to think this class system only exists on MN?

[GildedWingsOfGrace]

All the time I hear "middle class" bashing on here.

Or "working class" guilt. Only on MN.

I wouldn't have a clue what class I am or what class my friends are, or the people I work with are.

It doesn't even occur to me, and I never hear it mentioned in day to day life

quite possibly human nature is not compatible with democracy

Mini you sound like you just swallowed a dictionary whilst studying for level 1 NVQ in economic & political theory :o

(stuffing your sentences with long & obscure words just makes you sound pompous & pretentious )

It is odd the way people claim to not believe in the class system. Everytime I open my mouth I am judged in this country according to class prejudice. And some of those assumptions and predjudices may be correct
Accepting we have a class system is not the same as being overly concerned about your friends backgrounds and I think sometimes people confuse the two.

I am born and bred working class but have a completely different lifestyle to my parents and my siblings. I am university educated, reasonably high earning, property owning and have a professional job.

In their words, my family now think I'm posh and actually a bit of a social climber which was a real insult growing up. That's not true but we grew up in real poverty always on the verge of eviction and I just decided I wasn't going to live like that and was going to do whatever was necessary.

I have a completely different accent now which just makes it look even more deliberate. I had to make a conscious effort to change it working with US clients as no-one could understand me and it's just stuck. I also live 300 miles away from my family and have done for years.

I don't care about being perceived as middle class and would rather be considered working but cant deny I prefer having this lifestyle.

Its the apparent need to be considered higher class that some people seem to have makes me cringe. The amount of threads I have seen about U and non U language and certain words being unutterable for example is just laughable to me!

It's a complex and interesting subject all right though.

VB had her hair scraped up in a ponytail or bun on the side and David wore his medals on the wrong side - so all that money, all that style and they still got it wrong

This is totally irrelevant crap. The important structural issues at work when we discuss class are a) someone's access to and relationship with capital b) their degree of power in the labour market.

Everything else is window dressing which, unfortunately, people get obsessed with picking over because they think they can be so clever and enjoy pointing out what people have done 'wrong'. A total distraction from the real issues.

The economic reality is that if you work for wages you are working class. Should your wages be denied to you because your skills are no longer needed or you are simply two a penny then your greatest fear will be realised. Your cultural signifiers will not pay the heating bill or afford you the luxury of keeping up pretences.

This is absolutely right. Mini is spot on. And this has nothing to do with being 'incompatible with democracy'. What the hell are you on about?

Lazysuzanne which words have a used that are too long and obscure? I take the view that it would be contemptible to assume that everyone is dim and illiterate.

Mini, your general style is somewhat florid and verbose with rambling and overly complex sentences and sections which have the appearance of having been filched directly from an O level text book.
Or to put it another way you are far from succinct.

Damn you've got me doing it now:o

I take the view that it would be contemptible to assume that everyone is dim and illiterate.

^^I rest my case!!

I was born into what I perceive 'working class'. Mum 16 when my brother was born, 19 when I came along. She worked in manual jobs such as cleaning, bar tending, shop assistant and my dad work ed in car mechanics, later a bus driver and now he is a taxi driver and my mum a shop assistant. They started family life in rented accommodation then when I was 3 they managed to get a foot on the property ladder. They've owned 2 homes since then but they are still in the same type of work. They were hands on parents - always attending parents evening, school concerts etc and sat with us to do our homework. They instilled a sense of discipline and self worth in us, encouraging us to do better than what they did. I went to university and my brother worked his way up the ranks in the army.
Today I am married with a toddler, both of us are in 'professional jobs' having both been university educated. We own a car each, have a large home compared to many and manage 2 holidays abroad a year as well as a couple of weekends though we rarely dine out or have drinking nights out with friends.
I often get mistaken for 'upper class' because of the size of our home - i was just lucky with the housing market at the time and people often snub me because they assume I am posh and not from their class.
Personally, I don't give a flying monkey what class anyone is. I am friends with people who share the same interests and values as me and I believe that people of every class can do that. I consider myself to have an 'inbred' sense of working class values that was drilled into me as a child and thus respect those who do 'those' types of jobs because without them, we simply couldn't exist in the society we do. Without shop assistants, bus drivers, cleaners etc, etc we'd live in a very isolated, dirty environment with no means of being able to 'trade'. I simply chose my lifestyle because the job I do is the job I was interested in and liked.
I really despise it when people of all classes ignore, degrade, criticise and separate themselves from those of a 'different' class rather than accept them.
The class system has always been within our society and is a necessity to make the world turn and develop. The class system is developing as time goes by and people do migrate between them. We just need to have a more tolerant view and accept people for who they are.

