The media does a very effective job of showing us what to expect of class in America. There are behaviors we praise and those that we denigrate.
For a nation that values upward mobility we can be very subtle about what it actually takes to be a success American. We’ve seen a lot of sitcom families over the years.
Now we have TikTok and Instagram influencers. What constitutes the good life and who we aspire to it comes from certain values and aspirations.
I remember questions about who teenagers admired most as a tween. I think Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton were the top choices in the 90s.
Which honestly seems better than Kylie Jenner right? And yet there is an arguement that this world we are in now is much gentler. Better even.
When I think of Albright I think of genocide. With Kylie I think of lipstick. And maybe that’s a gentler world. You can argue about values but valuing beauty over valuing war is an easy choice for most.
I’m getting nails done as I write and the woman doing my pedicure is (to my best guess) a Slavic maybe Balkan woman. And I’m sure Madeline Albright, her grandmother and mine would agree that this gentle exchange of cosmetic services is better than the wars that defined the Balkans when we were tweens.
We are mostly communicating in the simple English of cosmetics but body language does the rest for two women engaged in a grooming ritual that goes beyond simple transaction. The money I had was exchanged for a careful, artful and gentle service.
She’s fixing the work of about four bad pedicures I’ve picked up from the barely functional nail salons of Montana. She chuckles as I giggle when it tickles. There is some sort of Audrey Hepburn soundtrack at the very quiet spa. Crooners singing Blue Moon cross all cultures.
Maybe the upward mobility of class can run through Kylie Jenner and Madeleine Albright. As long as she agrees to avoid doing any more Pepsi commercials.