A Classless Society, Indeed 

America is taking an increasingly quick trip from authenticity to having no class.

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Rep. Lauren Boebert films a video of herself before attending a House briefing. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

DES MOINES, Iowa—A popular slogan for T-shirts and bumper stickers here in Iowa’s capital is “Des Moines: Hell Yes.”

The gag, which is now very mainstream, is about Des Moinesians owning the negative views of their city as boring. In fact, another popular T-shirt from the same maker invites you to “Let us exceed your already low expectations.” The message is that we get it, okay, but we’re going to keep on keeping on.

But most Americans don’t have low expectations of Des Moines. Most Americans have no expectations of Des Moines, because, except for the presidential caucuses held in Iowa every four years, it doesn’t matter much to their lives. If they visited, though, they would find a mostly safe, prosperous, and pleasant place to live. Indeed, you would find much the same thing in other smallish cities across the country, from Salt Lake City to Rochester, New York, to Birmingham, Alabama. 

Being good at being a regional hub or state capital in a mostly rural area is neither edgy nor defiant. It is virtuous, maybe even impressive, but it is not an act of rebellion. So what’s up with Des Moines being in your face about it? 

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  1. Michael.Fodroci

    Oh God, thank you! Why are there no occasions for solemnity anymore? When people used to be expected to demonstrate at least a modicum of decorum in behavior and dress? Funerals? Weddings? Congress? Yes, the reception after a wedding ceremony should be an occasion for celebration, although not for drunken silliness. But the ceremony itself is, or should be, serious and freighted with meaning. And why do people buy pre-ripped jeans? Have you asked yourself what it is that they're trying to say, or who they're trying to identify with? When I was a boy the knees of my trousers were often torn. We played football in a parking lot every day at recess, and a slip meant a torn pair of pants, which mom would dutifully either sew up or patch up. But why? Yes, a stitch in time saves nine, but why else? Everyone knew what was under that patch - a hole! But parches >> holes, and everyone knew it. Or they knew it then. Today they pay serious coin to look ragged. Again, why? What have we become?

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    Charlie

    The US has a class structure, but it is entirely about financial wealth.

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      Clifford Luebben

      It does (and I think can be about more than wealth in my experience)and I think we do ourselves a disservice when we ignore this. That being said, now that I live in a more class oriented Asian culture, I can see that relatively speaking America is incredibly egalitarian.

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    Brian L.

    Kudos to you, Chris, for a great assessment of our sad state of affairs. The crassness of our society very nearly has me in tears. F___ Biden flags & f-bomb bumper stickers. Netflix, Prime, etc. pushing the envelope more & more by continually showcasing horrible language and what was not too long ago considered pornography. Politicians and other public figures openly acting & speaking crassly. Etc. etc. I genuinely worry about what our society will be like by the time my toddler grandchildren become adults. :-(

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  4. Jeffrey Otto

    Ortega y Gassett's select minorities have completely capitulated.

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    David Eggleston

    To paraphrase Richard Nixon, we’re all badasses now!

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    Ben Connelly

    Man this might be the best column Chris ever wrote.

    “Proud parent of a great kid who is sometimes an a—hole and that’s okay.”

    What strikes me most about that is: why does anyone feel the need to say it? Or to tell the world? Why bother having that bumper sticker? I’d hate to be that kid, too. Most kids don’t like it when their parents treat them disrespectfully in public, even if they did something to deserve it.

    “The payload needed to horrify or titillate an audience goes up and up, always demanding more blood or skin to seem truly edgy.”

    Yes. And at a certain point it is just trying too hard. The number of people who still think using the F word… which MOST people (including myself) use… makes them transgressive is really odd.

    “America’s allergy to snobbery has mostly been a good thing. Our resentment of notions of class and station common in Europe and many Asian cultures has been crucial to our nation’s capacity for dynamism and opportunity.

    But it also creates a kind of inflation for crassness. When nobody wants to be elite or superior, it takes more and more to establish one’s status as a renegade or an outsider.”

    Yes, exactly!

    “Americans have developed an unhealthy appetite for attaining the status of victimhood. And when that desire permeates even the highest reaches of a society, it tends to forbid showing signs of competency, agreeableness, and decorum.”

    Puts me in mind of CS Lewis’s passage from The Abolition of Man about “Men without Chests.”

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    JimK

    So many guys want to be Simon Cowell in a t-shirt sitting next to a well-dressed woman. There's 2 things wrong with that. We're not all Simon Cowell, and the significant other in your life deserves the respect of having their partner at least try and look as well dressed as they are. But more and more people don't care about mutual respect and respectful interaction. They care about making a statement, no matter how inane, ill-informed and crass the statement might be. And least of all do they care about how offensive they might be to others. Decency is apparently the new thing to be ashamed of, and acting like a rebellious teenager into your senior years is what's to be admired.

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    Stevenkongju9

    And that is one of the many reasons I prefer The Dispatch over sites like The Bulwark. For some reason Charlie Sykes, Tim Miller and a couple of others whom I do like and agree with, seem to feel the need to pepper their commentary with off color language. Now I am no prude. I use that language as well...in appropriate circumstances. I don't need it in my political commentary.

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      Ben Connelly

      I agree. The folks at the Bulwark turned me off for multiple reasons but one was the way they wrote: it seemed very glib. It wasn’t just the profanity, it was the unseriousness and the cheap shots and focusing on trivialities. Charlie Sykes sounds way more serious and intelligent on the podcast (the few times I’ve tuned in).

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    Cthocas

    The vulgarization of society at large (a small example being the increasing number of obscene bumper stickers and t-shirts I see when I take my kids to ordinary grocery stores and restaurants) is one more of those things that gives me the foreboding feeling we're well on our way to Idiocracy.

    The great schlubbing of Senate decorum for Fetterman is another, though that particular incident also reminds me of the days after the 1979 revolution in Iran. With the ascendance of the Islamists to the government, the people took to wearing dirty, disheveled clothing to show solidarity with one another and as a sign of defiance against the West.

    Enforced informality can be just as oppressive as enforced formality. At least the snobs of old had style.

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    Martin Hernandez

    I endorse this message x1000000, thank you sir and may your blazer not include the flap of a hoodie sweatshirt on the back.

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