The thread we have been chasing is the refuge of a humble life that existed from simply being alive. There used to be a time when people didn’t have to be special. While carrying a mindset of success or failure, a humble life was still possible. The hallmark of a stable society is the refuge of a humble life.
Life has never been easy for the average Canadian. In every era you will find periods of senseless violence, hunger, and disease. However, there was a golden era from post WW2 to the early 2000s where the economic system at the time, keynsianism, made it easy to have a humble life for just being the majority in society.
It should be clarified that this article is written for a western, specificiallt North American context where the post war period was particularly generous to those privileged to be in the mobile middle class; mainly straight white men. While social mobility and privilege have been expanded to other groups, social prejudices continue to exist. The article doesn’t address these and focuses mainly on the mobility of whoever makes up the middle class.
By my definition, a humble life is one afforded by a strong middle class. It’s working a run-of-the-mill job, being able to comfortably afford a place (either through cheap rent or affordable home ownership), the time to build connections and to have the choice of what legacy to leave behind.
That reality doesn’t exist anymore in Canada, and we are left culturally haunted by it in all aspects of our lives. We are now forced to compete for the minority of jobs that pay enough to live comfortably, lest we be stuck with one of the many low-paying jobs that do not grant much in terms of dignity.
Personally, I identify dignity as the ability to find companionship, meaning and the chance to choose the legacy that you want to leave behind. I would consider these to be the most common desires of the majority of people.
Why we crave these things is deeply rooted in our collective past and extends to every culture across the world. These three desires are not purely societal or materialistic but are what most need to be happy.
To accomplish or have the very freedom to grapple with these desires has provided generations of humans with a sense of dignity, despite the external conditions of the world.
The simplest example of a humble life would be what is commonly referred to as the “American dream,” characterized by the nuclear family. The goals are fairly straightforward: find a spouse, buy a home, cultivate a better standard of living than what your parents experienced and have children to carry on your legacy. There are problems with the nuclear family, but it is a well-known example.
Companionship could just as easily manifest as finding a close group of friends. Meaning can come from truly knowing yourself, while your legacy may stem from acts like philanthropy or community involvement.
The issue, however, is that modern society doesn’t allow for dignity. Simply existing is not enough to guarantee yourself a decent standard of living or a choice in how your life plays out.
Jobs are scarce and housing is beyond expensive. Despite this, the average job doesn’t pay enough for most people to be able to purchase a house and the stability that has existed in renting is under threat (at least in Ontario).
What this means is that people must become exceptional at something in order to attain a basic standard of living. People are driven into a dichotomy of becoming special or being nothing. We are forced to chase the few six-figured jobs that exist in the hopes of attaining a level of choice that was once considered humble and average.
Without capital or a livable salary, people are stuck in a cycle of remaining unable to progress. We often hear of Millennials and gen Z who work full-time jobs having to live with their parents or multiple roommates. We have been told that this is a dignified way for people to live, though it really isn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, the true disgrace is not the individuals who must make these decisions; it is the governments of the people who have created it.
There’s a phenomenon in sociology where people who struggle for societal reasons tend to blame themselves because they lack the framework to understand that their individual issues are societal rather than personal.
I have seen many people try to normalize our state, where adults in their late twenties are stuck living with their parents. Objectively, this hasn’t been the norm in industrialized society. Though the arguments of cultural generational homes are valid, we shouldn’t accept a backsliding of youth mobility and choice in lifestyle.
,It’s one thing to have no judgement in your choice between living at home versus on your own but this simply isn’t a choice in Canadian society. There is no dignity in a society that eliminates one’s capacity for choice in housing decisions; it’s a failure of our government and there’s nothing for us to normalize because we risk complacency in the loss of our mobility.
Those who want choice are forced to be exceptional at something. The irony here is that even if you are exceptional, our economic realities often mean that you are still left with less choice than previous generations.
We all know the nostalgia of a strong middle class, and that’s what we continue to chase. We are simply caught up in self-blaming and arguing over each other’s lifestyles in our dissatisfaction instead of holding the government accountable for its policies.
The choice of having children as a form of legacy — something that exceeds our death — has become a hot talking point. People will argue that we shouldn’t have children because the future is uncertain, whereas others will argue that we should have children because it’s morally correct, without acknowledging that the only people who have that choice are those with financial stability.
Other people argue about what the best legacy is as if there’s any objectivity to it. Some will say it’s better to be remembered by your career, or simply not to be remembered at all.
Instead, I would argue that everyone should havea thechoice over their legacy. The issue isn’t about their individual will, because fundamentally, will doesn’t do anything when our choices are disappearing due to the rising cost of living and shrinking middle class.
In a way, this falls into a greater idea of finding meaning. Social media has robbed us of that dignity as the various meanings of life have been monetized; many do not realize that they’re being sold a lifestyle instead of choosing one.
Every reel you see on Instagram — especially lifestyle reels — are advertisements that take away your agency to choose how to live your own life. They manipulate you towards the profitable products associated with the various lifestyles you have shown even a fleeting interest in.
Trad-wife — a shorthand for “traditional wife” — content is a great example. Trad-wife content preaches a traditional lifestyle choice for women that consists of being a stay-at-home, subservient wife, while the content creators espousing this ideology are employed as content creators or business owners, often receiving salaries that range from livable wages to millions of dollars.
Accompanying this content are dozens of product placements that push you to purchase things and assimilate a marketing campaign into part of your identity.
You didn’t come to the idea of being a “trad-wife” naturally: you were sold it through products, desires and the lie that these creators don’t work and have an independent income.
Other examples of identity marketing can be found in “gym bro” content, academia core, high fashion and other such aesthetics.
Social media robs the discovery of meaning, in that people don’t get to organically discover and question their own interests but are instead sold personalities by content creators using marketing tactics.
People spend more time and effort making themselves fit into an aesthetic than in realizing that an identity isn’t bought; it is made, no matter where you are in life.
An example of this would be thrifted and handmade alt clothing vs alt clothing purchased from Shein, which in itself is against the premise of the movement.
In losing meaning, we also lose companionship. Friendships and relationships are needed to live a happy life because humans are social creatures. Yet crushing workloads driven by the need to be exceptional, and social media polarization — like red-pill content and doomerism — have driven us further apart.
We are more willing to sit on our phones than talk to strangers; we would rather make assumptions of others based on social media as opposed to real life interactions and tend to avoid deeper connections simply because it’s hard.
However, none of this is a personal failing. Our attention is one of the most profitable resources of the modern era and systems have been engineered to extract it.
The system hasn’t yet robbed the dignity of companionship, but it has made it more difficult than ever to feel connected with others.
Thus, we are left totally unsatisfied and with mixed feelings as we long for something that I argue is dignity. We are a society full of nostalgia, always looking backwards at fashion, entertainment and politics. We have yet to realize that we have had our choices taken from us and that instead of looking left or right, we should look up.