Book Review: Fussell on Class

Do you mean this piece in The Atlantic?

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/03/class-d...

It's a much better review than Scott Alexander's, although that's an unfairly low bar given he doesn't appear to have caught on the book is supposed to be funny, a "cocktail-party-ready argument" as Sandra Tsing Loh puts it.

He's treating it as "ha ha only serious": http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html .

Haven't read it myself but he sounds right. Jokes like that aren't funny if they don't have a lot of truth in them.

I'm not sure that's the case, it's certainly not clear from the flabalanche of writing he has loosed. If he got the joke, it's not mentioned in the review.

The parts I read that I could directly relate to from my own upbringing (a mix of Middle and mid-to-upper Prole, between the two sides of my family, with my own strong coating of Middle and accidentally-adopted Upper-Middle thinly painted on top) were very accurate and insightful, even when funny. I'm inclined to believe very little of it is manufactured or even exaggerated for entertainment value, despite the wit of the book and the way it sometimes reads as jokey, even when I know for a fact it's relating plain truth.

[EDIT] That is, I wouldn't take it as a straightforward academic effort or something like that, but I wouldn't dismiss it because it happens to be entertaining. Not one thing I had first-hand knowledge of in it make me go "oh come on, that's not quite right". I'd guess if it contains such, it's a very small portion of the book.

I think this it the type of book that can only be written in a "ha ha only serious" way because anything else will make the reader too defensive to take it seriously.

Two other examples of this genre I know of are the original Peter Principle book, and the Basic Laws of Human Stupidity [1]. Both of them wrap some hard truths in this format because it's the only way to get them past a lot of people's filters...

[1]: http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit...

thanks for that article. her critique was as funny as it was biting, but maybe that's more a critique of my own class consciousness =)

having been to this dog park, i can't help giggling at this description:

> "This is not the brand-new Ramones T-shirt sported so conspicuously by needy soul-patched 50-ish alternadads at the Silver Lake dog park."

to be fair, (nearly) everyone at the dog park is nice and friendly.

and on ego fragility as it relates to urbanization:

> "In the relatively affluent post–Cold War era, the search for self-expression has evolved into a desire to not have that self-expression challenged, which in turn necessitates living among people who think and feel just as you do. It’s why so many bohemians flee gritty Los Angeles for verdant Portland, where left-leaning citizens pride themselves on their uniform, monotonously progressive culture—the Zipcars, the organic gardens, the funky graphic-novel stores, and the thriving alternative-music scene. (In the meantime, I’ve also noticed that Portland is much whiter than Los Angeles, disconcertingly white.)"

and quoting gyourko:

> "The city’s new product was lifestyle."

exclusive lifestyle is in exceedingly high demand, so the pressure is to limit immigration and inflate prices in desirable cities.

and finally,

> "All I had to offer was babysitting. Inquired the Wellesley girl: “Can you send me a job description?” I wrote back: “BABYSITTING! $12 an hour!” She took it."

wonderfully terse. strunk and white would be proud.

> he doesn't appear to have caught on the book is supposed to be funny

Miss Tsing Loh has a small advantage here by not having been in diapers in the period that probably offers context for Fussel's musings.

I think she has the advantage of having a sense of humor, more than anything else. You're making it sound like 1983 is some deep antiquity with an alien culture and long-dead language.

I'm not sure how to explain further what I meant with my previous statement, so apologies if what follows is not satisfactory.

I was trying to convey that people that live through an event oftentimes have the benefit of localized context, over others that only read about it. In this specific example: Miss Tsing Loh had the benefit of knowing the classes described by Fussel as contemporaries - in University, in the shops, at the beach. She might have noticed subtle cues in their behaviour that make obvious to her that the book is only meant as humour, where Scott can only assume it is, which to my reading, he does plenty.

Yeah, that doesn't really make any sense to me, it's like saying it's impossible to avoid taking Swift's A Modest Proposal at face value because you haven't lived in 18th century Britain. That's plainly not the case and if you wrote a long analysis on whether the proposal works out nutritionally, people would reasonably conclude you're a bit of a dunderhead.

Scott Alexander didn't write a long dunderheaded review of Class because he was too young in the 80s.

I see that your uncharitable and nuance lacking interpretation extends to my comments too. Cheers. :)