Looking at some of my recent students' lives after they graduated from the college, I am led to think about the relationship between the job and lifestyle. Incredibly cynical climate of monetaristic winners/losers dichotomy is rampant. Seeing my former students ending up as seriously underpayed, disposable temps on the fringe of the non-repentant, habitually-heavy consummer society is chilling. Andrew Ross's 1998 book REAL LOVE: IN PURSUIT OF CULTURAL JUSTICE might help me realigning my thoughts. The book is a collection of essays written over the period under the Clinton administration. Having lived in the US for most of the 1990s, I have overlooked many scorching issues. I need some retrospective inputs.
It is no coincidence that the rise of claims for cultural justice has occured at a time when a pro-scarcity climate of austerity is also being established. The result is a widely shared perception that this is one form of justice we cannot afford. It is time to debunk this cynical perception, oppose its punitive consequences, and urge that we meet the next challenges of history in the spirit of the culture-and-class coalitions that have too often eluded us. (5)
