To find the British "inverse snobbery"… weird?!?

[MillieV]

OK - first things first… I'm not a Brit, but have been here for over a dozen years. As an "international", I seem to not belong to any particular class. Hence, I'm not defined by the class system here, and I find it really weird how so many people think.

I mean… in all seriousness... I sometimes feel this place is some alternate universe ripe to be portrayed in the next dystopian novel, where one is meant to stay in their own class bubble, never moving anywhere else. In movies, it's always "snobbery" that's portrayed - rich people looking down on the poor. So I'm so surprised to have found that "inverse snobbery" exists. To be honest, this is the FIRST country I've ever encountered that in (and I've lived in many), below are just some of the symptoms:

• People not wanting to see other people better themselves (shock horror, how dare they?) - this one truly p*sses me off

• People saying things like they 'are a working class family with professional jobs'. Jeeez… what does that even mean?!? So what… your great-grandfather was a miner or something… and hence, you still define yourself as working class? Oh. My. God. How far back do you go? Middle Ages? Or back when the Neanderthal was still around?

• People never wanting to hear about a sport that's perceived as posh (and turn their noses up at any mention of them).

… and yes, don't even mention private schooling.

Can someone please tell a 'Non-Brit' why this is? What's this obsession about?!?

This won't go down well.

Sneering at people for being refined in their tastes and language is very common in England.

I suppose it is - can only be - envy.

Why else? "Live and let live" doesn't include sneering and pointing fingers, does it.

Were there class systems amongst neanderthals?

Australians can be inverted snobs.

I'm always a tiny bit suspicious about people in other countries bemoaning the British class system and saying that they don't have one. I moved to Canada, where everyone is completely convinced they don't have social stratification. Then I meet people who are First Nations, people with tattoos who smoke, people who shop at Walmart rather than whole-foods, organic, local expensive shops and note who hangs out with whom.

Oh yes, Canadians you have social stratification. Yes you do. Where are you from, OP?

Have experienced a small amount of the reverse snobbery, some folks assume they know a lot about my dh if they know he went to Oxford and they are almost always wrong on every count.

But I understand what you mean about often being seen as classless, and being accepted, at least to begin with, by almost everyone. Then realizing you have expected others to mix socially in a way they find unnatural. I see it as a bit of a defence against those you expect to hassle you and a pride in your background. I don't think it is uniquely British, though. Definitely existed where I grew up, and in the various places i have lived as an adult.

Bulbasaur I just want to see active discussion. As you can see, other Non-Brits don't get it either. I was actually inspired by an earlier thread where some people were surprised that in other countries "class" didn't boil down to who you were born to.

MrsTerryPratchett I'm from another Western European country.

There are aways class systems anywhere.

BUT what I find is that in most developed nations you don't get defined by what your ancestors did for the rest of your life. You most certainly would not see yourself as "working class" when you're firmly "middle class" or higher. Instead, you're defined by what you make out of yourself rather than what your ancestors did. My dad studied Law and ended up being well-off. He's defined by his own achievements not whatever his father did. Ditto with his children - we all are doing completely different things, so some are moving up the ladder, while some are moving down. But the bottom line is - it's up to us. I don't even know what my grandparents did - the only stories I do remember are the ones that are memorable because they sounded a bit like Titanic/Romeo & Juliet...

IndeliKate I don't see it in my circle of friends at all, but they are very international. However, I do see (and hear) it around me - but I tend to avoid people who have a bit of an unhealthy obsession / chip on their shoulder because, surely, it can be a bit depressing after a while.

Darcey That is funny. I did once ask what makes people 'posh'. When I got a list of activities that were seen as posh, I was like… "Oh, but I like doing those things."

Awkward silence. But inside I was laughing.

sometimes I make smartass comments and it's ok to take what I say with a grain of salt

I'm in the US, and I've seen it both ways, I'm not so sure it's just a British thing. People will always find ways to "other" people they can't relate to and look down on them.

Bulbasur I do like your pic… need to remember that for another thread...

