I do blue collar work and come from a blue collar family (well, from a working class family that became a welfare class family due to layoffs in the 90s). So even despite being in academia for a while, most people I've known are blue collar and working class types. But it's occurred to me that these people are mostly assholes. I don't know if they do blue collar work because they're assholes to begin with or if the blue collar lifestyle turns them into assholes, but they are what they are at this point.
Just last night, right before New Year, some butthead of a former associate of mine sent me a nasty email, just to ruin my New Year. This is the level of small-minded viciousness that infects these people.
They're developmentally stuck in adolescence, where their biggest concerns are looking like “tough guys” and “bad asses.” Working with blue collar folk is like dealing with teenagers everyday.
So I wonder, is the working class its own worst enemy? They've drunk the kool-aid for the most part, at least in the United States. Cultural issues blind them to their economic self-interest, and they take pride in being this way. It's like they know they're being doofuses, but that's part of their identity and they embrace it, adolescents that they are. As long as they appear to be tough guys and bad asses, of the right wing kind, they're pretty content with their lives.
All the upper class has to do is sell them a brainless identity that appeals to their immature nature, and they become the enforcers of the upper class quite willingly. So who's to blame here?