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The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

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Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#71

Post by cbozeman »

redisman wrote: post #23
ryan-duve wrote: post #2

This is a really well-written article. I am not sure if this spin on the cited references is novel but it is the first I am seeing any of it. I am jarred how well it describes the "middle" of society, including how many of my own behaviors/beliefs are captured. One thing I am having trouble with is the connection between Michael and the "educated" ladder, even though a big portion of the article is dedicated to that.…

The metaphor definitely breaks in the middle ladder. Why not just do labor, middle management, owners like in the first part of the piece? I get that everyone hates NYT opinion writers but that’s like 20 people - not a social class. Also do software engineers fall into upper middle class or high skilled labor? I think they’re in both. Or maybe I just don’t have any interactions with the middle ladder in real life and…

It doesn't mean "Just NYT opinion writers". It means all the people who think they're leading culture around on a leash by pushing their articles in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Mother Jones etc. and so forth.

And that very much is a social class, or more accurately, its a specific subset of a social class. Another subset of the same social class are book editors at the major publishing houses. Look around on LinkedIn. You'll find that easily 3 in 4 of them are female, went to a small-to-medium-sized liberal arts college, etc. They literally gatekeep both fiction and non-fiction, and its why self-publishing and alternative publishing outlets are on the rise.

There are likely other subsets of this same social class that I'm unfamiliar with, but I don't generally give it much thought, because I don't care and I don't have to care.

EDIT: Sorry, I meant 3 out of 4 of them are female, not 1-in-4.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#72

Post by paulbaumgart »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #41
ilikeerp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should seek a really good therapist, you're far too young to be 'over it' already. You can live an authentic life, you just don't know how because 1, you're a kid with zero wisdom and 2, you don't yet know what is important (related to point 1).

I lack the funds to do that. I found that reading philosophy helps, even just a little bit. The absurdists figured it out I think. Absurdism also helps with coping with the belief in determinism I guess, but I am still in conflict.

You may enjoy this. I certainly did when I first came across it: https://vividness.live/charnel-ground

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#73

Post by totemandtoken »

This was an interesting take but I'm a little disappointed that the author didn't take the language idea further. As in, in this author's conception of class based language, what's an example of "straight talk"? How do the elites "babytalk" to the Michael Scott-gentry middle class? Most interestingly, what would "powertalk" be in this conception of class? Would it be raw datasets and financial spreadsheets? Because that seems at odds with the "barbarians" he posits via Church are at the top of the elite ladder. Or are the "barbarians" ruthless state-leaders who only speak in intelligence reports and legal/military briefs and those types of documents are "powertalk"?

Interesting classifications nonetheless...

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#74

Post by vidarh »

sokoloff wrote: post #26
MilnerRoute wrote: post #4

See also "The Peter Principle," which famously argued that everyone eventually rises to their level of incompetence. The more interesting question is what do you do in response to that? The Peter Principle books actually argued you should turn down that last promotion. But how do we avoid becoming Michael Scott?

The thing about the Peter Principle is how do you know which is the "last promotion" that you should turn down? No one should turn down the first promotion (from "fresh into the workforce" to "basically competent developer" [or journeyman welder/electrician/plumber or whatever the equivalent is for your field]). After that it gets murky because everyone has their own abilities and willingness to do what it takes to c…

Making secondments and mentoring a more integral part of the process, perhaps, so you promotions happens because of demonstrated skill at what you would be promoted into, rather than demonstrated skill at what you would get promoted out of.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#75

Post by TameAntelope »

dash2 wrote: post #8

Meh.... This has a real "I'm 14 and this is deep" vibe. Like a teenager who thinks their dad is a loser, and that the real men are the guys at the bottom in tough blue collar jobs, or at the top in power suits being Wolves of Wall Street. Insights like this can be fun, but they're for the third beer with your buddies, not for writing down.

> they're for the third beer with your buddies, not for writing down.

I would love to hear more about what you think the difference is.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#76

Post by thatguy0900 »

croissants wrote: post #44
the_local_host wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author missed a genuine opportunity to wrap it up with "Wrote The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class ? Definitely, definitely Michael Scott."

This would kind of weaken the argument, because there's no way that Michael Scott would ever come up with a codified analysis of human class and interaction and put it on the internet. (It seems like a thoroughly Dwight move, though?)

Funnily enough, Dwight did have an in character blog during the running of the show, and something like this actually would fit pretty well onto it https://web.archive.org/web/20090225001105/http://www.nbc.co...

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#78

Post by cbozeman »

gibb0n wrote: post #69
redisman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The metaphor definitely breaks in the middle ladder. Why not just do labor, middle management, owners like in the first part of the piece? I get that everyone hates NYT opinion writers but that’s like 20 people - not a social class. Also do software engineers fall into upper middle class or high skilled labor? I think they’re in both. Or maybe I just don’t have any interactions with the middle ladder in real life and…

High skilled labor. A lot of Software Engineers think they are highly educated intellectuals but are in reality skilled tradespeople on the tools.

What's weird about software engineering is you can literally be on all three ladders.

That high-paid 60 year old man working for his state's labor department keeping the COBOL churning out unemployment checks? High-skill labor.

That university researcher who's working night and day to design a new machine learning paradigm? She's an elite creative (Hell, she might even be a Ph.D. and a blue check mark nowadays).

The Stanford / UCLA / MIT dropout who builds the next Uber / Instagram / Twitter / Facebook? Working rich. At least until he/she sells the company to someone and bails out.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#80

Post by bigwavedave »

croissants wrote: post #37
6chars wrote: post #29

I don't think the author really understands the characterization of Michael Scott. I can't imagine the hypothetical scene of Michael Scott taking pride in knowing how to use chopsticks. That sounds way more out of character to me than having him not know how to use them. Hard for me to take the article seriously when it has to make up character traits for Michael Scott to make its point. I believe that the type of pe…

I agree, this bit in particular seems wrong to me: > Posturetalk is everything said by Michael, Dwight and Andy, to anyone: the staff, the execs, or each other. Everything they say is some form or another of meaningless, performative babbling. I only really remember the first four seasons of The Office , but I remember Michael as being a very skilled salesman and a very unskilled manager. But Michael's skill as a sal…

I agree that his desire to connect on a personal level isn't posturing and is very much a huge piece of who he is- as such, it's wrong of the author to say that everything he says to everyone is posturetalk. At the same time, I'm not sure it's fair to dismiss the author's point entirely. One of Michael's other defining features (which goes hand in hand with his desire to connect personally) is his absolute need to be liked. His desire to connect on a personal level often feeds into this need to be liked, and attempting to satisfy this need is where a lot of his posturetalk comes from. He sees traits in others that he admires and he will do whatever he can to convince other people he has those same traits. Example: during performance review time, Pam mentions that she doesn't know what to expect from hers because her previous review began with Michael asking her where she sees herself in five years and ended with him telling her how much he can bench press. Heck, there was a whole episode about him trying to prove to the office that he was the toughest fighter around. Not to mention the paper conference where he pretended his $100 per diem was just what he would tip normally; or the time he said that anyone who could do more push ups than him could go home early; or like when he takes Jim to Hooters and says to the waitress that he's doing it because he's the boss and he can afford it but then we see when he gets back to the office that he's trying to get it expensed as a business cost because he can't pay for it; or when he tells Oscar to tell Jan that he's a financial guru who cut their debt in half; or when he buys his condo and brags about having two microwaves; or any interaction he has with a woman he finds attractive. These are just a couple easy ones off the top of my head.

My point is that it's not one or the other- Michael is a great salesman because he wants to connect on a personal level, but man alive he sure spouts off a whole lot of posturetalk.

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