Bulbasaur: that has been my experience.

i think OP may notice it more here because of the neutrality of being foreign. On your home turf, you may not notice these actions as much as you are part of the system.

There are class systems everywhere but in Britain, 'class' is talked about more overtly as an issue, I found, and it is also more linked up with family origins rather than what you've achieved yourself.

In the USA, where I currently live, I find that people often talk in the same way about race in the way that British people talk about class. Issues that in Britain would be seen as related to class divisions (anti-social behavior, poor educational performance, welfare dependency etc) tend to be linked up with race issues in public discourse here.

In Germany, when I lived there, overt talk about class was not the norm and social status was rarely focused on BUT there was still a clear awareness of wealth differences. There was open snobbery among the people I knew at least towards 'proles' in German slang who drank cheap beer, followed certain football teams, worked in overalls and used nonstandard German.

So social tension is everywhere - it's just that in Britain it is expressed as 'class' specifically rather than culture, race etc. I do get where you are coming from with the inverted snobbery thing though. One woman I worked with thought I was 'up myself' because I would mention going to see certain films or reading certain books, purely because that was what I was genuinely interested in. She thought I was putting on airs or something and kept going on about her 'working class' origins - and yet she had a PhD in science and her father was an academic! Bizarre... maybe she had a coal miner grandfather or something . She was from the North of England and quite a few people I met from that part of England seemed hung-up about people putting on airs or being pretentious. Other colleagues from the same area as her always wanted to emphasize that they had grown up on a council estate or had a father who did a blue-collar job, almost like they had to apologize for their current lifestyle or education or prove some credentials. That is one thing that I've found to be unique to that part of Britain. I wouldn't say it is common among all British people though.

This isn't an explanation of it as a whole at all but I do think a small part it has to do with pride.
Lots of typically working class jobs, eg mining as you mentioned in your OP, have such a rich history and have shaped the country in such a public way that people are very proud to be linked to them in their ancestry.
Similarly I think we feel the same way about Earls/Lords and country houses (a la Downton Abbey) and you would feel the same pride to have that link in your ancestry also.
It just so happens that there is a greater populous of the 'working class' pride than the latter.

IME, it's only what I would class as the 'typical' middle class that seem to have a chip on their shoulder (some that is...not all)

The upper class (I hate these terms as their outdated but ykwim) just seem to get on with it. The 'typical' working class do.

But some people I know who are middle class do seem to have humungous chips, which I think is due to class differences becoming much more blurred in recent years as money/an excellent education etc is generally now accessible to all. I know builders who earn more than Doctors. Car salesmen who have bigger houses than solicitors...that sort of thing. I think some people who are in the middle have a genuinely hard time dealing with that because 'class' was historically based around how much money you had or were perceived to have.

I left the UK in 1989. Went to Thailand. Very very clear cut and rigedly enforced class system. Even the equvilent of shaking hands reflected it really quite rigedly. Italy... not so clear cut, but it's there. I think in all likelyhood social hierarchies and snobbery (including inverse variety) are human traits rather than British traits.

Possibly all it boils down to is that in British culture there are overt labels and "symptoms of class status", while some other countries use a more covert set of signals.

I have come to conclusion that it's just geography, same shit wherever you go. Unsurpising since we are all the same animal, so our differences tend to be quite superfical once you dig into it.

Yanbu, I'm British and don't understand it. I went to a private school but wouldn't dream of 'looking down' on anyone who didn't. Even the really rich girls at my school didn't look down on anyone. But I never realised until I went to Uni and then started work just how many people hate private schools and private school pupils. It's really bizarre.
Even DH has in his mind what he thinks 'private school people' are like. The only one he knows is me, but I'm ok apparently because I'm not 'posh'. He's much the same about lawyers. They're all posh, arrogant arseholes apparently, except for me because he knows me and I'm not posh!

While my dh was working as a postman to make ends meet while he looked for a graduate position, he endured some taunts for speaking 'naicly' and having gone to university. My absolute favourite was the sneer 'I bet you eat them bloody petit pois instead of normal peas dontchya!'