this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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What does this even prove? If I take out a mortgage to buy a house, the bank “technically owns” my house. Does this make me not middle class?
Well, I don't really care for the subtle, haughty undertones in your initial statements & acting like he's some super well-off dude that has no problems. "off the grid on 90 acres that he owns". He's working on owning it, he wants to own land...and he's going about it in a modest way.
But oh my god , he's planning to do stuff on that land. Eventually. He plans to build a farmhouse & raise livestock. The sheer audacity of these life goals. That he doesn't have cash money for, but is working towards.
Something tells me a house he builds is probably pretty different from a house you would build. It doesn't have to be some crazy-ass expensive mansion.
You then casually dismiss this man by saying "working class, my ass". He's gone through his past, IIRC a lot of warehouse/industrial work. He dropped out of high school, got his GED. I think that pretty much fits into the definition of working class. It does get a little more hairy when exploring what is middle class, because it does mention "owning land". Okay. But there's also emphasis on education & white collar professions...that's not this guy at all.
And maybe his dreams of owning land, building a home, and raising livestock are the main cause of his suffering. Life is exponentially harder for him because he is actively striving for life improvement, not living in a tiny box & watching Netflix on the couch.
I think that's the main source of his frustration that shines in his song, he's working hard & then what little he makes is "taxed to no end". The system makes it so hard for average, ordinary people to get ahead and actually do something of value with their lives.
Hahaha haughty? “The poor renter looking down on the middle class landowner.” Lol, what the fuck are you talking about.
Tell me, have you ever lived in a rural area? Or been a farmworker? Because I really honestly can’t tell if I’m dealing with city folk who equate farmer who owns land with farmer who does farm work, or if I’m dealing with middle class folk who don’t understand the privilege of owning property, even if “the bank technically owns it.”
Brave of you to assume I could even consider building a house anywhere, much less buying one.
And yeah I really don’t give a shit about his past or education. Is Jay-z working class because he grew up in the Marcy projects? Is Richard Branson working class because he left school at 16?
This tells me everything I need to know about you. “Average and ordinary” for you and “average and ordinary” for me mean completely different things. Have you ever talked to an actual poor person?