Class

[Roadrunner]

Originally posted by kilauea

I feel I have skirted around the classes a little in my life and I think for me the biggest diferentiator is "culture". Fashion, music, food (btw - I might have assumed you were of a "different" class to me by the very fact you were eating at burger king), choice of car etc.

It has to be remebered that you can have still have class - as in style - on a low budget.

I don't believe money has anything to do with it. I am "dropping out" soon from a very well paid job to a fairly poorly paid one because I believe I will gain greater personal satisfaction from it. I don't think my "class" will change as a result.

 

Agreed!

 

On of the best novels in recent years which examined the issue of social class in contemporary Britain was The Buddah of Suburbia. The main character describes the principle difference between the middle and working classes as, "...that they [the middle class] know their way around an entire culture, whereas I didn't have the faintest." That's a very important aspect.

 

I am working class, and only went to university as a mature student when I was 26. I felt in a very alien environment, because I simply wasn't used to living among middle class people, however good or bad their behaviour was.

 

However, I have met enough middle class people whom I have got on with fabulously to have taught me that it is the individual and their personality that determines whether we like or get on with another person or not.

 

Nevertheless, it is probably still true that it is more likely that members of your own class will appeal to you the most.

 

Even though I am working class, I do have the feeling that Neville Wran, the former State Primier of New South Wales in Australia, was not far from the truth when he said, "the best thing about being working class is getting out of it!"

[Roadrunner]

[

Low income does not define someone as being lower class. But being lower class often means they have low income.

Cocktail/Dinner parties - does that have nothing to do with class? Will someone who swears all the time and mugs old ladies for their pocket change go home, change into evening wear and host a quiet gathering?

 

And the people who are decrying class and saying that it makes no difference to yourselves. Go and re-read your responses on the Chavs thread. That's the type of class i'm talking about, class defined by behaviour, not by birth or type of employment. [/b]

 

I think you're absolutely correct.

[Snook]

So what your saying is that class is nothing to do with where you live and what job you do and how much education you have? I thought that was the whole thingwith class... i mean, that is what defined peoples 'class'.... and i always thought it was rather stupid.... maybe not quite as stupid as saying you raise in class if you have cocktail parties and don't wear shell-suits. It seems like everyone has a different idea of class, so why not let everyone decide what class they are.

 

I said working class before, instead of lower class, because if they aren't the same thing, i have no idea what lower class is. I have never thought of working class as an insult, but it seems people are using lower case in an insulting way.

 

Working class, the class of people who are engaged in manual labor, or are dependent upon it for support; laborers; operatives; -- chiefly used in the plural.

 

Middle class, in England, people who have an intermediate position between the aristocracy and the artisan class. It includes professional men, bankers, merchants, and small landed proprietors

 

Upper class, the class occupying the highest position in the social hierarchy.

 

Anything else is just how someone acts, and has nothing to do with class but is more to do with style and etiquette.

[Roadrunner]

I think that was the traditional position, but I suspect that the impact of technology and social reform has shifted the goalposts slightly.

 

However, it is still the case that it requires an educated person to perform professional jobs, and along with their education, they are likely to have acquired the habits of a more cultivated individual, and hence those characteristics come to represent what it means to be middle class.

 

Your point about not using the term working class in a derogatory fashion is fascinating, and potentially explosive! The so-called social inclusion initiative is - on the face of it - very egalitarian. However, I can't help thinking that it is predicated on the belief that working class people require imporvement, so that they can emulate the values of other social classes. On the other hand, if one ackowledges that social classes exist as differences between people, and there's nothing more to it, what does that say about extending fairness and opportunity across society?

 

Personally, I think the empowerment and emancipation of the individual is the best way to go about making society altogether more civil and humane, values which I think we would all subscribe to, whatever one's political persuasion. Although this is egalitarian thinking in my view, it is clearly incompatible with socialist planning and New Labour's preference for buearacracy and big government.

 

I think this highlights the central role of class and its associated values in society, and what would be the hallmarks of goodness, and a good life.

[JoeP]

I was born in to a very working class family, and now view myself as educated working class. Some would consider me middle class - I'm not sure because I don't have any of the 'traditional' trappings of that class in terms of background, etc.

 

None of my character or behavioural traits I blame on or attribute to class. That's my personal development. The whole 'predetermination based on class' is Marxist twaddle and whether people like it or not is irrelevant today.

 

Don't judge soemone by their class - so much of that today is marketing and snobbery driven - but by their character and behaviour.

 

Joe

[Roadrunner]

While I agree completely that it is the individual's characteristics which determine how we judge people - and this is right and proper - I do think that people raised in similar social circumstances will probably, although not necessarily, be inclined to have preferences for those of their own ilk.

 

Similarly, being raised in Britain and its culture has given us many shared characteristics which we would not share with a foreigner, and therefore give us more to connect with in our fellow countrymen and women. However, it is of course entirely plausible that we might get on with a particular foreigner we happen to meet and like than with our next door neighbour, for example. A good argument for rejecting patriotism, or its extremes.

 

Sorry to digress, but I thought it was a useful analogy.

[Rich]

I personally don't care about class, because as far as I'm concerned people are the same regardless of where they come from, how much money they make, what car they drive, whatever.

 

Just cos Joe Bloggs works for McDonalds, lives in Parson Cross and only drives a second hand Fiesta doesn't make him any less a person than Fred from say Ecclesall who lives in a 250 Grand house with a big garden and has 2.4 kids etc.

[Titian]

Originally posted by Cyclone

And the people who are decrying class and saying that it makes no difference to yourselves. Go and re-read your responses on the Chavs thread. That's the type of class i'm talking about, class defined by behaviour, not by birth or type of employment.

 

Feel free to check my posts on any "chav" thread. Not sure that I have posted on any but if I had then they would not indicate any hypocracy on my part I'm sure.

[owdlad]

This has the beginings of a Monty Python sketch...lol.all we need now is John Cleese and the two Ronnies and we are all ready to go. I am middle class and look down on him.

[Cyclone]

Originally posted by Rich

I personally don't care about class, because as far as I'm concerned people are the same regardless of where they come from, how much money they make, what car they drive, whatever.

 

Just cos Joe Bloggs works for McDonalds, lives in Parson Cross and only drives a second hand Fiesta doesn't make him any less a person than Fred from say Ecclesall who lives in a 250 Grand house with a big garden and has 2.4 kids etc.

 

I agree, but that's not what I was talking about. If Joe is uncouth, has poor personal hygiene and fights a lot after his 10 pints every evening, and Fred is polite, well spoken and debate politics or science sensibly. Isn't that a different class of person?

Maybe class is an attitude, more than anything else.