white collars and blue collars and pink collars, and say this: The American middle class is vast middle tier of people who work to live, and who strive to work a little harder to get a little more in life. Middle class people may save, but they don’t accumulate enough wealth to live off. Almost every buck they get, they spend.

This is why we need these “fine sociological distinctions” as this definition offers little to go on. Here is what this might mean:

1. Middle-class Americans have jobs mainly for income so they can support their family and do what they want outside of work.

2. Middle-class Americans are always striving for a little bit more.

3. Middle-class Americans spend most of their income and don’t accumulate enough wealth to stop working.

“Typical” middle-class values are often said to be hard work, striving to own a home, and helping one’s children get ahead. Regarding the three definitions in this article, what about the shift toward seeing one’s job as a vocation or a career? What about a return to saving in recent years? Spending may be a key feature, particularly to chase the American Dream, but is the spending simply essential to the economy or is it considered consumerism? These three definitions above might fit some Americans but I’m not sure they fit most in the middle.

On the whole, this seems like an incomplete and/or sloppy definition. Defining the middle-class by income level, job status and education level, and even self reporting makes more sense.

Quick Review: American Grace

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I recently wrote about a small section of American Grace but I have had a chance to complete the full book. Here are my thoughts about this broad-ranging book about religion in America:

1. On one hand, I like the broad overview. There is a lot of data and analysis here about American religion. If someone had to pick up one book about the topic, this wouldn’t be a bad one to choose. I also liked some of the historical insights, including the idea that what we see now in American religion is a fallout of action in the 1960s and two counteractions that followed.

2. On the other hand, I’m not sure this book provides much new information. There is a lot of research contained in this book but much of it is already out there. The authors try to produce new insights from their own survey but I this is an issue in itself: after reading the full book, it was somewhat unclear why the authors undertook two waves of the Faith Matters Survey. The questions led to some new insights (like feelings toward the construction of a large religious building nearby) but much of it seemed duplicated and the short period between the waves didn’t help.

3. There is a lot of talk about data analysis and interpretation in this book. While it is aimed for a more general audience, the authors are careful in their explanations. For example, they are careful to explain what exactly a correlation means, it indicates a relationship between variables but causation is unclear, over and over again. Elsewhere, the authors explain exactly why they asked the questions they did and discuss the quality of this data. Some of these little descriptions would be useful in basic statistics or research classes. On the whole, they do a nice job in explaining how they interpret the data though I wonder how this might play with a general public that might just want the takeaway points. Perhaps this is why one reviewer thought this text was so readable!

4. Perhaps as a counterpoint to the discussions of data, the book includes a number of vignettes regarding religious congregations. These could be quite lengthy and I’m not sure that they added much to the book. They don’t pack the same punch as the representative characters of a book like Habits of the Heart and sometimes seem like filler.

5. The book ends with the conclusion that Americans can be both religiously diverse and devoted because of the many relationships between people of different faiths and denominations. On the whole, the authors suggest most people are in the middle regarding religion, not too confident in the idea that their religion is the only way but unwilling to say that having no religion is the way to go. I would like to have read more about how this plays out within religious congregations: how do religious leaders then talk doctrine or has everyone simply shifted to a more accomodating approach? Additionally, why doesn’t this lead down the path of secularization? From a societal perspective, religious pluralism may be desirable but is it also desirable for smaller groups?

On the whole, this book is a good place to start if one is looking for an overview of American religion. But, if one is looking for more detailed research and discussion regarding a particular topic, one would be better served going to those conducting research within these specific areas.

Comparing the treatment of prisoners in Norway and the US

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If I was teaching Intro to Sociology right now, the stories about Norway’s treatment of prisoners presents a fascinating contrast with the United States:

Norway “takes the mantra of rehabilitation to an extreme,” Foreign Policy’s Robert Zeliger explains. “The Norwegian prison system takes seriously the philosophy that inmates should be treated as humanely as possible and that jail sentences should be seen less as punishment than as an opportunity to reintegrate troubled people back into society.”

Norwegians tend to see “acts of extreme violence … as aberrant events, not symptoms of national decay,” Time Magazine’s William Lee Adams reported last year. Norwegian prison guards undergo two years of training, “don’t carry guns … and call prisoners by their first names and play sports and eat meals with them,” Adams reported.

