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Without empathy and appreciation for art, our middle-class culture is poor in spirit
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When we talk about the middle class, much of the discourse centers on income and spending. Seldom do we stop and ask who the middle class are as people.
Looking at the middle class merely from the perspectives of economics and personal finance has its limitations.
Contrary to what many economists claim, an ample middle class with money in the bank and cash to spend isn’t a stabilizing force per se. This is especially true when those in the middle lack education, empathy and an appreciation for things which transcend money.
Let’s look, for example, at certain Chinese people who have gotten rich over recent years. There’s no standard definition of what it means to be middle class in China. Some say an annual income between US$10,000 and US$50,000 is enough to confer middle class status.
Whatever the definition, many Chinese individuals and families are definitely much wealthier than their parents were 30 years ago. Private cars were almost non-existent in China during the 1970s and 80s, but they fill streets across the country today. Similarly, self-funded overseas trips, while rare in decades past, have become commonplace today.
But at the same time look at how middle-class people often act in public. Look at how they drive and how they behave in restaurants. They easily fall into road rage and are often unwilling to make way for others. When they dine, they whine loudly or find other ways to draw attention to themselves, to the chagrin of other eaters. And when they are supposed to queue up, they jump in front of those who wait patiently. In many places — both at home or abroad — these fellow countrymen of mine are a public nuisance, despite their fat wallets.
A few years ago, there was a popular saying in China that described many nouveau rich: “I’m so poor that I have been deprived of everything except money.”
What has been lost?
What is this “everything” then, that has been lost? After reading arts journalist Scott Timberg’s new book “Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class,” one is clear what we’ve apparently lost is an appreciation for poetry, paintings, literature, music and the other things which elevate and ennoble the mind and the soul. In China today, such things are distant — if not completely alien — to the status-hungry upstarts who profess claims to a middle-class identity.
School reunions are all the rage now in China, due to the spread of WeChat and other social media platforms. Although not everyone fusses over how much his or her old school pals earn now, poems and music are definitely out of the collective conversation on such occasions.
Upon learning that I’m learning how to play the guqin (a classical musical instrument praised by Confucius), one of my high school classmates wrote in our WeChat group: “Let him be. He is nearly mad.” It was a joke, for sure, but she said it firmly and also rejected me from several gatherings that ensued.
Certainly I have a few soulmates who appreciate music, calligraphy, poetry and reading, but generally speaking, art is avoided at school or class reunions — and many of my old classmates are certainly middle class members.
In Timberg’s view, art improves society. A community that draws nourishment from poetry, delights in a jazz solo, gathers in galleries or discusses novels is a more vibrant, bright and connected community. In his book, he writes: “A broad-based class making a living in culture ensures a better society.”
He explained why: “Culture may not make us better people; sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. But it does make our society better: more alert, more alive, more compassionate, more connected to both past and present.”
According to the author, government support and affordable living expenses in cities (among other things) helped American artists join the middle class during the mid-20th century. In turn, these artists drew support from the middle class. In other words, an appreciation of the arts and artists became a part of the middle-class culture of the time.
But modern culture, especially as it exists in the Internet age, Timberg writes, has become a winner-take-all game. And cities have become so expensive to live in that creative arts have to move away. Timberg says: “Every time a shop selling books or records, or renting movies, closes, we lose the kinds of gathering places that allow people oriented to culture to meet and connect; we lose our context, and the urban fabric frays.”
When art and artists are no longer part of the mainstream middle-class, the tone of society changes. This process is happening not just in the US, but also in China. The “culture crash” described by Timberg is a world-wide epidemic, one increasingly linked to the Internet. As ignorant, inflammatory online comments push informed opinions and nuanced discussions out of the cultural spotlight, we become worse off as a society.
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