While socializing middle class children in order to teach them what it means to “be middle class” occurs, the American upper class goes even farther to indoctrinate generation after generation with a set of rigid social qualifications to be a member of the elite. At no other level of the social hierarchy is this sort of cohesion--woven within the walls of prep schools, country clubs, and boardrooms--such a valuable asset in maintaining (and excluding others from) wealth. While the stereotypical “rich” attributes of being a white, Anglo-Saxon protestant (or “W.A.S.P.,” colloquially) fade it seems the distinction between those with “old money” and the nouveaux riches endures (Henslin: 397). In a way, it seems where old class lines fall short sub-class lines are now be drawn. In a nation that holds such a large percentage of the world's wealth in ratio to population, it is further disheartening to think how unjustly it is distributed even among its own citizens. One needs to look no further than the Social Registry, a publication started during the American “Gilded Age” of the late 19th century to establish who is “in” and who is “out,” to see that bank accounts are king to common morality in our nation (Henslin: 398). Today the most popular tenants of our culture are not heart-felt works of literature and art but rather pop music and tabloid media, both of which offer up wealth as the be-all and end-all objective of life.
In the end, no one can know for sure if fact follows fiction or vice versa. In discussing each of the three commonly-recognized social classes in America it is easy to wonder if each is a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way: “The poor are poor because, after all, someone has to do the dirty work. The middle class are "middle class" because there will always be "average" people. The rich are rich because there must be a tangible end to human aspiration.” But in the end it is just as easy to ask, “Why?” Every social construct on earth is self-imposed by society and that is the really disheartening aspect of sociology. In a world full of chaos I think establishing a solid social hierarchy is a plausible way to make sense of the world but that does not make it right. Inequality is not an inevitable part of life as much as it is a side effect of our flawed human nature.