That approach — and its underlying premise that people who commit crimes are troubled who should be given a second chance and prepared to live again amongst society — can perhaps be credited with Norway’s extremely low prison-recidivism rate—only about 20 percent of those imprisoned in Norway commit a repeat crime that sends them back to prison. Recidivism figures in the United States and the United Kingdom, by contrast, are much higher– 50 to 60 percent, Time reported.

Indeed, Norway, a country of 5 million people, only has about 3,300 prison inmates, according to Time. That gives Norway a ratio of prison inmates to the country’s overall population roughly ten times lower than that of the United States.

Since the figures in this story suggest Norway’s system works (fewer prisoners return to prison, saving money down the road and improving society), why doesn’t the United States pursue similar policies? Here are a few possible reasons:

1. The United States is not as innocent. Perhaps this could be tied to the violent American culture and history.

2. The United States has a lot more people than Norway. It could be more difficult to maintain order with more than 300 million people than just under 5 million people.

3. The United States has a wider gap, wealth and status, between different groups, leading to more violence and more repression.

4. The United States is more individualistic and therefore puts more emphasis on punishment rather than restoring someone back to society.

Put together, these reasons suggest a significantly different cultural outlook between these two nations: one wants to lock up prisoners and throw away the key while the other has only a 21-year maximum sentence and wants to restore prisoners to society. Such cultural perspectives are not easy to change. Think of how US politicians are punished by pundits and voters if they happen to release a prisoner who then goes on commit futher crimes. But perhaps the pragmatic nature of budget deficits might push some more US groups to advocate for rehabilitation over retribution?

(For a more detailed description of a low-security Norwegian prison, read this.)

Stereotypes of apartment renters

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Americans who are homeowners, whether they own single-family homes, condos, and townhomes, are typically regarded as respectable, hard-working, and upstanding citizens who have sought after the American Dream. But there are different opinions regarding those who rent apartments. Here is an example from Manteca, California:

You rarely see landlords for single family homes that stringent and quite frankly, not all homeowners could pass such muster.

That is why it is a tad absurd that a number of homeowners when confronted with news that someone is proposing a $30 million apartment complex in their neighborhood believe it will be allowed to be occupied by rowdy, inconsiderate slobs, who will park cars all over the adjoining neighborhood and pursue a lifestyle that will drive home prices down.

If you want to see such behavior, there are plenty examples in Manteca neighborhoods – including those built since 2000.

No one is debating that there aren’t examples of somewhat trashy older apartment complexes that let everything go to hell. In Manteca, though, they are fairly rare due to the aggressive stance the city has taken. And in fairness to many owners of smaller and older apartment buildings in town where rents definitely are more affordable they are doing a good job of keeping their complexes in shape and devoid of problem tenants.

To go after single family homes whose tenants create such problems is much more difficult as often a landlord will have only one or two homes and live out of the area.

It is also true that the much more stringent construction and development standards of today make it next to impossible for rents for new complexes to be relatively low. That is why Paseo Apartments starts out at $975 a month for a one bedroom and one bathroom apartment.

In my research on suburban development, I found a number of examples where suburbanites were opposed to apartments because of the type of people who live in apartments. One complaint was about the transient nature of apartment living. The assumption was that single-family homeowners are more rooted in a community while apartment dwellers move more frequently and care less about individual municipalities. Having too many apartments would mean that a greater proportion of residents wouldn’t really care about the community. This was commonly tied to the disruption of a community’s single-family home character

But a second complaint included thoughts about low-income residents and seemed tied at times to race and ethnicity. Since these suburbs were heavily white, apartments were seen as places where less wealthy and non-white residents could live. Such residents might engage in more uncouth behavior, sullying the reputation of idyllic, white suburbs. Apartment complexes are viewed as crime magnets because lower-income, non-white residents are assumed to be more prone to crime.

It sounds like both issues might be taking place in Manteca: even nicer apartment complexes with high rents and amenities are not granted the moral equivalency of a nice single-family home neighborhood. Additionally, the author tries to point out that there is anti-social behavior in single-family homes as well as apartment complexes but this isn’t often recognized.

With all of the talk about more multi-family housing construction, these issues will need to be overcome in many communities.

(Side note: a third complaint about apartments I found is the argument that apartments don’t generate enough tax revenue for the services that will be required. This commonly is tied to school funding as apartments, depending on their price and size, might attract more families who will overburden the schools. So senior apartments might be more likely to be approved than three or four bedroom apartments that will likely draw families to the community.)

