Class Consciousness in the Time of COVID-19

Not that many of us need a reminder about American inequality, but a recent Axios-Ipsos survey found that: "Americans with less education and lower incomes [are] far more likely either to have to keep showing up at their workplaces — putting themselves at greater daily risk of infection — or more likely to have seen their work dry up." However, what is interesting is that the survey also found that: "Ironically, those with the most resources and the least exposure are significantly more likely to say their emotional health is taking a hit."

I sometimes find myself tempted to withhold sympathy for the affluent because these last few years (or decades) have really exhausted my reserves of sympathy. With all the suffering in this country, let alone the world, it's sometimes difficult to muster sympathy for people who have it much easier than most (especially when those people seem oblivious to their privilege). But I know that this isn't the best response to have - the world has just been wearing me down - especially as I used to be more charitable with my sympathy.

But if I were to get over my own wearying sympathy, and put on my social scientist hat, maybe a better way of looking at these statistics is to notice the inequality of recognition. That is, there is an obvious inequality in wealth, with poorer people suffering the worst of this crisis and wealthier people suffering much less, but there is also an inequality in how these groups perceive themselves. As the study notes, wealthier people are "significantly more likely to say their emotional health is taking a hit." So, it's not only that wealthier people suffer less, but “ironically,” their awareness of their suffering is greater than that of their poorer neighbors.

To the extent that our society has resources for dealing with emotional distress, wealthy people are going to receive the lion's share, because our society dispenses resources based on wealth rather than need. No surprises there. But what this study also helps reveal is that the wealthier you are the more likely it is that you're going to feel like you need those resources. So, from your own point of view, you're merely satisfying a real need, and it's hard to begrudge anyone that. But, from a broader socio-economic point of view, the existence of that need (emotional distress), or, at least, your awareness of that need, is a function of your economic class rather than your actual psychology.

And maybe this is why I've become so begrudging with my sympathies. As this study seems to suggest, not only do the poor suffer more, but they do so in silence; reciprocally, the rich suffer comparatively less, but their awareness of that suffering is greater, and they’re therefore louder about it. And there’s not only something profoundly unjust about this situation, but it’s also wearying, because their very self-awareness about their suffering—and therefore the ability to give it voice—is itself a sign of privilege. In other words, the very people giving voice to their suffering are disproportionately those who are suffering less, and I think that it’s the juxtaposition of these two facts that explains my wearying sympathies.

I still don’t think my attitude is a particularly charitable or desirable one, so I’m not trying to set myself up as any kind of example to follow. In fact, I admire those who are less begrudging of their sympathies. But maybe, as I try to think through all of this, I am trying to point out that while we’re all going through legitimate distress, it’s not only important to remain attentive to the way that others might be suffering more greatly than are we, (and which is something that I think many of us are actually trying to do). But beyond that, we might also want to recognize that our very ability to acknowledge our distress (and similarly, our ability to recognize the distress of others)—that is, both our self-awareness and our awareness of others—might themselves be determined by a kind of privilege that we don’t always realize we have.

On further reflection, however, I think that there’s something more going on. And perhaps it’s that the response of the affluent is generally an apolitical response (or, worse yet, a depoliticizing response), while the potential response of the poor would be a political one. That is, the more affluent you are, the more likely it is that you are aware of your emotional distress. But also, the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to be able to seek help for that distress—either by way of community support or by paying for psychological support. Consequently, it’s likely that your awareness of your emotional distress is going to translate into an individual level response. That is, you’re going to understand your “emotional distress” as a psychological problem rather than a political one, even though your very self-awareness is a consequence of economic privilege and not psychological acuity.

Juxtaposed with this, the suffering of the poor is in part experienced as a personal problem, because being poor obviously takes a toll on one’s emotional and psychological health. But the suffering of the poor is more obviously a consequence of their economic class. Consequently, when poor people become aware of their suffering, it’s more likely that their response will be political, because they’re in a position to identify the underlying economic causes of their suffering. Their suffering is not understood as personal and psychological, but economic and material.

I know this might seem like a lot to digest, but I think it’s worthwhile to put some of these pieces together. First, in broad terms, suffering is distributed along an economic axis, with poorer people suffering more and richer people suffering less. However, there is an inverse relationship between this suffering and an awareness of the personal toll that this suffering takes. So, the poor suffer more, but report less emotional distress, while the rich suffer less, but report greater emotional distress. Consequently, the voices of the more affluent are those that dominate the public narrative.

However, what this reflects is that the rich and the poor experience their suffering differently, with the rich experiencing suffering as an individual level problem that they can resolve through their access to resources, while the poor experience suffering as a function of their economic class. And since the suffering of the rich dominates the narrative—as even the stories of the poor are most often told through the lens of the sympathies of the rich—it depoliticizes the nature of suffering. Which is to say, that even in the attempt to sympathize with those who might be experiencing greater suffering, there is a chance that the nature of that sympathy might be undermining a true account of their suffering. What the poor need are not more therapists to deal with their emotional distress, they need their poverty to end.

And this doesn’t require sympathy, it requires solidarity.