Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

 Rebecca Solnit shared this on her social media with the commentary that while it overlooks immigration and language status, it is "more complex" than many other such break-downs; the original poster, Tanya Taylor Rubinstein, noted it was "humbling" to read.



I did this mentally and came out 2 "ahead" because of the race-based questions. (Hey-o, white privilege.) What struck me thinking about it was how low that is for someone of my current socioeconomic station--I'm a tenured prof at a major university. I beat the system as it were.

And yet. It also kind of underscores how alone I have often felt and do feel on both sides of the equation: the family members that will both congratulate and knock me down for my phd, for instance; the people I have talked to who assume because of my status I don't what "the real world" is like (and I have gotten that from both other academics and other working-class folks, because how could *I* possibly know except for that's my background); the people I know from grad school who literally stopped talking to me and/or dropped me from their social media because me getting a job "better" than theirs was a symbol of how I really wasn't a member of the working class, etc. etc. And that doesn't touch on the professional-based stuff where a lot of people assume because I'm a librarian and in a woman-dominated profession I have it "easier" when I'm in the rare books field which is filled with old dudes and all the ick that entails (except for the current job where, on the contrary, our unit is heavily women AND we have 2 BIPOC AND we're mostly young-ish). And then the flip-side when I've hung out with other people at even higher institutions who may as well live on different planets, with the expectation/lived reality that is research trips in Italy for months at a time and such like, and WHAT EVEN IS THAT.

TL:DR I guess this is what middle-class life is like and sometimes it's unexpectedly exhausting?

Like, habits I have yet to break: 

Rationalizing to myself when I want to buy something I want, can afford, I still categorize as "luxury": books, music, food take-out, etc.

The constant feeling of "faking it" when interacting with people.

The impostor syndrome inherent to being in academia period.

The guilt of being a millennial who actually managed to do some upwards mobility. 

The guilt-trips/shame my family is really good at bringing out period.

Anyhow I feel like I belong nowhere and am uncomfortable anywhere, and also race and sex and class are all bullshit and we should just Star Trek already, please.

Encouraged by the NEA report, there is much handwringing at the New Yorker. You know things are dire when there are quotes by Proust, McLuhan, and Ong.

(Me, I'm just flashing back to the lectures of the "Media and Literature" course at UGA. Long live Dr. Menke and his obsession with The Matrix!)

Anyhow, Caleb Crain briefly posits the possibility of the creation of a new "reading class" thanks to the new NEA scores. To which I reply: Seriously? We already have one. Except for the last twentysome years it was called "the professional class." You know, the one with people who have multiple degrees and generally wear suits to work. This class is largely present in DC and barely seen in GA or TX. People unaware of this are the ones who seldom leave cities; it's like a postdoc I know who insists that everyone has an equal opportunity and it's a person's own fault if they don't get somewhere in the world.

Insert more comments here on culture clash, class warfare, and the like. I'm coming down with a cold and am too fuzzy to do it myself.

~~

Oh and I still have some Xmas shopping to do. And Xmas cards to write. Fudge.