Dividing the Professionals

I am working on a survey of the Centre College alumni. One of the models that I am using is Joseph Soares' The Power of Privilege, which includes surveys of Yale and Wake Forest alumni. He divided the professionals from everyone else among the top income group as part of a test of class reproduction in elite colleges.

Dividing out which occupations are professions and which are not is a tough job these days. As Andrew Abbott demonstrated in the excellent The System of Professions, occupations compete with one another to claim professional status. New jobs invent official credentials in order to professionalize.

I try to stick to the classic professions: clergy, military (officers), doctors, lawyers. The teaching profession derives from the clergy. Librarians do, too. The hard decisions were about bankers, finance types, and computer tech jobs. I see them as derived from manufacturers and merchants.

I will test this clustering against other theories to see if it is illuminating.

Fertility Tourism

European countries have different restrictions on fertility treatments. This has created a market in shopping countries for better fertility deals. The National Health Service in Britain, for example, has many restrictions on in-vitro fertilization treatment, including a low total that donors can be paid for eggs (about $400). Other countries pay more, so eggs are more available. Infertile British women over 40, therefore, are likely to go to countries with a larger supply, such as the Czech Republic (where donors get $750 per egg) or Spain ($1250 per egg), for IVF treatment.

Anyone going to Reno for a divorce?

Civil Religion Music Pantheon

Michael Jackson is being inducted into the musical pantheon of American civil religion. As I mentioned yesterday, I don't care much for his songs. This puts me out of step with some of my peers (Jackson is my age).

Actually, I have a similar reaction to Elvis. Elvis was a big star for the generation before me, so it is not considered as much of an oddity that I am not a big Elvis fan. I actually appreciate Elvis more to sing along with than I do most popular performers, because he sings in my range. Most male lead singers are too high for me.

Frank Sinatra occupies a similar position for the generation before Elvis. There are moods when Sinatra is just the right background, but I rarely embrace the sentiment of the song. And "The Lady is a Tramp" is as offensive as any rap song when you listen to the words.

Among the living, I think Bob Dylan is the most likely future inductee, as a writer, despite his terrible singing. I think Leonard Cohen is worth a look on the same grounds; perhaps he will make the Canadian pantheon. There was an interesting discussion on the excellent website Booker Rising on whether Jay-Z has succeeded to that place of honor with Jackson's passing.

My vote, though, goes to Bruce Springsteen. For my demographic, he is shaping in the way that an icon should be. I think he is sane enough to age well. 20 years after his peak as the biggest performer in the world, events called on him to write the best 9/11 album. I expect there will be hard times in the future for which he may produce another Rising.

I have thought about teaching a course on the class significance of iconic performers called "The King, The Boss, and the Chairman of the Board." Perhaps the self-styled King of Pop deserves a day - maybe a week - in that class, too.

Michael Jackson is Not My Music

In the flurry of Michael Jackson stuff this week, I posted as a Facebook status that I was "impressed that Michael Jackson's death was so engrossing to the world that Google thought it was under attack. I still don't care for his music."

I have been surprised at the incredulous responses that the last admission has brought - especially from people younger than me. I think the Jackson 5 stuff is part of the pleasant Motown background music. His solo stuff, not so much. I thought the politics of "Bad" were interesting, but not the song. I thought the politics of "Billie Jean" sketchy. For the rest - I guess I was never in his target demographic.

So, who is Michael Jackson for?

Vindication of Adolescent Romance

The current New York Times Review of Books carries a lead review of Cristina Nehring's A Vindication of Love. It is a defense of passionate romance against boring marriage.

Against Nehring I argue that marriage is a social institution that is first about raising children. A good marriage depends on the relationship of husband and wife, of course, and they will be happier if they are passionately attached to one another. Most married couples are.

It is typical of adolescents to think that marriage is primarily about them. Actually, it is typical of adolescents to think that everything is about them. The view that what makes marriage great is the stormy passion might be forgiven in a 15 year old. It is harder to credit in a grown up mom - well, older woman with a baby - like Nehring.

This vindication of "love" has more in common with Twilight than with good marriage and family life.

This Week's Family Values Hypocrite Scandal ...

is not as bad as last week's.

Mark Sanford's adultery is as awful as John Ensign's. And it does bring the pro-marriage movement that I embrace into disrepute.

But Mark Sanford did not engage in the same kind of criticism of other people's sexual morals as Ensign did. Thus, the hypocrisy is not as great.

Jon and Kate Put Show Before Family

I am not a regular viewer of "Jon and Kate Plus 8," but my students are. For anyone in the family business the tale of how a couple copes with eight kids and keeps their marriage together is an interesting topic. Putting all the daily challenges on television couldn't help but multiply the difficulties.

