Concerning the Historie and Nature of White Collar Communitae

We're apretty close-knit crew in America. This community of desktop webjunkies, all hurling ourselves out of boxed beds and into square cars on our way to cubical workstations. Over 60% of the American workforce is white collar jobs. By and by we're a pretty lackadaisical crew. You never really hear us publicly complain, sure we have our unions but when we don't get what we want we don't have and MLK to stand up for us or a Bob Dylan or Woody Guthrie to write ballads illuminating our plight.

No generally we grin and bear it. Laughing at our own small foibles and quietly, stoically content with this non-labor-intensive avenue, which winds itself toward the on-ramp for the American Dream.

We stand by our watercoolers, 180 million of us, discussing Paris Hilton's Buddhist Bald Beaver and Sanjaya's screeching songstylings. Reading Slate articles about Jewel and People Magazine articles about Keith Urban, feasting on Youtube’s regurgitated buffet items from our common cultural salad bar: 30-second clips from Happy Days, Music Videos by Crowded House, and all the 80s Saturday Morning Cartoon Shows you can imagine (and some you didn't want to).

We're a community, despite all that divides us. Culture, politics, class… The corporate hegemony of non-harassment mandates, dress code policies, and lawsuit liability prevention keep us in our place. Keep us on the same unlined-deskjet page. Our children go to the same schools, our wives watch the same how-to shows on HGTV, our husbands watch the same games on ESPN.

We bat back and forth the same messages, instantly, on IM. Coax our collective sentiments through forwarded Chain emails. Listen to the same Top40 radio stations, read the same newsfeeds, shop at the same outlet malls…

And yet we don't rally together do we? For all that we have in common, we're still driven by the principal of individual success rather than communal survival. Maybe.

I might be wrong. I'm still young. Just in case I am going to get a hot cup of tea and discuss it with the weirdos down the hall. They're just like me.