Different view of class
Monday, March 8, 2010
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I've been following bell hooks' work for several years and find that even her older works / speeches always has a new / fresh perspective to offer. Rather than thinking about "class" from a statistical or macro-sociological standpoint, she offers a standpoint of what class means from her location / standpoint.
Many students, even academics tend not to think beyond the textbook definition of "class" - they tend to equate class stratification to ills of capitalism. Karl Marx argues that inequality of society stems from class conflict, alienation and inequality of production. Max Weber argues similarily, but says that it stems from inequality of consumption (a different perspective).
It seems that bell hooks warns us to stay away from these definitions, because they do not seem to get to the heart of the matter. She equates class with values. Is it part of our value to share the resources that we have? What is the individual capacity for greed? Watch her argument:
What can we achieve from adopting bell hooks' perspectives? To what extent can we forget about money problems, transcend materialism, so that Weber's "inequality of consumption" is not an issue?
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