u/Mother-Challenge-291

I've been thinking about a philosophical question concerning socioeconomic class, and I'm curious whether there is an existing philosophical concept that addresses it.

Imagine American society as an ocean.

People occupy different socioeconomic "depths." At the upper levels are extremely wealthy people; below them are various professional and middle-class groups; further down are working-class people and people experiencing severe poverty.

I'm not suggesting these are literal or perfectly defined categories. I'm interested in the idea that socioeconomic position might determine not only someone's material circumstances, but also the social world they directly experience.

For example, consider a doctor and a janitor living in the same city.

They technically share the same society, laws, geography, and institutions. But they may attend different schools, live in different neighborhoods, have different social networks, work in different environments, and have very different experiences of money, opportunity, and security.

They might rarely interact except in situations where one is providing a service to the other.

This leads me to the philosophical question:

Can people who occupy radically different socioeconomic positions be said to inhabit different "social realities," even though they objectively live in the same society?

I'm particularly interested in the epistemological aspect.

Someone who has never experienced poverty can know intellectually that poverty exists, but can they have the same understanding of poverty as someone who has lived through it?

Likewise, someone who has never experienced extreme wealth may understand that billionaires exist without having any firsthand understanding of what that social environment is like.

So perhaps socioeconomic position doesn't just determine what resources someone has. It also determines what parts of society they routinely see, experience, and understand firsthand.

The ocean metaphor is what led me to this:

• At the surface, you can see the surface.
• As you descend, the environment changes.
• Eventually there is almost no light from above.
• The deeper you go, the less direct contact you have with what exists at the surface.

Could socioeconomic inequality work similarly, where increasing social distance produces decreasing firsthand knowledge of other socioeconomic groups?

I'm not claiming this is a new philosophical theory. I'm trying to figure out whether this idea already exists under another name.

Are there philosophers or philosophical concepts that deal with:

1. socioeconomic position affecting what people can know about society,
2. different social groups having fundamentally different lived experiences,
3. social distance producing epistemic distance, or
4. whether people can genuinely understand experiences they have never personally encountered?

I'm especially interested in criticism of the idea. I'm trying to determine whether the "different social realities" claim actually follows logically, or whether I'm confusing differences in experience with differences in reality.

How do I become enough of a man? Let’s start from the top. In order for a man to marry he must be financially stable to provide a home, food, and clothing for his wife. He also, must provide her mahr of her choice. Also, he must be an active practicing Muslim and approved by the Wali. For him to even qualify for a hug from his future wife. Now, here’s where it gets advanced. In America, most people who have degrees are able to obtain a financially stable career, blue collar work, salesforce, etc, is sufficient as long as it meets the financial requirements of the woman and the approval from her family. Culture, the woman may only look for potential husbands that is from the same nationality as her or similar. Her family might also instill that in her as well, that she should marry someone who is the same culture or similar. For example, an Egyptian might never marry someone from Nigeria and vice versa, even though they are both Muslims and come from Muslim families, it also may have nothing to do with education or finances, just pure culture differences. Education, most families requires a man to have a certain amount of education, a bachelor degree is the gold standard, anything below that could possibly limit his potential income, which decreases his chances of getting married. Regardless of how old he is, he could be a new 30 year old newly revert, it will make him question his entire life choices. Or a 21 year old Muslim-born who just finished college, because of his strong family influence, which allows him to marry early. Reverts experience unlimited amounts of pain, worthlessness, and loneliness, because he doesn’t qualify for a hug from a woman, he can’t date them, and her family isn’t going to approve of that man either, unless he betters himself. The lack of resources and knowledge to achieve that was nonexistent. By the time he does all of that, his marriage pool is limited, because majority of his potentials got married while he was trying to better himself. So that man is probably gonna to marry much younger women. Mental health, in the process of trying to become the best man he can be, his mental health deteriorates, due to lack of affection, absolute zero physical touch from a woman, no talking to a woman, unless her wali is present, and Zina is obviously prohibited. He might be surrounded by brothers or possibly be alone. When mental health decreases, self-isolation and destructive thoughts and actions increase. Which will affect his social life, because other brothers/family members can disagree and could disown or not speak to him anymore. I can go on this topic for an extremely long time. I just want to know. What do I have to do to become enough and truly feel accepted by others in Islam?