Astral Codex Ten

Class X

4 min read

Class X

Article

Class X is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between February 24, 2021 and December 09, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “In Chapter 9, Fussell posits the existence of a ‘Class X’. Class X are genuinely good people”; “people Fussell describes as Class X”; “doesn’t seem to much overlap with ‘Class X’“. It most often appears alongside America, Fussell, New England.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: February 24, 2021
  • Last seen: December 09, 2022

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: Fussell On Class
February 24, 2021 · Original source
But in Chapter 9, Fussell posits the existence of a "Class X". Class X are genuinely good people. They like art that is truly beautiful, food that really tastes good, neighborhoods that are liveable and attractive according to their own quirky aesthetics. They believe things because they are true.
Maybe my negative reaction comes from being a 2020er reading a 1983 book. Here's my theory: the class structure Fussell points to and lambasts is that of the hyperconformist monoculture typically associated with the 1950s. By the 1980s, that monoculture was starting to fray. Its enemy was the counterculture, the people Fussell describes as Class X. The counterculture were the only people with remotely modern norms. Compared to the hyperconformist society Fussell talks about, they really were as superior as he thinks they were.
Fussell talks about how Class X tends to dress in comfortable clothes because they don't feel like they need to impress anyone with suits. This fits the fables of Early Silicon Valley, where you could wear a hoodie to work because people only cared about how bright you were and not about how you conformed to cultural norms. But (the fables continue) at some point this ossified into a thing where you had to attend interviews in exactly the right kind of hoodie and comfortable jeans, or else they'd identify you as "not a culture fit" and "out of touch with Silicon Valley norms" and deny you a job. Back in 1983, Fussell would have seen someone wearing a hoodie and comfortable jeans to work and gone into raptures about how alive and nonconformist they were. Today it just means they're performing class successfully.
Inline links: the fables of Early Silicon Valley
Highlights From The Comments On Bobos In Paradise
December 09, 2022 · Original source
* Whether or not 'starving artists' have vanished as a class, Fussell wasn't among their number, and the concept doesn't seem to much overlap with 'Class X'. (I do think ACX has a tendency towards over-cynicism in assuming that everything is signaling and that people have no honest interests. The vast majority of 'new elite' members do not enjoy whitewater rafting, and so they don't participate in whitewater rafting.)