Just how deeply entrenched in middle class entitlement are you? Take the quiz:
My results:
On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 0 and 4.
In other words, your bubble is so thick you may not even know you’re in one.
In my defense I do at least know I have always lived in the bubble. 
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How Thick Is Your Bubble?
This quiz is inspired by American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray’s new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 – 2010,” which explores the unprecedented, class-based cultural …
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On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12.
In other words, even if you’re part of the new upper class, you’ve had a lot of exposure to the rest of America.
^same score as me.
Yep, me too.
Not jealous of the upper class
Yes, between 9 and 12 here.
Interestingly the things that I answered no to, I still have no wish to change.
Between 5 and 8, but I’ve always felt alienated from mainstream American society.
Between 9 and 12
0 –4
bubble as thick as can be
Between 5 and 8. To be fair, I’m Canadian, not American; and I can name Formula 1 drivers, not NASCAR. “…you can see through your bubble, but you need to get out more.”
You scored between 5 and 8.
In other words, you can see through your bubble, but you need to get out more.
I wonder if the fragmentation in America being discussed by this researcher is part of a wider trend as internet and other technology changes what is considered “my neighborhood.” I have also lived abroad and may not identify myself as strongly with America, but have a more global/international personal culture.
I wonder if my British upbringing is also a factor here. I’m certainly more familiar with F1 than NASCAR though I’m not interested in either. I also have no family exposure to evangelical christians (who are much less common in the UK).
Granted I’ve been over here for 13 years now, but that pales compared to the 28 years I spent growing up in Scotland.
Looking at this thread and some others on this subject, it appears that “You scored between 9 and 12″ is the new average. However, there’s a lot of assumptions being made to come up with these 20 questions, so the test results are bogus.
On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12.
In other words, even if you’re part of the new upper class, you’ve had a lot of exposure to the rest of America.
Interesting questions and many of my yeses were from my youth. If the questions were qualified with say the last 10 years, then I probably would have fallen into the 0 to 4.
And restaurant chains like Applebee’s are US-only.
I wonder what it says about my circles that no one has scored above the 9 – 12 range.
You could probably substitute Applebees with a similar chain restaurant in other countries.
I scored between 9 and 12.
would USA middle class even be here to take the quiz? +Eoghann Irving
Between 5 and 8, with the result that I need to get out more. But then, I work from home. I need to get out more, period.
I really haven’t encountered a lot of people on G+ who seem to have a working class background certainly +Micha Fire
lol I came out between 9 & 12 and would not want to change most of the things that perhaps I could have to seem more cultured to them. This is what happens with a biased quiz.
My results: between 9 and 12. In other words, even if you’re part of the new upper class, you’ve had a lot of exposure to the rest of America.
How does this quizz account for single (no spouse) females? No current or past experience with F1, Hunting/Fishing or Beer doesn’t mean I never will.
+Preston Parkhurst check this out. I wonder how you will score.
Result On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12.In other words, even if you’re part of the new upper class, you’ve had a lot of exposure to the rest of America.
Growing up poor upper class, I get why they asked the questions they did, but:
1) This is only relevant to evaluating bubbles from the US.
2) Even within the US, this is only relevant to certain regions, if even that.
I question if pop culture is a valid methodology for evaluating class bubbles.
Between 9 and 12 for me.
I think I have a cheat code, since I grew up in the deep South. In fact, almost all of the questions seemed to pander to below the Mason-Dixie line.
Then it really is flawed because I know I did not grow up deep south. lol
I think growing up in the uk does effect your score quite a lot, although I’m in the 9 – 12 range so not quite as in the bubble as you +Eoghann Irving think this was possibly helped by liking nascar though.
+Linda Tewes Well over the course of a life time, I’ve had a good bit of exposure, but if I were to limit this to the past 10 years, I’d score much lower. Just getting rid of a television removes about three of these questions. I also do not understand why it is titled as “Just how deeply entrenched in middle class entitlement are you?”, I mean is it an ‘entitlement’ to work your ass off so hard your body aches at the end of the day or is it an entitlement to discuss politics with a friend or know someone who struggled in school? I guess if these are entitlements then things like food and shelter are ‘perks’?
