The Social Elevator

Do you know what the social elevator is ?

In France this expression is used a lot when speaking about elevating one's social position, extracting them out of their social environment and "elevating" them towards a higher social status, if not the highest (one can't make an aristocrat out of a farmer’ boy), at least higher than their parents.

During the post-war era, the social elevator was functioning really well. Everybody was called to "elevate" the country, or to rebuild it, and one could only live better than their parents. But now ? At least since 10 years, but numbers say since the ‘90s, it seems that the social elevator is not functioning well, or is even broken.

For a Romanian, the social elevator does not mean anything. Besides, in the 80s in Romania, all elevators were always broken anyways.. as they were not functioning in the way would have normally functioned in “normal” times.

So, going back to the French social elevator : if I were to apply it to my case, I should say it has functioned given my current "cadre" (white collar) position, combined with my farmers of grand-grand parents, my mechanic father and chief-secretary mother.

But - I am more what I am than where I come from. And even though I borrowed the French social elevator, I especially took the Romanian broken one. And like me there are thousands of people of my generation. Only that it took us…elsewhere.

In the end, it seems that social elevators do not function anymore in an unique national perimeter. The French and the Romanian one might take one... to other elevators (i.e in another country, enriching their statistics of white collar employees with parents from the workers class).

So maybe it's time to repair all these elevators, having in mind not only the individual who will elevate oneself to a certain level but also the society in which that elevator is supposed to function.

And you, did you take that elevator? Where did it take you to ? And what did you have to leave behind (because you had to take it alone, or because at the new level things from your past were definitely not wanted ?)

Comments

  1. dalvaim24 July 2018 at 07:47

    Thanks Costin for your comment and for sharing your experience. From what you're saying I sense a need to question whether we actually want/need an elevator, that maybe what we're looking for is not really in an elevator but right here and right now for us to take it :)

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