Hassibullah Roshan
October 2013
Kabul, Afghanistan
In both similar and different ways, the concept of social status is addressed in the three following essays: Rana Dasgupta’s “Capital Gains”, Mike Davis’s “Fear and Money in Dubai”, Dubravka Ugresic’s “The Writer in Exile”, and the “Paper Planes” video by M.I.A. They all put forward the concept as a situation and condition which separates the poor from the rich, immigrants from native citizens, and new status classifications and associations.
The idea of social hierarchy is highlighted as a complementary and interrelated element to brands in Mr. Rana Dasgupta’s essay, ‘Capital Gains’. Brands are deemed as an integral part of life in Delhi as they play a fundamental role in controlling the relationships between the existing social classes. This becomes very clear when Mr. Dasgupta writes, “Car brands regulate the relationship between drivers: impatient Mercedes flash Marutis to let them through the throng, and Marutis move aside. BMW limousines are so well insulated that passengers don’t even hear the incessant horn with which chauffeurs disperse everything in their path.” Additionally, the rich people’s immoderate use of their freedom and monetary power has caused the working class to suffer extensively. While on the other hand, the concept of brands in this essay portrays the fascination of low income people by the rich in spite of the fact that wealthy people are reckoned to be beyond the law. This issue has been well-conveyed in Mr. Dasgupta’s essay as he writes, “Criticism of the rich results in astonishing waves of rebuttal of ordinary people who feel it is an attack on their national pride.” Not to mention that luxurious brands also signify a symbolic meaning of dominance and supremacy between the rich people in Delhi.
The Essay on Health Care People Proposal Rich
As President of the United States, I would like to propose a government sponsored, national system health care. With that, would like to model this system in the fashion of European and most other world countries, which would call for its financing through a twenty percent tax. With this proposal, everyone will be cared for in accordance to their needs, however the quality of health care will be ...
Driving world-class automobiles like Aston Martins, Ferraris, BMWs, Mercedes, and being excessively concerned about the brands of things they wear, use, and eat demonstrates their distinction with and superiority over the working class population. However, the concept of excellence over the general population takes a new direction when MC, a character in Mr. Dasgupta’s essay, discusses the role of virtue and social status. Based on his opinion, being Indians is the one characteristic that unifies the lower class and rich in terms of quality. He believes that one might always be considered a second-class citizen in another country irrespective of how much of a profitable business you have or what job you hold. He, nonetheless, plans to outsource one of his own businesses to Ethiopia.
In similar fashion, Davis discusses the contemporary issue of seductive commodities, which are highly attractive to wealthy Arabs and trans-nationals, in his essay, ‘Fear and Money in Dubai’. He underscores the unlimited freedom and power that are relished by Sheikh Mohammed Makhtoum on his family and relatives. Laborers in particular face exploitation in Dubai where there seems to be no bargaining for them. In contrast to Delhi, non-Arabs, who attempt to divulge the criminality and misconduct of the governing body of Dubai by conducting demonstrations, face severe consequences. Those include being attacked, jailed and even compelled to discontinue their demonstrations. If they choose not to put an end to it, they are regularly evicted. While the government pays no attention to the suffering and adversity of these laborers, it is diligently focused and on-track with its innovative, gated communities, artificial islands, entertaining zones, etc. As Davis states in his essay, “Dubai’s police may turn a blind eye to illicit diamond and gold imports, prostitution rings, and shady characters who buy 25 villas at a time in cash, but they are diligent in deporting Pakistani workers who complain about being cheated out of their wages by unscrupulous contractors, or jailing Filipina maids for ‘adultery’ when they report being raped by their employers.” In agreement with MC’s aforementioned opinion, it is very unlikely for the workers and expats to be viewed as first-class citizens.
The Essay on Working Class Immigrants Social Americans
Class consciousness - "The working class not only increases in number, it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength no more... the workers begin to form combinations... they club together... they found permanent associations." -Karl Marx In the 1880's one hundred American communities grew by 100% or more. Cities drew people who were dissatisfied with ...
Immigrants will continue to carry the label of “labor or expat” and the chasm between the rich and poor, the wealthy Arabs of Dubai and the immigrants who come to make a living, will continue to exist and possibly expand. Rather than finding feasible solutions to the problems that are faced by the laborers and showing appreciation to their rights as individuals, the Sheikh Mohammed Makhtoum concentrates on a “business model” of being “number 1 in the world” by structuring everything in Dubai in what he imagines as “world class”.
Just as Mr. Davis writes about how Dubai’s immigrants are viewed as second-class and even less-human due to the negative image the oil-rich Arabs have built towards them, M.I.A, in her video, “Paper Planes,” attempts to display extensive negative stereotypes many native citizens have towards immigrants. It shows that immigrants are perceived as those who have evaded border police, manufacture fake visas, sell crack, and deliver “lethal poison to the system.” It gets rougher when a group of children is featured in the video singing that all they want is to shoot you and grab your money. The sounds of repeated gunshots and “ka-chinging” cash registers punctuate the video while M.I.A. seems to be satirizing those stereotypes in her clip. Moreover, it shows the fear many native citizens have about immigrants as those stereotypes contribute to developing a greater gap between the first-class citizen or the native and the second-class or immigrants. It is indirectly conveyed in the video that the immigrants’ status is segregated from the rest of the community by originality. They are perceived as a threat to the government. M.I.A finds herself in the position of being the voice, and the speaker of her people or the entire immigrant community.
The Term Paper on Dominant Group People Social Person
Chapter 1 anomie Emile Durkheim's designation for a condition in which social control becomes ineffective as a result of the loss of shared values and of a sense of purpose in society. conflict perspectives the sociological approach that views groups in society as engaged in a continuous power struggle for control of scarce resources. functionalist perspectives the sociological approach that views ...
Similar to M.I.A’s ‘Paper Planes’ video and Davis’s essay, Dubravka Ugresic’s piece, ‘The Writer in Exile,’ also underlines the reality that it one is unlikely to be a first-class citizen in a different country, “behind every writer stands his homeland.” Nevertheless, she seems to have a quite contrastive standpoint on the concept of social status. In her essay, she does not distinguish between the people and brands, social class, or originality, but emphasizes the idea that people classify themselves, and transfigure their body parts through plastic surgery in particular. She seems to be quite astonished of the fact that how the social status differences induce the “global brothers, white, yellow, and black,” to fight against each other, “maintaining that they could not live together.” Ms. Ugresic came across clear skin colors in her school socialist primer by looking at the pictures in the primer. She lived the most part of her life believing that humans with any racial or ethnic background possess equal rights and balanced social status and “that people were all the same, they just wore different costumes.”
