Babies are complete present hedonists. They only wish to maximize pleasure and minimize pain in the present. It is job of schools, families and in part society to get them out of this state. In school one learns through studying for test and getting better grades. This is presumably leading to their future success. People who are less educated are more likely to continue to be present hedonist, especially if their mothers are not educated; when woman's education advances so does their child's. Some amount of looking into the future is a prerequisite for being in the middle class. You need to plan, save, invest and trust that things will pay off in the future. A larger middle class stabilizes a country and Gross National Product through its work ethic and commitment to the future of its children. I thought this was really interesting. Poor people are not future oriented in the slightest even if they have an education, but lost their job and are now out of that time sensitive environment. These time orientations are characteristics of social classes that just further their existence. It is clear that most people stay in their economic class, but only now is it clears to me that it is because of their time orientation in part. Well it is the American dream to move up the economic ladder, but that will only be possible if you break the time socialization you have gone through. Oh and the fast track to going from future oriented and set to present hedonist is addiction. However to enjoy one’s life one needs some present hedonism and it is not mutually exclusive either.
This is slightly unrelated, but I realized if I'm doing a whole Brookline cultural thingy. I can do a political socialization part because I learned about that in my Government class.
I wonder how cultural this is. How much into the future must a person look in order to function in the middle class--and how does this vary by country? One might argue that the recent economic collapse is in part due to the middle class NOT looking into the future (or not looking into the future clearly): racking up credit card debt without thinking about how they would ever pay it off; signing up for a huge mortgage without thinking about what they would do if the future was more uncertain than the present; etc.
ReplyDeleteHow far into the future must this future orientation be?
I also wonder if this is a chicken-and-egg thing. Being present-oriented might lead you to be working class; but being working class--struggling to make it week-to-week--might prevent you from having the luxury of thinking about and planning for the future. Does mindset determine class or class determine mindset?
Assignment complete = 15/15