As it turns out, they are not going to keep the marriage together. They justify their separation for the usual wrong reason - the kids will be happier if we are happier.

What is saddest in this whole sad episode is that when Jon and Kate were faced with the choice of keeping their marriage or keeping the television show, they chose the television show. As Kate said, "the show must go on."

I am not an expert in what sells on TV, but I expect that the appeal of this show depended on showing the couple coping. No couple, no show. I think this will be the last season of "Jon +/- Kate Mess Up 8."

Classification Schemes of Class Classification Schemes: A Request for Help

I apologize for a long post today. The detail matters for the question I am asking you.

I am studying the different fractions of the college-going class.

I post all of this to ask your help in thinking about how, exactly, to classify all the occupations I have collected. I want to be able to test whether there really are differences in the way of life of the "corporate management" fraction and the "knowledge professional" fraction of the college-educated class. I use these terms not to presume the answer to the question I am asking, but to give you an idea of the distinction I am after.

As part of this research, I have surveyed some of the alumni in the Centre College. I asked them for their specific occupational descriptions (my example was "sociology professor at a small college"). I also know their household income, highest education level, the specific college (obviously) and graduate school they attended, and the same for their spouses. In an experimental question, I also asked them to place themselves using the categories Upper management, Middle management, Professional, Knowledge industry, Creative class, Entrepreneur, Artisan, Worker, Homemaker, Leisure.

I am drawing upon the previous work of Joseph Soares, Pierre Bourdieu, Michele Lamont, and Richard Florida. Soares made my immediate model for this survey. Bourdieu produced the larger theory I am testing. Lamont is the best effort to apply Bourdieu. Florida is an alternative theory.

Below is a summary of their four classification schemes, then the author’s examples.

Soares: Professional, top 10% of income vs. Non-professional, top 10% of income
Florida: Super-Creative Core vs. Creative Professionals
Bourdieu: Dominated fraction, dominant class vs. Dominant fraction, dominant class
Lamont: Cultural and social specialists in the public, nonprofit, private sectors (including profit-related occupations in the public and non-profit sectors) vs. Profit-related occupations, private sector (both salaried and self-employed).

Below are some details and examples.

Joseph Soares, in Power and Privilege, was obliged to use the fairly rough "professional/not" categories in the National Educational Longitudinal Survey. His studies of Yale and Wake Forest alumni are my immediate models for this study.

Richard Florida, in The Rise of the Creative Class (69ff), contrasts the "Super-Creative Core" -
Scientists and engineers; University professors; Poets and novelists; Artists; Entertainers; Actors; Designers and architects; Non-fiction writers; Editors; Cultural figures; Think-tank researchers; Analysts; Other opinion makers - who are “producing new forms or designs that are readily transferable and widely useful” with the "Creative Professionals" - High-tech sector; Financial services; Legal profession; Health-care profession; Business management; Technicians (borderline) - who “engage in creative problem solving, drawing on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems.”

Pierre Bourdieu, in Distinction (Appendix 1) contrasts a (dominant) class fraction made of Commercial and Industrial employers with another (dominated) class fraction made of Public-sector executives; Engineers; Private-sector executives; Professions; Secondary teachers; Higher-education teachers; Artistic producers.

Michele Lamont, in Money, Morals, and Manners, separates her upper-middle class sample thus:

Cultural and social specialists, public and nonprofit sectors
Public school administrator; Academic administrator; Earth science teacher; Minister; Museum curator; Artist; Science teacher; Social work professor; Theology professor; Recreation professional; Civil servant; Computer specialist

Cultural and social specialists, private sector, profit-related occupations, public and non-profit sectors
Applied science researcher; Human resources consultant; Psychologist; Hospital administrator; Statistics researcher; Computer researcher; Economist; Labor arbitrator

Profit-related occupations, private sector (salaried)
Investment advisor; Chief financial officer; Banker; Insurance company v.p.; Plant facility manager; Corporate attorney; Computer specialist; Marketing executive; Computer software developer

Profit-related occupations, private sector (self-employed)
Lawyer; Portfolio manager; Computer consultant; Realtor; Custom house broker; Wholesale distributor; Proprietary broadcasting company; Proprietary car leasing company.

In Lamont, the first two make one fraction, the second, another.

Do Women Actually Respect Domesticated Men?

My post last week on Sandra Tsing Loh's divorce has led to a lively exchange about women who say they want sensitive, housework-sharing men - but then leave them for more masculine "bad boys." This comment from an anonymous responder lays out the issue nicely:

As a guy growing up with many sisters who believed that women should be in corporate america, pulling down work equivalent to the male jobs of the 70's, I was taught that what women found sexy was a man who was sensitive and could cook.

