Astral Codex Ten

Paul Fussell

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Paul Fussell

Article

Paul Fussell is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between February 24, 2021 and December 01, 2022. The archive places it in contexts such as “Paul Fussell wants to talk about class”; “the dead hand of Paul Fussell is reaching out all the way from 1983”; “Paul Fussell is very insistent on this point; in his ‘What Class Is Your Living Room?’ quiz”. It most often appears alongside California, Fussell, San Francisco.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 5
  • Issue count: 5
  • First seen: February 24, 2021
  • Last seen: December 01, 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
Paul Fussell wants to talk about class.
Inline links: wants to talk about class
Paul Fussell will have none of it. He believes America has one of the most hypertrophied class systems in the world, that its formal equality has left a niche that an informal class system expanded to fill - and expanded, and expanded, until it surpassed the more-legible systems of Europe and became its own sort of homegrown monstrosity. He says he prefers the term "caste system" to "class system" when describing America, conveying as it does a more rigid and inescapable distinction, and that he uses "class" only out of respect for conventional usage.
For example, apparently Super Bowl parties are a working-class custom. And apparently it's an middle-to-upper-middle-class custom to make fun of Super Bowl parties, either throwing them ironically or not at all. Even in 1983, Fussell describes "the satiric anti-Super Bowl party" among the middle class, where people deliberately get together on Super Bowl Sunday to conspicuously not watch sports and feel superior. This hits a little closer to home than the rhododendrons. Or: contempt for clothing with obvious brand names on it (eg a jacket that says ADIDAS in big letters) is apparently a middle-class reaction to a working-class preference for this sort of product. Or: your list of "grammatical pet peeves" is a suspiciously good match for the differences between the upper-middle-class dialect and the working class dialect (whether you keep a distinction between "less" and "fewer", for example). Also, I regret to inform you that the dead hand of Paul Fussell is reaching out all the way from 1983 to tell you that your contempt for people who overuse apostrophes is a class signaling game.
Inline links: your contempt for people who overuse apostrophes
Highlights From The Comments On Class
March 05, 2021 · Original source
Given the ways class is inherited, I was interested to hear some commenters mention Paul Fussell’s son is also famous. Psmith:
Inline links: Psmith
Whither Tartaria?
September 23, 2021 · Original source
Paul Fussell says that pre-Great Depression mansions were beautiful giant houses in the center of town, where everyone could see them and marvel at how rich the owner was. During the Depression, it became awkward to flaunt wealth while everyone else was starving, and the super-rich switched to a strategy of having mansions in the countryside behind lots of hedges and trees where nobody could see them. I remember somebody (not a historian) claiming that the French Revolution had a similar effect on European nobility - it stopped being quite as cool to rub how rich you were in peasants' faces, and going to court in silks and gold jewelery became less fashionable. The closer you get to the present, the more rich people start to feel like their position is precarious, and other people might resent them - and to act accordingly.
Inline links: Paul Fussell
Links For June
July 01, 2022 · Original source
29: Claim from the comments section: “FaceApp morph of all Democratic Senators (‘what if John Hickenlooper was a cannibal?’) and all Republican Senators (‘what if Bob Katter was the smuggest individual on the planet?’) is *extremely* evocative of Paul Fussell's chart distinguishing upper-middle from prole”.
Inline links: Claim, FaceApp morph, Paul Fussell's chart
Book Review: First Sixth Of Bobos In Paradise
December 01, 2022 · Original source
Paul Fussell’s Class X. At the time I thought this reference was jarring; Fussell starts out as an equal-opportunity satirist, making fun of every class alike. But then he says actually there are some pure perfect people without any foibles, and goes on to describe what sounds like the normal upper-middle class he probably belongs to. Charitably when Fussell wrote his book back in the 80s, there were still real bohemians, or at least he could remember a time when there were. Now all the features of bohemia have been reprocessed into generic upper-middle-class markers.
Inline links: Paul Fussell’s Class X