Reconciling class differences in divided nation
Original article can be found at The Denver Post
Originally published on July 28, 2017 By Patty Limerick
In 2017, a well-staffed army of commentators, observers, and pundits work hard to remind us that we are citizens of a divided nation, starkly at odds in our beliefs, assumptions, and opinions. When it comes to vexing each other, we have emerged as artists of endless creativity.
And here, readers will be relieved to know, is where I put on my turn signal and depart from the lane of lamentation.
In my own life and, I feel certain, in the lives of many others, providence keeps offering opportunities to rethink these divisions.
A month ago, vacationing on the coast of Maine, I went for a morning run in a neighborhood occupied largely by owners of summer homes. In a community of this sort, a social, cultural, and certainly economic division separates seasonal visitors from year-round residents, many of whom work at jobs that serve the visitors.
The beauty of the morning was the center of my attention, and the divisions of social class were far from my mind. After a few blocks on pavement, I was happy to shift to the more comfortable surface of a dirt road. But happiness left the scene when a loud garbage truck appeared behind me, turning the dirt of the road into a cloud of dust.
And, at this point, a kind providence stepped in, recasting the scene as a lesson and a parable.
The man at the back of the truck and I were both inhaling dust, but we were doing so under (genuinely!) breathtakingly different circumstances. Lifting heavy garbage cans, he was exercising in a manner that was far more strenuous than my gently paced jogging. Moreover, I was burning calories to enhance my peace of mind; he was burning calories to make a living and to clean up after his leisured and comfortable fellow citizens.
If the two of us hold widely differing appraisals of the nation’s culture, politics, and promise, could anyone find this difference surprising?
There is no fudging the fact that the people who vacation in comfort are in a direct relationship with the people who work to make that comfort possible. Even as we run around the world, surrendering to self-preoccupation, we remain in proximity to individuals who we have cast as our opposites and even our opponents.
Years ago, as a college student, I worked as a maid in a motel in Santa Cruz, Calif. Making beds, vacuuming, and swabbing tubs and toilets turned every day into an extended physical work-out. When I headed home, the idea of going for a run would have seemed wacky.
And, more to the point, I ended every day with a stockpile of information about and insights into the tourists whose rooms I cleaned. Discretion and propriety prevent the inclusion of details here, but I know for a fact that people who work in resort communities soon qualify as lively, sharp-edged, and very knowledgeable commentators on the customs and habits of their more leisured fellow citizens.
We inhabit a divided nation, and yet we live in an interdependent society. In everyday experience, the abstractions of social class constantly appear before us in down-to-earth, three-dimensional reality. If we choose to pay attention, a self-preoccupied perspective is not easy to maintain.