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Original poster

Class analysis...

488 replies

BertrandRussell · 22/05/2018 17:24

Why do people find it so difficult? Am I being too simplistic and missing something?
White people as a class have more power than black people as a class.. Men as a class are more violent than women as a class. Is there anything controversial there?

OP posts:
Tinycitrus · 22/05/2018 20:14

I only really understand class as a result of history and sociology reading and a lot of that was Marxist analysis. Which seems to unfashionable these days Blush

UpstartCrow · 22/05/2018 20:10

I've been wondering if it would be productive to use a known symbol - brackets - to denote a class.

Tinycitrus · 22/05/2018 20:09

I wouldn’t define a socio-economic class of people by the colour of their skin.

I think grouping people as ‘black’ or ‘white’ and plotting them on a scale of power relations is an inadequate explanation for the gap between ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’

But I do get that being black and of low socio- economic status is tougher than being white.

thebewilderness · 22/05/2018 20:03

I think you have to define class analysis and class, BertrandRussell, because the education system has been letting people down for at least two generations.

thebewilderness · 22/05/2018 20:01

I am a teensy bit freaked out that we are still on the first page and someone has already demonstrated that they do not know how "class" is defined.

LangCleg · 22/05/2018 18:38

Because we're in the middle of a neoliberal takeover and nothing exists outside self reverence, so there are no classes to analyse?

ErrolTheDragon · 22/05/2018 18:19

Part of it may be egocentricity. If someone says something negative about a class I belong to, I suspect I may sometimes be liable to take it personally emotionally before I start to think about it dispassionately.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 22/05/2018 18:09

What changeypants said

grandplans · 22/05/2018 18:08

Some people have never really spent time thinking about things in this way (lack of education)

Some people genuinely don't get it (lack of intelligence)

Some people don't want to accept what you're saying is true as it doesn't suit them and don't actually care that much about what's true - what they believe is more important (thinking, for example, of people who have convinced themselves transwomen are the most oppressed group. Their political beliefs are more important to them than observable truth).

Buggered · 22/05/2018 18:07

Because classes are made of people, and often class analysis is used as a thinly veiled cover to attack the individual.

MilkTwoSugarsThanks · 22/05/2018 17:54

People don't like being "slagged off" and if you are criticising (don't know if that's the right word) the "class" that they belong to they get defensive. I don't think that's too difficult to understand.

Feminists as a class talk down to and belittle women who don't agree with them.

MIdgebabe · 22/05/2018 17:48

Some people can't think abstractly also

changeypants · 22/05/2018 17:44

I wonder if it's because it can feel uncomfortable to realise you are in a more powerful class. People do anything to avoid unpleasant feelings.