The financial benefits of not living in sprawl

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Richard Florida argues “The neighborhood you live in can have a huge effect on your ability to spend or save, do the kind of things you really want to, and navigate the ongoing economic crisis.” Cars are indicted here as they require large sums of money to maintain and operate.

Based on this data, Florida argues that we need to rethink what we promote:

There remain some pundits and politicians who continue to believe that we need to get housing back to its former levels. But that won’t work this time. The old Fordist housing-auto-energy economic model which helped bring on the crisis in the first place has reached its sell-by date. Our continued commitment to (and massive subsidizing of) it will only further erode the financial situation of middle-class and working families and hold back the recovery.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the typical tools of monetary and fiscal policy are proving insufficient to sustain the recovery. Our future prosperity requires that we to begin to shift precious resources from houses, cars and energy toward investments in new skills, technologies, and industries that can generate higher paying jobs and improve overall living standards.  And that in turn requires a new geography built around denser (more innovative and productive), more walkable, transit-oriented (more efficient) communities.

If American families and policy-makers don’t see being green or sustainable as reason enough to change the way we live, perhaps seeing the very tangible financial rewards that accrue to those who do will help them change their minds. As the poet wrote, “You must change your life.” The numbers speak for themselves.

In addition to being more green, Florida is making the pragmatic argument that denser, more walkable communities actually help improve the financial situations of residents.

This may be compelling evidence – Americans can be persuaded by financial incentives – but I still think it is an uphill climb against an American culture that prize cars, driving, and the freedom that it represents. Changing this mindset is difficult even with at least 38 years of evidence that gasoline will not always be cheap or plentiful, evidence that suggests long commutes harm relationships, and research showing people aren’t necessarily happy in the suburbs. People are willing to trade a lot for the vision of the dream of the single-family home in the suburbs.

What would help is an alternative, positive vision that would celebrate denser neighborhoods and more urban life. Rather than simply attack the suburbs, sprawl, and McMansions, how about images of more urban life that can combine the best of both city and suburban life? The narratives regarding denser lives tend to be about chaos and a lack of control – think of the recent stories of “flash mobs” and “wilding” in Chicago. This could change with younger generations as they grow up with different aspirations and values. As Florida has argued, younger people are attracted by more exciting urban areas and they have the potential to change social patterns as well as promote new types of policies. But this vision needs to include family life, not just 20-something or single life, in denser areas.

The value of inheritances

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Megan McArdle talks through issues of inheritance in the United States:

I don’t see by what right people should be allowed to order living people how to dispose of their stuff after they’re beyond caring.  I think people should be allowed to make generous gifts while they’re still alive, without gift tax. (Though I think the recipients of those gifts should have to pay income tax on it; I don’t understand why we’d want to tax income people get by working, but not income people get by being born.  Being born is about the most tax-inelastic thing you can think of.)  But once people are dead, then I can make a pretty compelling case that in a modern economy where extended families are not a major economic unit, there’s little justice case for inheritance…

Inheritance not only hands people valuable income in return for something we don’t really want to further reward–being born lucky–but also, in doing so, it entrenches the least attractive feature of our economy: the fact that people who are born to affluent parents are much more likely to themselves be affluent than children born to the less well-heeled.  Lack of economic mobility is generally regarded as a bad thing that we should combat.
Yet so many of our institutions, from the geographic organization of our schools, to the financial distribution of our inheritances, reinforce it.  Some of those things are not going away (we should not, and will not, order affluent people to move into poor school districts, or shut down research universities for conferring unfair advantages on the mostly affluent students who have the ability to gain admission).  But what are the social benefits that inheritance conveys to offset its drawbacks?  I think they have to be pretty large to justify letting dead people order us to perpetuate the economic status quo.

So I can make a moral case for a 100% estate tax.

McArdle then goes on to talk through specific situations where inheritances might make sense and suggests in the end that she is wary of putting this into practice because it is unclear how it would turn out.