My first marriage of 7 years ended in divorce (no kids thankfully) when she decided I wasn't "sexy enough" anymore. She *thought* she wanted a sensitive man, but she truly desired the manly man - she wanted to be submissive at home.

Spent many years being single, dating, trying to find another woman who was like my first wife. Found many, but noticed a similar pattern - women who said they wanted the sensitive man really still wanted the "bad boy". They would joke about it, but in truth, I think they really did mean it. Last few years of being single I decided to switch roles and do the more "traditional" male role. Found out that I attracted essentially the same population of women as before, but was given a lot more leeway to not be the cook or the domestic god. Am now three years into my second marriage and it seems to be working a lot better, even though I feel sometimes guilty for going against the advice that my mother and sisters told me when I was younger.

BTW, two sisters are having similar complaints about their domesticated husbands. One of them wonders if he's actually a repressed homosexual.

My guess about what is going on here: these women don't think these nice, helpful, sensitive, equal guys could protect them in a pinch.

And egalitarian feminism (vs. the difference feminism that I subscribe to) produces a cloud of ideology which makes it difficult for such women and men to know what they actually want.

I Am Hopeful About Iran Because the Regime Is Religious

This is a risky post to make, because it could be overtaken by events even as I write it.

Nonetheless, I am hopeful that the rulers of Iran will not stomach a stolen election and attacks on peaceful protesters because they believe that God will judge their actions. This is no guarantee of decency, of course - some of their fellow pious Muslims, of a quite different stripe, commit suicide attacks every day in the name of the same God.

Nonetheless, when I compare the protests in Iran today with those in China in 1989, I am more hopeful. I expected the Chinese Communist regime to attack the protesters. Power in this world is the only thing that really matters to them. The ayatollahs in Iran, on the other hand, hold themselves to a higher standard. Some of the religious authorities have criticized the government for attacking the protesters and resisting a clean election result. I have heard that some of these religious authorities have a higher religious status than the supreme leader Khameni, though he is a cleric, too.

Nothing is determined, and there is no way to tell ahead of time how a crisis will be resolved. All I can say is that I see signs for hope in this crisis.

Pittsburgh Rocks

This is the funniest thing I have read this week. It was sent by my sister in Pittsburgh about her first-grade daughter.

[My niece's] reaction to the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team winning the Stanley Cup (with pauses):

"Pittsburgh rocks. My baby head. Off."

Racial "Weathering" and Family Stress

Arline Geronimus argues that African Americans age faster than white people in America due to racism and stress. This has many important consequences - one of which is that waiting until their 20s to have children may not actually be healthier for black women and children, as is normally true for the American population as a whole.

Geronimus blames the faster "weathering" of African Americans on stress. She blames racism as the main source of differential stress. I think this is a plausible way of accounting for the fact that African Americans as a group are much less healthy than other Americans at the same age.

I would add, though, that there is another source of stress that is distinctively high for African Americans: the stress of single parenthood. Black Americans are especially likely to engage in the most stressful kind of single parenthood, the kind that results from never having married in the first place.

Geronimus has taken much heat for her views on racial weathering from stress. If we are looking at sources of stress, though, some are more self-inflicted than others - and thus can be addressed more directly by those enduring the stress.

Family Values Hypocrites Should Resign

Rep. Barney Frank had an affair with a prostitute. He did not resign. I don't think he needed to because he did not try to justify what the other guy did, and because he had not made a big deal about sexual morality before that. His district has re-elected him many times since.

Sen. David Vitter had sex with a prostitute. He should have resigned. He had made a big deal about sexual morality before that - and still does, with no show of shame. He thinks the only thing he did wrong was getting caught.

The latest family values warrior caught with his pants down is Sen. John Ensign. He had an affair with a campaign staffer whose husband worked for him. He seems to have gotten their son a job, too. He only admitted the affair after he was blackmailed. Ensign was a particularly egregious hypocrite. In addition to being a family values culture warrior in general, he had specifically called on his Senate colleague Larry Craig to resign during his sex scandal. And Ensign called on Pres. Clinton to resign during his sex scandal.

It is getting to the point that if public officials makes a big deal about marriage, family, and sexual honor, it is easy to assume that they are sleazy.

Sandra Tsing Loh's Divorce

Sandra Tsing Loh is a writer for The Atlantic Monthly who usually covers domestic life. In the current issue she brings us up to date on her marital history.

She hated her father and wished her parents would divorce. She married a decent guy, had two girls, and they made a busy and solvent upper-middle-class home. Then in her mid-40s she had an affair. After therapy she decided she just didn't want to work at saving her marriage. She used this month's column to announce her divorce.

She then drew what she thinks is the logical conclusion from her story and that of some of perpetually dissatisfied friends: we should abolish marriage. More: human beings were never really meant for marriage, anyway. She cites Andrew Cherlin's review of the high U.S. divorce rate, which I wrote about recently, as evidence. Yet what Cherlin shows is that Americans have a higher divorce rate than other countries because we have a higher marriage rate to begin with - because we believe in marriage the most.

