Mark:
The poster is, to some extent, more than slightly pregnant with the polarities and issues amplified in the civic dialogue that builds the Lakewood brand through the post and thread.
Expect Jim to move the way he moves. Nothing personal, because it's completely personal.
The poster raises an issue because he/she feels the need to do so, to see if other neighbors will converge or diverge around the feeling that something is up or down and all around the Wood.
Is it me? Or does the issue have traction in the Wood?
How snooty, wealthy, elitist is Lakewood? That will depend on your vantage point, of course.
There is clearly the renter/owner pecking order.
I can be a snob in that I prefer smart to stupid, good New York style pizza to bad hillbilly pizza. Yet I wore my Lakewood Observer Tee Shirt with pride to Marcs yesterday to buy some “Organics" juice on sale.
There are hierarchies based on power, prestige, resources, status consciousness in any system. With capitalism there is a pecking order – roughly speaking, owners, managers, workers, and underclass.
The lower you go on the pecking order, the more likely you will feel “something†in the system is doing "something" to screw you.
Does Lakewood belong to the pecking order of capitalism? Of course it does.
Is there a class pecking order that spans underclass Cleveland neighborhoods, to Lakewood, to Rocky River, to Westlake, to Bay Village?
I would say so.
Is the Lakewood Observer a platform for those who feel something in the regional system of the pecking order is putting the screws to the Wood?
I would say so again.
The city that would know itself must consider the feelings spawned from the pecking order of capitalism and consumption.
Consumption also allows each of us to act out divisions of class through the exercise of choice and taste in the market.
Perhaps these women were traveling from a Cleveland neighborhood lower on the pecking order with more underclass than Lakewood. Perhaps Lakewood’s middle class was shopping at the time.
From anecdotal conversations it is my sense that Tops is the lowest on the pecking order of food stores in Lakewood. Perhaps these women were new to Giant Eagle, one peck up on the order. Of course, Lakewood’s upper middle class shops at Heinen’s and wishes a more upscale supermarket could set up shop in the Wood.
Lakewood is a space of human nature, with a base line like any other.
Dr. Geoffrey Miller brings the science of human nature to the world of consumerism, and vice-versa. His class explores these avenues:
"the evolutionary origins of human preferences, tastes, and motivations
romantic gift-giving, biological signalling theory, and conspicuous consumption
theories of fads, fashions, information cascades, and social networks
the psychology of product recognition, branding, and advertising
the design of news, entertainment, and education as products
spatial cognition, landscape preferences, and the design of houses, shops, resort hotels, and theme parks
the social psychology of service industries and corporate public relations
intuitive cost/benefit/risk perception and the design of financial products (equities, bonds, insurance, loans, derivatives, portfolios)
Darwinian aesthetics of product design
Ways that the features of products and markets can be scientifically informative about human nature; ways to apply the new psychology in market research and product development"
Source:
http://www.hbes.com/HBES/gmiller-syllabus.htm
All of the above lean into the conversation.
Kenneth Warren
