THIS MAKES RATHER A LOT OF SENSE: Was Modernism Invented To Keep the Working Classes Out? “Class is always about distinctions in what you say, eat, wear, and act compared to others higher or lower on the economic rungs. In this case, it was a question of what you read. As working-class readers got deeper into the canon, Rose argues, the canon’s goalposts were moved farther away from them.”

Given the behavior of today’s intellectual class, this seems highly plausible. Intellectuals are extremely status-conscious, but intellectualism is a positional good: One enjoys it only by comparison to the unenlightened.