Anxiety In Middle Class America

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Anxiety in Middle-Class America

Author : Valérie de Courville Nicol
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2021-07-29
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781000418750

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Anxiety in Middle-Class America by Valérie de Courville Nicol Pdf

Showing how Americans have massively turned to a self-help empowerment model to manage chronic feelings of insecurity, Anxiety in Middle-Class America explains why no group has ever been as anxious about anxiety and interested in tackling it as a moral and personal problem. Anxiety is the focus of increasing preoccupation and intervention in middle-class America and the late modern world. It is reportedly the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting almost a quarter of its adult population every year. Views diverge on what this means. This work is for readers who are intrigued by the exponential rise in reported rates of anxiety across the lifespan and by all the talk about anxiety, dissatisfied with non-sociological and symptom-based accounts of mental health, and open-minded enough to consider the self-help phenomenon as more than an oppressive craze driven by capitalist industry, neoliberal ideology, complicit publishers, formulaic writers, and irreflexive consumers. In providing a sociologically informed account of some of the most widespread emotional troubles of late modern life and the unique historical pressures that promote them, this work will be of interest to researchers in a broad range of fields, from sociology, anthropology, and mind/body/society studies, to cultural history, communications, and social philosophy. It will also interest mental health professionals and cultural critics.

The Anxiety of Ascent

Author : Scott Doidge
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2018-09-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781351267144

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The Anxiety of Ascent by Scott Doidge Pdf

This intriguing book re-evaluates a narrative of cultural decline that developed in the wake of Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. For Weber, and a group of influential sociologists that followed, Western modernity is marked by growing disenchantment with the beliefs and values that had previously given a sense of structure and meaning to life. Despite its unparalleled material achievements, the modern West in this reading is suffering from a crisis of meaning and is no longer able to provide authoritative answers to the only really important question: ‘What shall we do and how shall we live?’ This book examines two influential responses to this question: the German bourgeois ideal of the late nineteenth century and the mid-twentieth century American celebration of the middle class. In each period, the exploration is guided by a close reading of a contemporary and retrospective text. For Germany, Gustav Freytag’s novel Debt and Credit (1855) is read against Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks (1901), and, for the US, the domestic comedy Father Knows Best (1954–1960) is read against the cable television drama Mad Men (2007–2015). The Anxiety of Ascent casts Weber’s narrative in a more optimistic light, pointing towards the redemptive possibilities contained within everyday life. As such, it will appeal to sociologists and cultural studies scholars interested in cultural sociology, social theory, morality, meaning and the culture of middle-class life.

Black Families In Crisis

Author : Alice F. Coner-Edwards,Jeanne Spurlock
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2014-06-17
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781317772606

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Black Families In Crisis by Alice F. Coner-Edwards,Jeanne Spurlock Pdf

First published in 1989. The idea for this volume grew out of discussions held by a group of Black psychiatrists based in Washington, D.C., and the responses of a number of colleagues who attended a symposium, Black Families in Crisis, at Howard University Medical Center in November 1985.

The 9.9 Percent

Author : Matthew Stewart
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2022-10-11
Category : History
ISBN : 9781982114190

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The 9.9 Percent by Matthew Stewart Pdf

"A trenchant analysis of how the wealthiest 9.9 percent of Americans -- those just below the tip of the wealth pyramid -- have exacerbated the growing inequality in our country and distorted our social values"--

The Middle Class in World Society

Author : Christian Suter,S. Madheswaran,B.P. Vani
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2020-05-21
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781000076219

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The Middle Class in World Society by Christian Suter,S. Madheswaran,B.P. Vani Pdf

This volume delves into the study of the world’s emerging middle class. With essays on Europe, the United States, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the book studies recent trends and developments in middle class evolution at the global, regional, national, and local levels. It reconsiders the conceptualization of the middle class, with a focus on the diversity of middle class formation in different regions and zones of world society. It also explores middle class lifestyles and everyday experiences, including experiences of social mobility, feelings of insecurity and anxiety, and even middle class engagement with social activism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews, the book provides a sophisticated analysis of this new and rapidly expanding socioeconomic group and puts forth some provocative ideas for intellectual and policy debates. It will be of importance to students and researchers of sociology, economics, development studies, political studies, Latin American studies, and Asian Studies.