yes, all those tautologies make one look so working class

I don't think there's anything unclear about the way mini has written, but to be honest, I'd rather see the occasional complex sentence than passive aggressive smiley faces everywhere.

Total distraction from the discussion.

I know this is completely my issue but the thing that bothers me the most about class is how there all these studies and dm articles about how mc educated mothers are better mothers and how my dd won't be a successful as someone who's dm is educated. It just makes me feel like I've failed her already

It just makes me feel like I've failed her already

That's the whole point of those DM articles. To make to feel bad and wear you down. And to make other people feel smug and buoyed up.

When researchers look systematically at people's educational outcomes and working lives, they do tend to find that children born into middle class families have better outcomes. But this is because of an inequality of wealth and resources. But instead of tackling inequality throughout society, DM writers would rather try and belittle working class people and make them feel that they have failed or done something wrong.

It also shows how pointless it is to move from broad generalisations and apply them to individual people by pigeonholing them.

Anything that suggests that to a working class parent that they aren't as good as parenting as a middle class person is horrible, offensive, patronising crap.

Thanks heads I always hope the fact that I want to educate myself and encourage dd will have an impact

Emergent services worker on the BBC survey.

I am an English language lecturer and run a department in a college. We live in a very affluent area.

The test seems to think i am not middle class because we rent and don't earn much.

Well so far this week it has been insinuated I am up, wc, a teenager, an old hat, an o'level candidate and an academic. What am I? Does it matter? all of it stems from the fact that people will not engage with the argument and prefer resort to personal judgement. Again it matters "what" I am because people have a need to judge.
So if I say my car is 12 years old?
I watch Polo occasionally
I read the FT sometimes
I am a drop out
My children have very strange names
I never shop on the high street
I hate Asda
I have no o'levels I'm too young to have sat them.
My speech is more RP than cockney
My mother married a Count
I don't work for wages
I have no modern furniture or prints
I think floors are for walking on and I would be perplexed if you take your shoes off
etc,...

Does it matter what I am to the extent that what I say can only be judged in light of what class I am? Now who is being pretentious?

'Does it matter what I am to the extent that what I say can only be judged in light of what class I am'

is that a tongue twister

No, but I bet you can be a pain in the bum mini - that much is clear. Marxism is just another way of installing dictatorship.

Why are you two so determined to derail the conversation with passive aggressive smiley faces, extended scrutiny of mini's sentence structure and blether about dictatorships?

Mini, I'd say you belong to the 'class' of people who likes to brag about being clever and classless and free

but Mini herself used a smiley face, was she being 'passive aggressive'?

what exactly do you mean by passive aggressive anyway?

and to be frank her sentence structure hints at sophistry

Yeah, tbf I think her smiley face was being used passive aggressively as well.

It's obvious what I mean, or do you want to split hairs about that too?

Anyway, so what if her "sentence structure hits at sophistry"? She still had valid, interesting things to say about the thread topic.

If you want to spend time doing prat crit on someone's sentence structure, why not start a thread for that.

Well I could make the point that sophistry and validity are mutually exclusive, but you're right I should find some other way to amuse myself

A misleading argument doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't some truth, or worth in the points she made, even if you're suspicious of the conclusions.

Anyways, glad you agree.