Sandra Tsing Loh's divorce is sad for her and her husband, and tragic for her children. It is not evidence that human beings were not meant for marriage.

Classes are Honorable

Egalitarians don't like to acknowledge the reality of classes because they think that their middle class life is the good kind of life. They believe that noting the existence and different cultures of other social classes is necessarily to make invidious distinctions.

However, if we believe in the nobility of labor and of useful leisure we can talk about classes without assuming them to be moral hierarchies.

Education Rationalizes the Status Structure, Mostly

Wittgenstein has a wonderful metaphor of language as like an old city. The oldest parts are crooked, winding, organic. On top of and growing around old bits are the new, modern, rationalized parts.

I think the social structure is like that, too. There is an old, crooked organic structure based on an honor/shame culture. We see it especially at the top, with its residue in Old Money. And we see it at the bottom, where gangs and slums reproduce honor/shame warrior bands wherever bourgeois order is ineffective.

On top of this old organic structure, though, a modern, rationalized grid has been laid. The main mechanism of rationalizing the social structure is the educational system. And the main tool for creating social closure differentiating one stratum from another are educational credentials.

Undermining Elders

One of the problems I addresses in Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment is that the church has created structures to undermine the authority of pastoral leaders. I spent this week with the summer conference of the Synod of the Trinity in Pennsylvania. In our conversations on this subject, I realized that the church had also created structures to undermine the authority of elder leaders.

The session that governs a local congregation is composed of elders, and is moderated by the pastor. Prior to the reforms of "the Sixties," a small group of elders might serve for many years. Now elders normally serve for a three-year term, are off for a year, then serve another three-year term. And that is it. Though elders are ordained for life, just as ministers are, their formal service is normally limited to one stint. The same holds for deacons, who serve on a separate board. In most Presbyterian congregations, more than half of the members have been ordained as deacons or elders.

When they go off the session, the governing experience that they learned mostly goes with them. Moreover, the elders who are sent by a local congregation as official representatives (commissioners) to the presbytery, the regional governing body, are chosen from the session. This means that the governing experience that the Presbyterian Church can bring to its central governing body, the presbytery, is also only short-term.

It would be bad to have only a small group serve on the session and presbytery for years and years. No one advocates that. But by requiring rotation of elders, and rarely recalling elders with past service, the Presbyterian Church (USA) undermines the other half of its possible Establishment.

The Coffee House: Where Strangers Become Acquaintances

Tonight I am giving a talk at The Phillips Emporium, an independent coffee house in the college town of Bloomsburg, PA. The subject of the talk at the coffee house is - the coffee house. This is a minor example of what sociologists mean by reflexivity. Modern institutions depend more and more on feedback about how they are working to do the next round of work and improvement. Coffee houses, as venues of critical thought, have always been self-critical. Pamphlets promoting, attacking, and analyzing coffee houses have been issued since the glory days of the coffee house in the 17th century.

It is probably not surprising that coffee house intellectuals get together in a coffee house to talk about coffee houses as a place to be intellectual. But coffee houses have also always served as places of business - and not just the business of selling coffee. Intellectuals do not usually focus on this element of coffee house life. Businesses that grew out of coffee houses, such as the stock exchange, have developed more exclusive places of conversation, most notably the private club. Still, new business ideas are born in coffee houses all the time, and low-level business, especially in the arts, is conducted in coffee houses to this day.

The coffee house is the best place to bring people together for clear-headed talk.

Du Bois Was More Prescient Than I Thought

I am re-reading W.E.B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk for my social theory class.

In that book, published at the dawn of the previous century, he famously argues that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." I had read this argument before as Du Bois correctly discerning the long hard civil rights struggle in the United States.

What I had not appreciated until this reading was that he clearly meant the entire global question of the interaction of the white and non-white races. He had in mind European colonialism just as much as American race relations.

In making my social theory class I am trying to pick pre-eminently transformative books. One good test is whether the book itself, and not just the author, has its own Wikipedia page.

The Souls of Black Folk was prescient not just about civil rights in America, but about colonialism and post-colonialism all over the world.

How Much Kids Cost at the Top and Bottom of the Income Scale

Marcia Carlson and Tim Smeeding reported at the Furstenberg Conference that parents in the top fifth of income spend about five times as much on their children as do parents in the bottom quintile of income.

At first glance this seems like common sense - parents with more money to spend will spend more on their kids. But the fact that children could be raised for less shows that richer parents are choosing to invest more in their children. The concerted cultivation that middle class parents normally engage in for their kids costs much more than the natural growth childrearing of the poor and working class families.