Slumming and Classism

It is one of life's great ironies that the upper classes envy the lower classes their freedom. They consider any interaction with us to be "slumming", but they like to be tourists in our world. It's been this way for a long time.

Slumming It

In the 19th century there was a form of tourism called "slumming". Its purpose was to reinforce the idea among the rich that the poor really were degenerates by taking them through a poor neighborhood to gawk. It was dangerous and exciting, and the entertainment value of the voyeurism was good. 

Slums and Slumming In Late Victorian London

Tour guides would take upper and middle-class thrill seekers into poor or ethnic neighborhoods to "see how the other half lived". In order to make it exciting for the people who paid to go on a guided tour, the sense of danger had to be produced by implying that the poor people around them were naturally a little criminal, so there might be muggers and pickpockets around. In order to keep tourists coming on the tours, the poverty and degradation had to be sensationalized a little. A lot of the tour operators would pay people in the neighborhoods to stage things in front of the tourists, like a mugging or a fight. They would take people through opium dens essentially filled with actors for the benefit of the tourists. It turned poverty into entertainment. 

Another aspect of this was to highlight the difference in station between the wealthy people paying for the tour and the people they were viewing like animals in the zoo. It was like the Victorian equivalent of "Scared Straight". Instead of taking wayward kids to prison to see where they might end up if they keep acting out, well-to-do Victorian parents took their children on a poverty tour to see what could await them if they ever lost their place in society, but also to discourage them from ever feeling any solidarity with the poor. It reinforced the mentality at the time which said that the poor were from degenerate stock and riddled with social and hereditary problems because of it. It blamed their situation on them, with the questionable charity of saying that it wasn't their fault they were backwards and ignorant because they were born that way. It impressed upon them the natural order of things according to the philosophers and men of learning at the time. It caused the rich and upper classes to view the lower classes as almost another species. Cattle to be shepherded by those superior in judgment.

William Hogarth - A Rake's Progress

The prevailing opinion during the Enlightenment thought was that degeneracy and social problems were the result of poor choices and were the fault of the person suffering. A painter called William Hogarth painted series of prints meant to illustrate the journey from respectability and health to disease and destitution and moral corruption. It wasn't that poverty caused these things, it was that bad choices created poverty and if you were poor then it was your own fault. Poverty was used to illustrate ideas about morality and to present the audience of these prints with a cautionary tale. These kind of cautionary tales continued being made into the 20th century. "This is what will happen to you if you stray from the path laid out for you. This is how they got there and this is where you will end up if you become like them and take up their vices. Ironically the upper class was projecting their own worst vices on the poor again, but they didn't understand that. Later on they began charitable crusades to save the poor from themselves. 

Temperance Movement

This evolved into things like the Salvation Army later on, aiding the destitute with a large helping of moralizing, or the Temperance movement in America which succeeded at getting Prohibition passed on the grounds that it was for the good of the poor that certain decisions be taken out of their hands. They patterned their literature and illustrations on William Hogarth's work. 

Modern Slumming

Hillbillies

With the advent of film and radio and later on with television, the poor were mocked and ridiculed. Instead of taking tours with staged drama in person, the well-to-do cut out the middleman and no longer had to go into the slums to get their fix of voyeurism. Instead of having to expose themselves to the "real thing" (which was arguably never what they'd been getting in the first place), they could see it represented on television and point and laugh at the comical or degenerate representations they saw there. The premise of The Beverly Hillbillies, for example, poked fun at how ridiculous it would be for a poor, uneducated hillbilly to suddenly become rich. It reinforced the stereotype for entertainment. It was lighthearted fun.

Later we got gritty crime dramas and miniseries about the evils of poverty and the pitiable state of the lower classes. Later still we got daytime talk shows like Rikki Lake and Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil where people make a spectacle of themselves and overact their own stereotyping for an audience while being talked down to by a calm, sensible host. Finally we get around to "reality television", a gift we have the Dutch to thank for after they introduced Big Brother to the world. It was showing off the very worst of human nature because morbid curiosity means that everybody loves watching a train wreck. Ironically, just as in the beginning with the slum tours, almost everything about reality television is scripted to get better ratings.  

Perhaps the worst result of it is that poor people internalize stereotypes about themselves and try to live up to the example they're presented with. It's what they feel is expected of them. It's what they've been told they are. The people looking down on them form their opinions based on a dramatized representation of what they think poor people are like, and not informed by reality because they never come down to our level to see for themselves. All of it serves to reduce their sympathy for the people they consider less human than themselves. It reinforces their belief in the wisdom of preserving the social hierarchy. And yet they envy us our freedom to be ourselves and our ability to create and do the things that they cannot, like art and music and our abandon when we have fun. They think we're happier and more carefree than they are, unburdened as we are by the weight of the world or morals according to them. Besides, if we weren't inferior they wouldn't be able to feel good about themselves by helping us or better yet, saving us from ourselves. It's done condescendingly. 

Slum tourism, whether it is done in person or from the safety of our screens is to reinforce the social order and make those better off count their blessings that they weren't born poor. It also serves to make the lower classes believe that they are inferior so they don't get ideas above their station or aspire to improve their situation. It's easier to meet expectations when they are set very low. Why try harder? It serves to discourage us and make us ashamed of ourselves for being poor. It makes us blame ourselves because all we ever hear is that it's our own fault. "Work hard, follow the rules and you will succeed. If you can't succeed then you must not be trying, or you must be naturally inferior and/or lazy." It informs our low opinion of ourselves and our fellow poor people. It robs us of our empathy and obscures the reasons for our poverty which are outside of our control.