This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 2, 2011 - When Joseph Higgs of St. Louis takes the stage to teach elementary school kids how to create slime or make toilet paper fly he is not only advancing their knowledge of scientific principles, he is living his current version of the American Dream.
The 37-year-old "mad scientist" in the white lab coat mixes one part science and one part theater to help young minds understand the complexities of chemistry and physics. Higgs has taken his "Nitro Joe's Science Show" to schools, libraries and private parties across much of the Midwest, and it is obvious that he enjoys his job.
"Science is about understanding how things work," he says. "It's a blast."
Higgs is a self-employed entrepreneur with a formula for mixing education with fun. While he makes his living teaching kids about polymers in the form of neon-colored ooze, he says he has learned a thing or two about people: the advantaged and the disadvantaged; the urban and the rural; the poor and the working class; the middle class and the uber-rich. He sees the gamut of American lifestyles as he mingles with kindergartners through eighth-graders and their teachers and their parents.
"I've been to gorgeous, drop-dead homes, and I've been to little bitty, tiny apartments. I'll go anywhere. It doesn't matter to me. I'm equal opportunity," said Higgs, who responded to a recent Beacon inquiry asking readers to share their perspectives about class.
Based on his experience, Higgs contends that there are really just two classes in the United States these days: the super-wealthy and everyone else. The super-rich, he says, have nothing in common with the majority of Americans, even those in the "lower" upper class.
"These are people who really don't associate with anyone else because they don't have to. They're people who are used to having servants around them all of the time. It's a whole different level," Higgs said. "Now, I'm going to get along just fine with your average lawyer making $1 million a year. But when you get to the super-rich, the idea of compensation doesn't exist. They exist, and they have, and they tell you what to do, and you do it, and that's it. There is no common ground."
Higgs believes that while people can be defined by how much money they make, the geography of where they live is the most important influence on their class.
"Income determines where a person will live, who they can influence, who they can be influenced by, where they can travel and other things," he said.
In St. Louis, he says, the influence of geography is particularly easy to pin down.
"One of the standard St. Louis questions is 'Where did you go to high school?' But most people who aren't from the area don't understand how important that question is," Higgs said. "With that question I get an idea of what neighborhood you grew up in, the type of people you know. I get a lot from your background."
To Higgs, the concept of class is simply a way of identifying "who's where."
"I kind of look at it from the outside in," he said. "Where you're located, where you go to school, who you're around matters to what opportunity you get."
People who live in poor neighborhoods have little chance to meet stockbrokers or airline pilots, doctors and attorneys. They have little opportunity to travel and limited opportunity to broaden horizons and expand aspirations, he said.
Higgs identifies himself as being in the "lower class" because he doesn't make a lot of money and because his family lives in a "lower income, city neighborhood" even though he could find a bigger house for less money in, say, Jefferson County.
But, he adds, "I'm comfortable with where I am and what I'm doing."
What Class Are You?
There is something off-putting about questions regarding class and something equally uncomfortable about having to answer them.
It also feels so un-American.
In a nation that declares "all are created equal," a question about class goes against that grain, requiring us to rank ourselves. And in America no one is better than anyone else. While some might have more money and influence, they still put their pants on, one leg at a time.
Yes, there is an economic ladder, but aren't we all free to climb it?
The fact is, more than half of Americans now think the American Dream is no longer attainable for the majority of Americans, according to research compiled by The Pew Charitable Trusts American Mobility Project. (Link is to a pdf)
Most of the readers who responded to the Beacon's inquiry about class through the Public Insight Network, also expressed concerns about the impact of the economic downturn on future social mobility.
Higgs, for one, still believes in the promise of talent and hard, honest work.
"Conversely, there's nothing that laziness and apathy can't destroy," he adds. "Pulling oneself up by the bootstraps simply means doing the work that is in front of you and doing it well. Anyone can do a simple task, like mop a floor, and look unhappy and complain. Few people can do it with a smile knowing that this is just a steppingstone to something better."
