Separate Realities: The Dream and the Iceberg - Scarecrow Press

46 Chapter 2
for upward mobility for those who embrace a strong work ethic, regardless of
class origins. 5 Although the details of the dream vary, Americans typically envision
it as including freedom, happiness, family, economic security (an
above-average and secure income), higher educational levels (for themselves
and their children), personal fulfillment (a rewarding job), home ownership,
and financial success. 6
Somewhat paradoxically, the dream runs both parallel with and counter to
the general trend whereby children tend to replicate the class ranking of their
parents. For privileged-class families, the dream offers a reassuring sense of
continuity: the advantaged positions of parents can and will be passed on to,
and extended by, their children. For working-class families, the dream represents
a possible future of reward, fulfillment, and affluence, especially for their
children. To some extent, the early post–World War II period seemed to provide
middle-income families with evidence that the dream was within reach.
Thus, among members of the nonprivileged classes, the dream has resonated
powerfully as a mythic cultural ideal and, at least for a time, as an attainable
reality. Today, however, there is growing evidence that opportunities for realizing
the American Dream, especially for those in the new working class, are
being shredded by powerful economic, political, and cultural forces that are
part of the emerging, iceberglike new class society.
The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, we clarify our iceberg
metaphor and consider the taboo nature of class analysis. Second, we identify
three important “above the waterline” trends associated with the new class system
that are at odds with the ideals of the American Dream. Third, we consider
two dynamic dimensions of the new class system (discussed in detail in later
chapters) that we view as submerged “beneath the waterline” of conventional
social analysis: conflicting class interests and the structures and processes that
maintain and legitimate the class system. Bridging and blending elements of
critical sociology, trend analysis, and popular culture, this chapter explores the
social geography and dynamic forces at the heart of the new class society. It previews
themes of power, greed, betrayal, deception, heartbreak, resistance, and
hope that are central to the story of social class in America. As we will see, it is
a twisted tale previewing a long, strange trip intended for travelers, not tourists.
THE THREE-THOUSAND-MILE ICEBERG
The first lesson of sociology . . . [is] the importance of class consciousness.
—Charles H. Anderson, Toward a New Sociology, 1974
Like a huge iceberg stretching coast to coast across the American social horizon,
the new class society combines a dramatic profile of sharply defined and
disturbing visible features with a submerged and hidden mass of potentially