I think her earlier points are of more interest as Americans talk about meritocracy but inheritances seem to go against this ideal. From the beginning, Americans have had the populist idea that class doesn’t matter in the same way that it did in England. We argue that there should be mobility between classes (presumably this also means people can go down), not more rigid classes where money is passed down for decades. But we have a less flexible system than we imagine – some people can move up but the numbers are relatively low. This is exacerbated when we look at disparities in wealth between different groups: wealth is not then just about passing along hard-earned benefits to future generations but rather about reinforcing the large existing wealth inequalities that hamper American society.

I would be interested in seeing more data regarding what Americans mean when they say they want their children to have a better life: does this come from actions during their lifetime, like by promoting education or particular values like hard work, or from an inheritance that is passed along in a will?

James Q. Wilson on the difficulties of studying culture

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In a long opinion piece looking at possible explanations for the reduction in crime in America, James Q. Wilson concludes by suggesting that cultural explanations are difficult to test and develop:

At the deepest level, many of these shifts, taken together, suggest that crime in the United States is falling—even through the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression—because of a big improvement in the culture. The cultural argument may strike some as vague, but writers have relied on it in the past to explain both the Great Depression’s fall in crime and the explosion of crime during the sixties. In the first period, on this view, people took self-control seriously; in the second, self-expression—at society’s cost—became more prevalent. It is a plausible case.

Culture creates a problem for social scientists like me, however. We do not know how to study it in a way that produces hard numbers and testable theories. Culture is the realm of novelists and biographers, not of data-driven social scientists. But we can take some comfort, perhaps, in reflecting that identifying the likely causes of the crime decline is even more important than precisely measuring it.

I find it a little strange that a social scientist wants to leave culture to the humanities (“novelists and biographers”). This sounds like a traditional social science perspective: culture is a slippery concept that is difficult to quantify and make generalizations about. I can imagine this viewpoint from quantitatively minded social scientists who would ask, “where it the data?”

But there is a lot of good research regarding culture that utilizes data. Some of this data is fuzzier qualitative data that involves ethnographies and long interviews and observations. But other data regarding culture comes from more traditional data sources such as large surveys. And if you put together a lot of these data-driven studies, qualitative and quantitative, I think you could put together some hypotheses and ideas regarding American culture and crime. Perhaps all of this data can’t fit into a regression or this isn’t the way that crime is traditionally studied but that doesn’t mean we have to simply abandon cultural explanations and studies.

The similarities between selling kitchen appliances in the 1950s and today

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Selling the kitchen has been a key component of the sales pitch for homes for decades. Adweek takes a look at how the sales pitch from the 1950s is similar to today’s pitch:

It goes like this: If you want to make that new fridge and stove desirable, advertise it as part of a kitchen that’s desirable. So long as homeowners blush with shame over their cracked linoleum and dated cabinetry, showing them the meal-prep space of their dreams is likely to spur them into buying the new appliances that go with it. Want proof? Take a look at both of the appliance advertisements below.

“History repeats itself because these ads are really quite similar,” observes graphic designer Ken Carbone, co-founder of the design and branding company Carbone Smolan Agency. “In their own way, they both say ‘modern’—and they both promise bragging rights, as in, ‘you too could have this!’”…

Move to 2011, and Jenn-Air appliances are using the same kind of dream-kitchen sell GE did 56 years before, but with key aesthetic variations. “In the old ad, color itself says modern, and stainless steel is the secondary element,” Carbone notes. “Today, it’s inverted. Stainless steel is the hero.” He’s right. We’ve entered the era of the home chef and industrial chic. It’s also obvious that the Levittown ranch house’s 32 x 25-ft. footprint has morphed into McMansion proportions. (How else to fit that granite-topped kitchen island?)

Thematically, however, it was the same old pitch about the same new kitchen. “Both companies knew their audiences, and both were selling bragging rights,” Carbone says. “It’s just that the first ad suggests macaroni and cheese and the second fusilli al pesto.”

As a bonus, you can look at the original 1950s Levittown kitchen advertisement below the story.

Doesn’t this suggest that Americans are still falling for (or attracted to, depending on your perspective) for the same pitch based on “bragging rights”? Is this a good or bad thing? The pitch is still the same: get the right appliances to portray a certain image to others. The content of this image has changed, domesticity in the 1950s versus “professional” cooking today, but it suggests advertisers correctly tapped into the American psychology.

Are there other effective ways to sell kitchen appliances?

Thinking about kitchen appliances, I wonder how many Americans replace them while they still function just fine in order to “keep up with the Joneses.”