Discriminating Taste

Author : S. Margot Finn
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2017-04-24
Category : Cooking
ISBN : 9780813576886

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Discriminating Taste by S. Margot Finn Pdf

For the past four decades, increasing numbers of Americans have started paying greater attention to the food they eat, buying organic vegetables, drinking fine wines, and seeking out exotic cuisines. Yet they are often equally passionate about the items they refuse to eat: processed foods, generic brands, high-carb meals. While they may care deeply about issues like nutrition and sustainable agriculture, these discriminating diners also seek to differentiate themselves from the unrefined eater, the common person who lives on junk food. Discriminating Taste argues that the rise of gourmet, ethnic, diet, and organic foods must be understood in tandem with the ever-widening income inequality gap. Offering an illuminating historical perspective on our current food trends, S. Margot Finn draws numerous parallels with the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, an era infamous for its class divisions, when gourmet dinners, international cuisines, slimming diets, and pure foods first became fads. Examining a diverse set of cultural touchstones ranging from Ratatouille to The Biggest Loser, Finn identifies the key ways that “good food” has become conflated with high status. She also considers how these taste hierarchies serve as a distraction, leading middle-class professionals to focus on small acts of glamorous and virtuous consumption while ignoring their class’s larger economic stagnation. A provocative look at the ideology of contemporary food culture, Discriminating Taste teaches us to question the maxim that you are what you eat.

Squeezed

Author : Alissa Quart
Publisher : HarperCollins
Page : 326 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2018-06-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780062412270

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Squeezed by Alissa Quart Pdf

One of TIME’s Best New Books to Read This Summer “Brilliant—a keen, elegantly written, and scorching account of the American family today. Through vivid stories, sharp analysis and wit, Quart anatomizes the middle class’s fall while also offering solutions and hope.” — Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed Families today are squeezed on every side—from high childcare costs and harsh employment policies to workplaces without paid family leave or even dependable and regular working hours. Many realize that attaining the standard of living their parents managed has become impossible. Alissa Quart, executive editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, examines the lives of many middle-class Americans who can now barely afford to raise children. Through gripping firsthand storytelling, Quart shows how our country has failed its families. Her subjects—from professors to lawyers to caregivers to nurses—have been wrung out by a system that doesn’t support them, and enriches only a tiny elite. Interlacing her own experience with close-up reporting on families that are just getting by, Quart reveals parenthood itself to be financially overwhelming, except for the wealthiest. She offers real solutions to these problems, including outlining necessary policy shifts, as well as detailing the DIY tactics some families are already putting into motion, and argues for the cultural reevaluation of parenthood and caregiving. Writtenin the spirit of Barbara Ehrenreich and Jennifer Senior, Squeezed is an eye-opening page-turner. Powerfully argued, deeply reported, and ultimately hopeful, it casts a bright, clarifying light on families struggling to thrive in an economy that holds too few options. It will make readers think differently about their lives and those of their neighbors.

The Coddling of the American Mind

Author : Greg Lukianoff,Jonathan Haidt
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2018-09-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780735224902

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The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff,Jonathan Haidt Pdf

Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths are incompatible with basic psychological principles, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to produce these untruths. They situate the conflicts on campus in the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization, including a rise in hate crimes and off-campus provocation. They explore changes in childhood including the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

Uneasy Street

Author : Rachel Sherman
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2019-05-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780691195162

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Uneasy Street by Rachel Sherman Pdf

A surprising and revealing look at how today’s elite view their wealth and place in society From TV’s “real housewives” to The Wolf of Wall Street, our popular culture portrays the wealthy as materialistic and entitled. But what do we really know about those who live on “easy street”? In this penetrating book, Rachel Sherman draws on rare in-depth interviews that she conducted with fifty affluent New Yorkers—from hedge fund financiers and artists to stay-at-home mothers—to examine their lifestyle choices and understanding of privilege. Sherman upends images of wealthy people as invested only in accruing social advantages for themselves and their children. Instead, these liberal elites, who believe in diversity and meritocracy, feel conflicted about their position in a highly unequal society. As the distance between rich and poor widens, Uneasy Street not only explores the lives of those at the top but also sheds light on how extreme inequality comes to seem ordinary and acceptable to the rest of us.

Fear of Falling

Author : Barbara Ehrenreich
Publisher : Twelve
Page : 302 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2020-01-07
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781455543748

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Fear of Falling by Barbara Ehrenreich Pdf

A brilliant and insightful exploration of the rise and fall of the American middle class by New York Times bestselling author, Barbara Ehrenreich. One of Barbara Ehrenreich's most classic and prophetic works, Fear of Falling closely examines the insecurities of the American middle class in an attempt to explain its turn to the right during the last two decades of the 20th century. Weaving finely-tuned expert analysis with her trademark voice, Ehrenreich traces the myths about the middle class to their roots, determines what led to the shrinking of what was once a healthy percentage of the population, and how, in its ambition and anxiety, that population has retreated from responsible leadership. Newly reissued and timely as ever, Fear of Falling places the middle class of yesterday under the microscope and reveals exactly how we arrived at the middle class of today.

