Class Dismissed
Lauren F. Winner
January 1, 2001
They constitute a secular trinity, the godhead of the contemporary social sciences. Distinct, yet inseparable, you can't talk about one member without implicitly invoking the other two. But try as you might, you just can't just combine them into one entity. The three parts exist, after all, in relationship with each other, each serving to define and influence the other two in an endless, eternal cycle-or eternal at least as far as academic fads and movements go. I speak, of course, of race, class, and gender-the three in one and one in three. Race, class, and gender have more in common with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost than just the number three. Both triads have two members we like to think we understand (race and gender, and the Father and the Son). In truth, of course, we usually talk nonsense about all four, but at least we feel like we know whereof we speak. Class, on the other hand, is a little like the Paraclete. We don't think about it all that often, and it feels harder to hold, harder to explain, harder to picture. While there have been moments in history when it's easy to point out the effects of either one-say, Pentecost, or the Paris Commune-these days the fruits of class (at least) seem only to be noticed and (partially) understood in the relatively small realms of academia and leftist social activism. And even among those who still hold to its importance, it's hard to pin down just what class does. But we cannot ignore class. There are real, material differences among people, pecuniary differences, differences of power and privilege. And class isn't just how much money you have in your bank account or whether you speak with an Oxbridge accent. That's not to say that bank accounts don't matter, or ...
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