On Egalitarianism
Aug. 18th, 2007 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
varjohaltiaI saw Stardust at Westshore mall, which has stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, and the audience had girls wearing $500 cargo pants. I always feel like I'm a few classes below the folks shopping there.
On the way home, I stopped at the corner gas store to see what it's like. There were a bunch of shirtless teenagers smoking on the table outside, and teenage girl talking about her pregnancy and attempts to stop smoking inside (together with prepackaged gizzards and whatnot) and people in beat-up pick-up trucks came to buy their six-packs.
Maybe I'm imagining, but living in Finland I never encountered such gulfs of wealth. Surely the jet-set in Helsinki has an entirely different lifestyle, language and value system than the rural poor, but the rural poor don't live in dilapidated single-wides, and the groups don't coexist in such close proximity as they do here. It really is pretty remarkable, when I stop to think about it, just as is realizing that I'm taking this all for granted.
On the way home, I stopped at the corner gas store to see what it's like. There were a bunch of shirtless teenagers smoking on the table outside, and teenage girl talking about her pregnancy and attempts to stop smoking inside (together with prepackaged gizzards and whatnot) and people in beat-up pick-up trucks came to buy their six-packs.
Maybe I'm imagining, but living in Finland I never encountered such gulfs of wealth. Surely the jet-set in Helsinki has an entirely different lifestyle, language and value system than the rural poor, but the rural poor don't live in dilapidated single-wides, and the groups don't coexist in such close proximity as they do here. It really is pretty remarkable, when I stop to think about it, just as is realizing that I'm taking this all for granted.
