"Today, spin classes, artisanal food, and the college application process have replaced Sunday promenades, evening...

"Today, spin classes, artisanal food, and the college application process have replaced Sunday promenades, evening lectures, and weekly salons. But make no mistake, they serve the same purpose: transforming class privilege into individual virtue, thereby shoring up social dominance."

"They spent a fearsome percentage of their incomes on home décor that showed affluence, taste, and modesty simultaneously. They knew that they had made it once they had a salon — a room in the house devoted entirely to entertaining guests that the residents would never enter alone. On Sundays, the entire family would promenade through the park.

In fact, across Europe and the United States, wealthy families pushed for the construction of more and more public parks. But, in line with their values, these spaces were not intended as commons that anyone could enjoy but as stages to show off their Sunday best.

New York’s Central Park, for example, forbade the public from going on the grass or playing sports. Children had to produce a “certificate of good behavior” from their school before they were allowed on playgrounds. Beer sales were banned on Sundays.

The park wasn’t for working-class leisure, but discipline. There, laborers learned to appreciate the proper way to enjoy the park: the stroll. Fredrick Law Olmsted’s early park served as a massive temple to the Victorian notion of nature as a site of improvement."

Originally shared by Erik Sørensen

"Den herskende klasses tanker er i hver epoke de herskende tanker, dvs. den klasse, som er den herskende materielle magt i samfundet, er tillige dets herskende åndelige magt." K. Marx/F. Engels: Den tyske ideologi (1845)

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/twentyfirst-century-victorians/

Twenty-First Century Victorians

The nineteenth-century bourgeoisie used morality to assert class dominance ? something elites still do today.