Bickford vs Duncan

Even though these two articles were close in context, I felt Duncan’s article was much more interesting. I was able to understand it more because my community relates more to a physical segregation like described in Duncan’s article. You know the residents are of a higher class because they maintain their lawns to a specific detail. Yet, in Maine, both alpha and beta classes will mingle with each other because of Maine’s absence of multiple schools, organizations, and backgrounds.

Both articles were about segregation just in different forms. It doesn’t matter which group a family belongs to, they are labeled by society just from location. Both groups use different means of segregation with same results in society.

I felt Bickford was talking about a mental type of segregation. It is more of each person’s comfort zone in today’s society. People are attracted to areas with people of similar ethics, personalities, and finances. Ghettos attract the uneducated and the poor. CID’s attract the wealthier families. We all want to be comfortable and be around people that have the same interests as ourselves.

Duncan’s article is separating society by more of a physical mean. The alpha community is using a landscape motif to describe their place in society which they consider is a higher class. They would be categorized into the professional class or maybe the capital class. Their kids go to an upper class school but will they really get a better education? IVY leaguers can come out of any high school.

The beta group will focus on public image by their financial standings rather than heritage, as the alpha group does. They didn’t think much of the landscape motif so they considered themselves in a separate societal class. Who’s to judge which class is the higher achiever?

Herb was talking about this in his latest entry about how society separates themselves into a particular class. Maine does not function like this because we are limited by our industrial economics. I would consider Maine to have two classes: working or a non working class. It’s not likely to recognize a Maine resident to be in the capital class, more likely the professional class, but most would be considered in the labor class.