There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have been willing to allege all sorts of evil motives for the Middle Class. Having done a good deal of research in the area of Social History, I have found much ammunition for such accusations as moral shallowness, materialism, and tyrannous tendencies. In the world of Social Sciences, such generalizations are both necessary and instructive, if not entirely accurate in every case. To note that these characteristics are most common among the middling sort has been the pastime of many who claim to belong in some other class. That I hold myself still a member of the Lower Class would be consistent with that.
In ancient times, precious few people could attain middle class standing. There was royalty, some nobility, and a mass of peasantry. While it remained possible for a peasant to amass some wealth, conditions seldom made it widespread. When cities arose, the density of population and markets made things much easier. Those with some competitve advantage in this atmosphere prospered beyond their fellow citizens.
While it is popular to say greed is the motivating factor, it is really more a matter of fear. People who are poor are powerless; such is the nature of human society. Wealth is power, and everyone would like to assuage some of that fear arising from the unpredictability of the world. Maslow wasn't totally wrong; he just failed to see the beyond the mere surface manifestations. Prosperity permits a certain breathing space from the concerns of mere survival, and allows consideration for the future. Gather enough people, with enough wealth, and they tend to find common interests. Since gaining the power to control one's future is pleasant, there is a concern to keep circumstances settled in favor of keeping both wealth and power. They already know instinctively there is strength in numbers, and competition beyond a certain safe and comfortable level must be avoided.
The Middle Class can see the advantages of gross political power in the hands of the Upper Class (nobility), and are determined to wrest some of it away for themselves. As a class, the nobility are very different. They are born to power, and wealth is simply a part of it. Having leisure breeds a far greater depth of contemplation where there is cultural depth. Education becomes a concern, and broadening one's mental horizons a good in its own right. Setting the mind free is true freedom. By extension, competition is also a good thing, less to be bridled, as it reflects the more basic value of human excellence. Purposeful violence and accepting of risks are marks of human maturity.
So while the Middle Class make some pretense to the wealth, power and comfort of the Upper Class, they cannot grasp the noble view of life. For the Middles, violence and open competition are associated with the danger of returning to poverty and fear. The fear is not really gone. Sheer joy in living, confidently seizing life as it comes, and the basic assumption that truly living free is worth any amount of discomfort, are missing. To be mature and stable takes on a different connotation for the Middle Class. To the Upper Class, it seems the Middles are small-minded and petty, and indeed too much worried about the material comforts of life. The Lower Class, in general, agree with the Uppers on many things. Those two groups have far less quarrel than either has with the Middles.
For the Lowers, control of one's circumstances is merely a dream. While it is easy to sink into the stupor of dreams (read: substance abuse), the majority are content to control themselves. They rise to challenge only those circumstances placed arbitrarily by others. This is manifested in part by seeking to shock the prissy mores of the Middles, and a rejection of laws that serve such mores. They never forget that large police forces were born primarily of a Middle Class desire to keep them in their place, and the majority of laws are a disguised attempt to oppress them specifically "for their own good." Knowing they are quite likely to lose any given battle over such things does not lessen their zeal.
However, such observations of class differences are really beside the point. While there is no harm in noting the virtues of one's cultural background, and comparing them with that of another, we have not addressed causes. It's all very well to note the immediate cause and effect relationship between the Middle Class pretense to aristocracy, or at least some of the privileges thereof, but we cannot by this proceed to a cure. For to note the foibles of human nature is mere noise if we offer no solution.
The Middle Class carry the seeds of their own destruction. Their success in achieving a stable, predictable environment, in part by dominating politics, is a fertile field for death. Stability and prosperity alone are not a righteous goal. One cannot build a culture on that. The phrase "Middle Class culture" means simply a lack of culture. It's not that the Middles have no virtues, but that their virtues are unbalanced. Stability is not wrong, but it is also not the only goal in life. Stability alone is sterile; only machinery approaches complete predictability.
A politically successful Middle Class hands their children the safety for which they have struggled, but none of the cultural breeding to make good use of it. While they suffered, there was something to be won, a goal ahead. Having arrived, there is nothing to replace it. Their only passion is keeping prosperity, and nothing to fire commitment, nothing beyond the self. The ideal world of the Middle Class is merely an extension of selfish desire. A world wholly safe and sane is dreary and dead. This new generation are a leisure class with no class, and the idiocy of nihilist revolt is all too natural.
When Christ pointed out the foibles of the wealthy (Matthew 19:24), and how hard it is for them to let go and trust in God, He was speaking of the Middle Class. In His world, where the vast majority were mere peasants or worse, the Middle Class were wealthy. The nobility, as a distinct Upper Class, were scarcely in the picture. All the heroes of the Old Testament were men and women possessed of noble virtues regardless of wealth, or lack of it. They recognized that stability was a gift from God, not an end in itself. They saw that peace, prosperity and health -- summed up in the word shalom -- were under His hand, and not the prerogative of any man.
The cure is therefore not simply to adopt better culture, but to recognize the limits of any culture in promoting holiness. We have indeed achieved incredible advancement in Western society under the dominance of the Middle Class. It is the result of prosperity to support what is otherwise leisure activity in learning, especially in science and technology. All of this cannot be called "greatness" if it leaves us still small of faith. Indeed, one might claim to some degree the greatness of modern human advancement militates against faith.
The theology of prayer is particularly instructive here. We give thanks for what God has done in specific instances. We give praise for the character revealed in those gifts. Without a recognition of God as the Source of All Things, we cannot hope to place Him in the center of our thoughts. Without Him in the center, all human culture is lost. Merely painting one's cultural assumptions with the trappings of a particular expression of Christian faith is not "Christianity." To extrude the Word of God through such assumptions is blasphemy.
A pillar of building firm faith is to assume a skepticism of your own understanding. Doubting self is the foundation for trusting God.
Ed Hurst
28 February 2004
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