The discussion of Roy really seems to be circling around the question of class. We can go through a full list of people from modest class origins who become quite conservative and others who traverse the opposite path.
Some adopt the affectations of their new class. The old rich are forever mocking those who attempt to put on airs. Sometimes the new leftists do not seem very authentic pretending to be part of the working class; some make that transition very effectively. It's probably hard to make generalizations. Would someone like Roy be more effective if she went around in shabby clothes and used the language of the street? I don't know. I can be certain that had she done so she would not have been able to broadcast her message around the world. No which she had been able to do so is effectively if she were writing in one of the many languages of India. Patrick's post above the question of English was fascinating. In Doug's recent interview about Iran, his guest described how intellectual discourse shifted between local and more international languages. Unless people have more facility in numerous languages -- and that is certainly not the case here in the United States -- a universal English makes international dialogue while it probably shuts out many of the less privileged. Lou's message about the difficulty of affording life in Manhattan to just suggest that the involuntary downward path may become more common. A recent post on Lenin's Tomb is interesting in that regard. United Kingdom Ministry of Defence. 2007. The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme, 2007-2036.http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/5CB29DC4-9B4A-4DFD-B363-3282BE255CE7/0/strat_trends_23jan07.pdf In a section entitled "The Middle Class Proletariat." "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism". -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