I think if a person has had the exposure of these things at all in their life time they are different than someone who grew up let’s say on Martha s Vineyard and never knows anything else. That would be why there are no time limits on when these experiences happened.
+Tosca Johnson I understand the premise of the piece, but Jimmy Carter had a little brother Billy who struggled in school. I have no doubt Bill Clinton may have had a fridge with Bud lite in it, and we all know Dick Cheney likes to hunt (please duck if you know what is good for you), There is also no doubt in my mind that even among those born in a station of wealth and privilege that they knew someone who smoked cigs or had political discussions.
I think if the questionnaire asked how many people vacation in Aruba, or had a second home in the Hamptons, or perhaps could give the address to the investment firm handing their portfolio. The distinctions between lower, middle and upper class would certainly be more clearly defined. After all, wealthy people can dabble in aspects of my lifestyle, but I cannot dabble in theirs, not that I would even want to.
I don’t think the emphasis here was about wealth though. I think it was about understanding a mind-set that actually isn’t very well promoted either on TV or on the internet.
You mean like programs such as Rosanne, or BJ and the Bear, or Everyone loves Raymond, or movies like Days of Thunder or a River Runs Through It, Mystic Pizza, Flash Dance, The Deer Hunter? I believe we glorify the Middle Class, as for a growing number of people, it is what they are trying to reach. I mean even during an election season, one of the most common poll questions asked of people is, “Could you imagine having a beer with candidate X” as we try to picture important figures at our station of life.
Well I’m supposedly firmly in the bubble and even I don’t think that politicians fumbling around trying to bowl or shows that run exclusively off cliches are representative of a working class / lower middle class America.
Glorifying an ideal and understanding reality are not the same thing.
I agree I don’t think it is simply about money. More the issue of elitism. Asking if people can see themselves drinking a beer with a politician is about asking if they think he or she is real or stuck up and clueless about real life for people that do not look and think like them.
To be fair, I will have to read this book as I just ordered it, as this is a fascinating subject. From the excerpt: “Drawing on five decades of statistics and research, Coming Apart demonstrates that a new upper class and a new lower class have diverged so far in core behaviors and values that they barely recognize their underlying American kinship — divergence that has nothing to do with income inequality and that has grown during good economic times and bad.
The top and bottom of white America increasingly live in different cultures, Murray argues, with the powerful upper class living in enclaves surrounded by their own kind, ignorant about life in mainstream America, and the lower class suffering”.
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I cannot help but think this has always been the case in America and when I think back at the last time such a great divergence in social class among white Americans took place was during the Great Depression. What the author dismisses is economics, noting that class polarization was occurring in good times and bad, I have to disagree, as economics are almost always a major point of class distinction and he even eludes to this in the above credit for his own book.
The authors goes on to point our four key areas where he believes to be the cause of this, “the decline of marriage, of the work ethic, of respect for the law and of religious observance”. As I sit here looking at rates of productivity of American workers since 1970, I have wonder what work ‘ethic’ is he suggesting as missing when the American worker today produces far more than at nearly any time since WWII. Again, I would have to read his entire work to maybe get a better understanding of how he arrived at his conclusions.
Great share though!
I got 0 – 4, but then I lose a few points for being outside the US. Some of the questions, I’m not even sure which side they’re supposed to be on.
+Angel Wedge It is very American as opposed to 1st world slanted. A person would have to have grown up in the USA, live here or be steeped in the general culture to score well.
+Preston Parkhurst I mostly agree with you except I do feel people are more lazy and happy that way than I imagined them from history. We might be churning out more product but there are many more people here now. Also I am sure it matters the sphere one is running in. I think some core values of American life have been or are being lost that chip away at the fabric of what this nation could be.