Hello everyone. I hope you are doing well. Aand I know that some time has passed, but I hope you took the recommendation in my last letter seriously and gave your amazing dad his flowers. Love people while they are still here.
And now to today’s letter which is about something that has been ringing in my head for a while now. Something about privileges, leverage and society’s perception of people who have both.
In freshman sociology class, I learned about the concept of ‘Social Mobility’(there are different types of social mobility apparently, but the type that I’m talking about here is the upward intergenerational social mobility). Here’s a little sociology for those who aren’t familiar with the concept:
Social mobility is a concept introduced by Russian-American sociologist, Pitirim Sorokin, and not to bore you with all the sociological jargon, the gist of it is that societal shifts can occur and individuals can move from one position to another because of social interactions.
Upward intergenerational social mobility -which was the only type of social mobility that we learned in that class, BTW- is the idea that people work, compete and cooperate with one another in order to reach another level of society that offers them a better standard of living and greater rewards. Learning that concept made me happy then because I thought, “ah, there’s hope. If people work hard and do their best, then maybe poverty wouldn’t pass from one generation to another.”1 For instance, a father could be a washerman and his child could struggle to get a good education and end up becoming an engineer which would be the beginning of good things, hopefully. Or let’s even say that child doesn’t get any or much formal education, but learns some kind of craft or trade and becomes successful at it. Either way, a family’s financial and/or social status changes for the better in the present generation as opposed to their status in the previous generation.2
In no society is an engineer in the same standing as a washerman, and all things being equal, the quality of their lives cannot be the same. And let’s face it, a washerman’s child’s growing experiences cannot be the same as that of an engineer’s. Your parent literally escaped through education, knows its value and would give it their all to ensure that you also get a good education so that your life can be better than theirs and so on. Lucky you, and at the very least, you getting a high quality education becomes a priority. This means that you already have some privilege regarding one of the most important things in life. And although life is often not linear, you have a good headstart as opposed to the hypothetical washerman’s child. For one, money would not be a problem for you and all things being equal again, you’d have an environment that’s conducive for your education. This is not to say that the washerman’s child also wouldn’t get a good education, but there would be quite a number of things that would make it more difficult than it is supposed to be. Money aside, there is a kind of exposure, access and maybe even guidance that would not be available to the washerman’s child, at least not in the early stages. With the kind of disparity in the resources available to them and in their growing experiences, it is easy to tell who has the higher chance of success in the world that we live in. This is not to say that the washerman’s child also wouldn’t achieve success, he could overcome all the odds and achieve success. Afterall, the engineer dad was also once a washerman’s son. And who does not love a good, inspiring rags to riches story? I know I do. So, they both made it.
Now back to the perception that I mentioned at the start, what I have found is that people tend to discredit or at least try to discredit the effort of the hypothetical engineer’s child (read as everyone born into some sort of privilege that gave or still gives them certain advantages in life) because they see them as people who just have things land in their laps with little or no effort, forgetting that it takes great effort to maintain or make better what is already good. If you ask me, I think that’s it’s an unpleasant manifestation of envy or plain ol’ bad belle.
It is good to praise someone who overcame all the odds and went from rags to riches. However, that shouldn’t mean that the effort of someone else who did not have to go from rags to achieve success should be diminished or that they should be hated for their privileges.
To every ‘engineer’s child’ out there, I’m here to tell you that you should recognize your privileges, leverage them correctly, be very proud of them and be grateful for them. Don’t let people who wish they had what you have make you feel bad for it. Your ancestors ran so you'd be able to fly, you should be very proud. Being the one who turns things around for your family is a laudable feat, but it is very hard and only few people can really achieve that if we’re being honest. Even those famous people that you admire so much had some leverage. Yep, Mark Zuckerberg’s family wasn’t pinching for pennies before he founded Facebook, they were very far from it. Elon’s mother is Canadian (that aided his smooth entry into the U.S.) and his father was a South African pilot and sailor and so many other things that I can’t remember now. But the gist is they weren’t in rags. And I don’t know much about either of those men’s lives, but I’m sure their backgrounds were advantageous for them. Just do your part to maintain whatever privilege you have even if you can't expand it. To whom much is given, much is expected.
And to every ‘washerman's child’ out there trying their best to turn things around for themselves and their families, you are the rarest breed, the 1% of the 1% (like my Korean folks like to say). And in this dog eat dog world, what you're doing is one of the hardest things that anybody can ever do. I'm rooting for you with everything inside of me and I wish you success beyond your ancestors’ wildest dreams. Your descendants would be proud and grateful.
And to everyone, headstart or not, just begin where you are with what you have and go after your dreams. May we all live the days that we dream of.
To recognizing our privileges and being grateful for them 🥂,
🦋.
And because I want you to enjoy the good things of life:
Okay, you might wanna skip this if you don't watch Korean dramas. I'm currently watching the Netflix series ‘King the Land’, and I did not realize how much I'd missed watching simple dramas about rich-boy-falls-in-love-with-girl-from-humble-background and goes out of his way to get her to love him back, basically 2009-2015 kdrama vibes. And everything - the foolishness and the cuteness-is giving what is should be giving! So, if you want to take a break from all the heavy, dark and suspenseful (but nonetheless amazing) kdramas out there, King the Land might just be what you're looking for. Enjoy!
As I grew older, I thought that theory cannot apply to everyone, unfortunately. Some people would work very hard, and from generation to generation, nothing would change. If anything, things even get worse. This is your reminder to be always be kind and humble if your hard work pays off generously. Not everybody is poor because they don't work hard.
A change in one’s financial status does not necessarily mean a change in your social status, although they often follow each other. For instance, let’s say you get rich as a result of selling wood, sure, you have your money but you most definitely wouldn’t a member of the engineering society.)
Yeah, true. Bill Gate went to the only college that had computer in the world as at then, so it wasnt a coincident that he made do with Microsoft. 💯