comfort class (definition)
any class of person whose socioeconomic position (not necessarily their resources) enables the option to shelter themselves from adversity in a way that fosters or prolongs fragility; essentially, classes that are able to seek comfort for long periods if they so choose, rather than classes that don’t have the option.
this is worth distinguishing from “pmc” or “white liberal upper middle class (etc) (etc)” because the following groups are not necessarily upper middle class or even middle class, but tend to be decisively comfortable nonetheless due to their combination of youth, resources, and ability to shelter from adverse events:
- graduate students
- dependas
- boyfriends/girlfriends of wealthy people who can’t, strictly speaking, be counted as that same “class” as they don’t share income
- in some but not all cases, egirls
- in some but not all cases, NEETs
“middle class” has so dominated american class discourse for nearly the entire time I’ve been alive that I’ve coined and used “comfort class” to more adequately summarizes these differences. what “comfort class” gets at is not that a certain class is happier with more money, but rather that:
- when comfort class, key unsexy milestone problems are alleviated. there are SIGNIFICANT LIFE PROBLEMS either solved or prevented by being in a certain social position — usually income, but not always. for example, family of the comfort class can (income or not) get regular car maintenance and extracurricular classes and therapy; the rest of the population can’t as easily, so they’ll save up a month’s paycheck on a car emergency and their extracurriculars won’t look as impressive and they can’t say they’ve Done The Work by going to therapy. (and no, eight piddling sessions of sliding scale therapy does not even kind-of accomplish the effect of going for years on your family health care plan, which is the more common thing.)
- it crosses a threshold where influence is much likelier. culturally speaking, many and probably a majority of the first world’s most influential people will be comfort class and they play a silent role in what is acceptable. this is weirdly not true of celebrities however, insofar as celebrities are often an authentic example of middle class or poor people significantly influencing culture.
keep in mind (because it’s easy to lose mind of this) that this is not strictly an income situation. graduate students and housewives are often comfort class in spite of their low individual income, because they have third parties (usually family) who can provide these amenities.
note also that in both situations the comfort class avoids unsexy problems. unsexy economic problems are often embarrassing, e.g. https://www.facebook.com/1441668545/videos/5236054776481164/ — taking down a murderer is a sexy problem, and this is why comfort class people are extremely okay talking about Abuse™️ as it’s the most dramatic and agreed upon sexy problem they face. a class marker of this kind is straight teeth, because most people do not have naturally straight teeth, because braces are a typically $4000–5000 cosmetic treatment that uncomfortable families cannot afford, and unstraight teeth are a thing people try to hide. people who don’t have unsexy problems don’t like to talk about them; they’d prefer to act as if they don’t exist, and middle class or lower people who mention those problems are socioeconomically scaring the hoes. (homelessness is a sexy problem conceptually and extremely unsexy in reality.)
but, once more, what’s key to “comfort class” is the ability to self-shelter if desired. a school teacher does not have the resources *nor* the means to do this; a graduate student might not have the resources but has the means; an upper middle class person has the resources but perhaps not the means, though usually does. the commonality to these ideas is that there is a class of person who can sort themselves into comfortable circumstances that prolong fragility *if desired*, hence “comfort class”.