The American Middle Class

Author : Lawrence R Samuel
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2013-07-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9781134624751

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The American Middle Class by Lawrence R Samuel Pdf

The middle class is often viewed as the heart of American society, the key to the country’s democracy and prosperity. Most Americans believe they belong to this group, and few politicians can hope to be elected without promising to serve the middle class. Yet today the American middle class is increasingly seen as under threat. In The American Middle Class: A Cultural History, Lawrence R. Samuel charts the rise and fall of this most definitive American population, from its triumphant emergence in the post-World War II years to the struggles of the present day. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, powerful economic, social, and political factors worked together in the U.S. to forge what many historians consider to be the first genuine mass middle class in history. But from the cultural convulsions of the 1960s, to the 'stagflation' of the 1970s, to Reaganomics in the 1980s, this segment of the population has been under severe stress. Drawing on a rich array of voices from the past half-century, The American Middle Class explores how the middle class, and ideas about it, have changed over time, including the distinct story of the black middle class. Placing the current crisis of the middle class in historical perspective, Samuel shows how the roots of middle-class troubles reach back to the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. The American Middle Class takes a long look at how the middle class has been winnowed away and reveals how, even in the face of this erosion, the image of the enduring middle class remains the heart and soul of the United States.

Driving After Class

Author : Rachel Heiman
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2015-01-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780520277748

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Driving After Class by Rachel Heiman Pdf

"A paradoxical situation emerged in the late 1990s: the dramatic upscaling of the suburban American dream, even as the possibilities for achieving and maintaining it diminished. Driving After Class explores middle-class anxieties and suburban life duringthose years. Drawing on nineteen months of ethnographic research in a suburban New Jersey town as McMansions sprouted up next to subdivisions of moderately sized colonial-style homes and infrastructural essentials like schools and roads became overburdened, each chapter throws into relief subtle gradations within the middle class and among middle-class sensibilities, and brings to life the ways that people were reorienting themselves--both consciously and unconsciously--to the discursive and material displacement of postwar liberal approaches to middle-class life in favor of newly dominant neoliberal logics. The ethnographic moments illustrated in the book, drawn from fieldwork in people's homes, their town hall, and their SUVs, reveal the ways that efforts to appease feelings of insecurity--whether through place-making practices, childrearing strategies, or 'had-to-have' purchases--often made people (and their neighbors) feel and be less secure. The economics and cultural politics of the constellation of these ways of being, which I have termed 'rugged entitlement,' ended up steering many children, youth, and parents into ambivalence about the structuring and texture of their everyday lives: it is exhausting work to be strategically and persistently driving after class. But more often than not, unable to imagine the possibility of crafting another way of life, most curbed these unsettling doubts and resolutely fueled up for the ride"--Provided by publisher.

The Impact of Economic Anxiety in Postindustrial America

Author : Nancy Wiefek
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 184 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2003-12-30
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780313051708

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The Impact of Economic Anxiety in Postindustrial America by Nancy Wiefek Pdf

Wiefek presents evidence of a link between individual-level economic concerns and political opinion. Conceptualizing economic anxiety by applying social psychological theory to the distinct characteristics of the new American economy, she presents evidence that this postindustrial economic anxiety shapes beliefs and policy opinions, above and beyond ideology, partisanship, and income. Journalists and political commentators have written extensively on the political consequences of the strains created by the transformation of the U.S. economy over the last thirty years. Yet, the individual-level anxiety accompanying America's transition to a postindustrial, globalized economy has not been explored in any systematic way. In fact, what clear empirical evidence we do have strongly suggests that citizens do not link their personal fortunes to their political opinions. Wiefek argues that the way in which political scientists normally go about looking for these connections misses what citizens experience in their daily lives, particularly their emotional reactions. The measures commonly used by political scientists do not tap the specific features of America's post-1973 economic transformation or the anxiety, insecurity, and fear it engenders. Wiefek presents a conceptualization of economic anxiety that draws upon psychological, sociological, economic, and political science theories and findings, and the distinct nature of the new economy. Using data from a mail survey, she estimates the impact of economic anxiety and presents strong evidence of its predictive power on political opinion. She concludes with a discussion of the political implications of these findings and argues that the progressive political potential of shared anxieties will require reversing the anti-government bias endemic to our current public dialogue.

The Predator State

Author : James Galbraith
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 243 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2008-08-05
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781416566830

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The Predator State by James Galbraith Pdf

A progressive economist challenges popular conservative-minded economic practices, in a scathing critique of Reagan-Bush policies that contends that the political right is misrepresenting the consequences of free-market and free-trade ideals. 50,000 first printing.

Middle Class Meltdown in America

Author : Kevin T Leicht,Scott T Fitzgerald
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 195 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2013-12-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781134631568

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Middle Class Meltdown in America by Kevin T Leicht,Scott T Fitzgerald Pdf

In accessible prose for North American undergraduate students, this short text provides a sociological understanding of the causes and consequences of growing middle class inequality, with an abundance of supporting, empirical data. The book also addresses what we, as individuals and as a society, can do to put middle class Americans on a sounder footing.