Ryan's Response

[Anonymous]

#464

 

“Worried, that is, that the working-class people who read the same books as the upper classes would get ideas about what their lives should be, the society provided to the lower-classes magazines with simplified information.”  Though I’ve always heard and had been aware of the class distinctions, it is always intriguing to read of the exactness, and importance as to how they truly separated the classes out of fear.  More aware, now, are the many popular TV shows that show the class system (and the dismantling of the class system) in “Downton Abby” and “Boardwalk Empire,” both set in the early 1920’s.  To know that the upper society didn’t’ even want the lower class to know of their lifestyle is shocking.  I had thought the upper class could presumably enjoy having the lower class be privy to, in a sense, showoff to the lower class.  I’m sure to some degree that was true.  The articles that spoke of how the upper class went about their financial business understandably be what was to be kept from the lower class.  Fascinating that it was the lower class that got the comic strips as they were considered low-level reading.  And in turn, comic, or satirical comic illustrations soon became the one of the most visible devices that helped the lower class receive some advance in equality when fighting for better rights, wages, etc…  These ‘simplistic’ drawings became (and still are) very powerful tools to quickly show point of view of a defenders respond to injustice.  (Recalling the recent satirical picture of Governor Christie and the George Washington Bride scandal.  The picture I attached is not the one I was thinking of (the other represented the scandal better, but you get the idea…)

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