Higgs has an associate's degree in communication and studied musical theater in college, but he also credits his current enterprise to the science demonstrations he did as a teen-ager while working at the St. Louis Science Center. Higgs grew up three miles from Forest Park and used to ride his bicycle to work at the The Muny and Science Center.
Higgs, who now home schools his own children, attended Catholic elementary school and Hazelwood West junior and senior highs.
"I was one of those kids in the '80s who took advantage of desegregation programs," he said.
His educational experience helped him think beyond the neighborhood where he grew up.
"When people live and work and spend most of their time in a three-square mile area, they're defined by it," he said. "I never did that. My school was 15 miles a way. I'm used to traveling."
Higgs, who is sometimes the only African-American in the place during one of his performances, also believes that race is no longer the determining factor that it once was.
"I travel to a lot of places and spend quite a lot of time in outstate Illinois and Missouri and small towns. On occasion, there's an eyebrow raised: 'Oh, wow, this guy's black.' After they see the show, they say it's great. People are more accustomed to seeing people of color now. Race is not nearly as much a deal as geography is," he said.
Perspectives of a Depression baby
Steve DeLorey, 80, takes the long view on class: He was born in 1930, just as the Great Depression was taking hold.
Though he grew up in Boston, DeLorey has made St. Louis his home for 50 years. He thinks that residents of this area do not pay as much attention to class distinctions as people do in other parts of the country, or world.
"That's a very positive thing about St. Louis," he said. "If they have a common interest, people are able to band together and work together as equals, regardless of class distinctions."
DeLorey, a retired director of information services, describes himself as middle class because he has a "fairly good income" and two college degrees — a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master's from Washington University. He believes the definition of class shifts with the level of prosperity.
"When I was growing up, my father was a working man; he shoveled coal for a living," DeLorey said. "But we always considered ourselves to be middle class. Mainly, because it was the Depression and my father had a job. Those who were unemployed or on welfare were in the lower class."
Looking back, DeLorey says his family's economic class was probably lower class or working class.
"People stopped using lower class and started talking about blue collar and white collar," DeLorey notes. "Our words have changed to take the edge off. But as far as I'm concerned, lower class is lower class, and you don't want to be there."
Although DeLorey believes that the overall level of class consciousness isn't as high today as when he was young, he thinks class distinctions still matter — because they often present barriers to upward mobility.
"Being raised in the lower middle class, I didn't know what I didn't know," he wrote in his response to the Beacon inquiry. "For one thing, I didn't know what opportunities were available. However, when I discovered a few good ones, I was able to make the most of them."
DeLorey believes that individuals can change their class, in either direction.
"They can move up by hard work and socially responsible behavior," he says. "They can move down by wasting their time, talent and fortune."
That said, DeLorey is concerned that for the first time in its history the U.S. may not see its next generation move forward and will need to adjust its attitudes. He cites limited resources, such as coal and oil, and the fact that the earth is approaching environmental limits. He is also worried about jobs.
"Unemployment is systemic and not something we're going to be able to fix in a short time," he said. "To reverse it, we have to change a lot of our policy decisions. We cannot continue to export jobs the way we have been. The availability of good paying jobs in this country has declined precipitously while the population continues to increase. There are fewer jobs and more people looking for jobs."
And that includes Americans with good educations, he said.
"They spent the first 25 years of their lives preparing for a particular occupation and it isn't there."
DeLorey, whose background was information systems and computers, said that it became obvious to him about 30 years ago that technology could automate any job, but the expense was too great.
"As the cost of automation went down and wages went up, we passed the intersection point where it becomes economically feasible to automate," he said, adding, "That includes a lot of jobs for college grads."
DeLorey worries about how wealth will be distributed in the future, as the nation's economic realities continue to evolve.
"From a social standpoint, all the rules that we've lived by for centuries about work hard and you shall be rewarded, they're no longer valid," he said. "Being able to work; being willing to work; being qualified to work isn't going to be enough anymore."
