Class conflicts?

Me and Red Duck

As I parked my Malaysian made Perodua Kenari next to my friend’s continental Audi during a recent get together, I could not help but feel embarrassed by the disparity of income status between us, made so evident by this obvious metaphorical comparison. Such gatherings form a source of displeasure on my part, making me reflect on my life choices, as well as lamenting on luxuries that I would probably not be able to afford with my current lot in life.

This discontent echoes Weber’s definitions (Roth and Witich, 1968) of class. Class, he claimed, was in fact a normative aspect of our lives, determined by relative economic differences. We experience these class differentials on a daily basis, especially in a country like Singapore, where there is relatively higher opportunities for inter Class mingling within the ideologies of meritocracy.

In the restaurant, where we ate and conversed together, Weber’s ideas on stratification (Stark, 2001) could not be more pronounced. To compensate the differences in class, we attempted to achieve a sense of equal footing through our current levels of prestige and power. As a social worker, I felt that my humble values in the pursuit of the betterment of society, placed me at a better prestige level in contrast to my peers, who I felt were "victims" to the endless pursuit of wealth.

My personal dissonance probably stemmed from my own status inconsistencies (Lenski, 1954) where I feel that my economic capability did not match the status and power I enjoyed as a grassroots leader and social worker. But perhaps it is the awareness of such inconsistencies that are essential for social workers to be better able to relate and work with our clients?

As a social worker, these thoughts make me realize how these ideas could also be used to empower our low income clients towards addressing their difficult situations. Too often, we focus too much on the economic dimension, speaking to our clients from a top down position, and trying to imbue ideas of employment and retraining, which are in fact ideas enforced from a different class.

We need to consider the other elements of status and power. Through awareness of status differentials, we can be more aware of how we approach and speak to our clients at the individual casework level, so that their level of prestige is not marginalized. How can we see that the problem does not only lie in the individual or family system, but may actually be in the structure of society itself?

The challenge then would be to identify ways to place our clients in positions of power, especially if there are unjust social policies that are making their life situations difficult, and empower them to have their voices heard within Singapore’s unique polity.

But for me, it's a great personal demon to battle. The greatest irony is that my "quest" for professionalism and greater recognition (be it monetary or the pursuit of power) may actually distant myself from the very clients I have been commisioned to protect.

How then do we remain humble and grounded to relate to our clients?

On a side note: this will be a sleepless night cos exams are coming!!