Social Class

I think that social class in the United States matters to everyone. Nobody likes to be looked at as the under privileged. Everyone that I know of is always trying to get ahead. You never hear someone looking at a homeless person, or an unfortunate person saying, “now that is the life”. We are continuing to strive to better ourselves and acquire more stuff. This stuff in our minds will elevate our social status. This mind set can be directly linked to the thought process of keeping up with the Jone’s. We have to have what everyone else has, if not better.

Let’s take a look back at our high school days. Some of us it may be farther back then others. Who did you hang out and were close friends with. There were many groups that I can recall in high school. The “Jocks”, “Band Geeks”, “Nerds” ect. There was a constant struggle to move up from one group to another. We can all remember thinking why did this person go out for the sport. They might have truly liked to play basketball, but maybe they wanted to try to move to the “Jocks” from the “Nerds”.

Looking at today there are still the social groups that everyone wants to be member. These groups are looked up to and admired. Just at work you can see different social groups forming with the popular employees and the not so popular employees. What do we do. We try to associate ourselves with the people that have established themselves socially and not with the other individuals that might hurt our status or opportunity to move up in the world.

In closing I just want to reiterate that social class matters in everything we do. From how we interact in high school, to work, staying at hotels, and eating in restaurants. Nobody wants to do anything with a 1 star rating if we can associate ourselves with a 3 or 4 star rated item. Social class and how we think about it revolves around most everything that we do in the United States.