Word: socialize
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...China and admitting it to the U.N., which roiled U.S. Protestant waters when the Fifth World Order Study Conference, meeting in Cleveland last fall, came out flatfooted in favor of both recognition and admittance. The Presbyterians were careful to tread more softly. A resolution drafted by the Committee on Social Education and Action noted that "immediate recognition of [Red China] may not be feasible," but commended the Fifth World Order Study Conference for "dealing courageously and honestly with vital issues that may be controversial." The Assembly's second resolution on the subject was reported by the Standing Committee...
...advertising executive was eagerly reading a book in a plain wrapper. The train hit a New Haven bump, the book fell to the floor, and the title was revealed for all to see: The Status Seekers. By the rules of status seeking, it was a serious goof: no smart social climber wants to be caught showing too much interest in the book, since anyone in secure social status should be above any concern with the restless and near-universal scramble for position that Author Vance (The Hidden Persuaders) Packard undertakes to describe...
...years ago Britain's Nancy Mitford wittily divided the social scene into U (for Upper Class) and non-17. Things are not that simple in the U.S., and in Author Packard's scheme there are Real U and Semi-U, both belonging to the college-bred "Diploma Elite"; then there are the "Supporting Classes,'' in turn subdivided into Limited-Success. Working Class and Real Lower (in his definitions, Packard rarely gets much more precise than to say that the Diploma Elite consists of "the big, active, successful people who pretty much run things" ). This structure, asserts...
...over-sentimentalizes the American past, suggesting that only yesterday Horatio Alger was king. "Status striving" to him seems to be a modern menace, and he writes of it with scant mention of Thorstein ("conspicuous consumption") Veblen or of the massive, fascinating and often exhilarating social climbs described by Balzac, Stendhal, Jane Austen...
Interesting though much of Packard's evidence may be, it never really proves his basic point that U.S. class lines are hardening. In fact it suggests just the opposite-a continually changing social scene. At one point Packard himself concedes that the "American populace [is] arranged along a continuum [with] a series of bulges and contractions." Much of what Packard describes as status seeking is indeed foolish, and some of it may be evil; but much of it is also the result of man's human status, and the product of a free and mobile society...