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?!?

I discovered recently that apart from having to have a huge bank account to go to uni in america, there is a thing called legacy - ie; you are more favourably considered for a uni if your father went there - I am not convinced this is meritocracy!

my point is the opposite

if jobs land and wealth are in the hands of a tiny elite, which they are, then it is not surprising people are pissed off when they meet that tiny elite
i can see what you are saying, and people can be 'self defeating', but we are all modern day serfs fighting over who gets the scraps from the table. none of us will get to sit at the table because you have to be born to privilege

sorry, i mean hereditary elite i suppose

the USA is not nearly as much of a meritocracy as it claims, but it is at least more so than here

"
It's nothing to do with how hard the life as a working class is or how many advantages the upper class has. It has everything about the way you look at things."

It's really not that simple. Life worked for centuries on the basis that some people served and others were waited upon. You can't just suddenly imagine yourself one "of them" because there is a social code that you won't know - obvious things like cutlery and language but also the far subtler "what school did you go to? Oh I don't know that one, I don't think we played you at hockey did we". There are circles in which most working class background people will just not be accepted. It is a defense mechanism therefore to say "we don't want to go to your sodding golf club / polo match / royal enclosure anyway"

it is enormously patronising to say "It has everything about the way you look at things". easy for those who have the advantages to say "oh well, the lower orders don't want it any way"

Yup, I saw that too.
But however you dress it, it shows bitterness and pettyness. Anybody that call somebody a 'posh git' on first meeting deserves to get 'low-class moron' back to their face.
At some point, the working class struggle from decades ago becomes a pretext, not a justification.

If you have no sympathy for people sneered at or harrassed because they show a little class and culture, do not expect to get any commiseration from others.

"they show a little class and culture" ... see, even that makes me want to lose my lunch on the floor.

I'm obviously a hopeless case .

OP, I'd like to marry you please.

Inverted snobbery alive and well where I live. I find it laughable.

mintyy

yes, me too

what class and what culture though? placing value on certain things and not others shows how ingrained the idea of class is

we could be judged more harshly if this was all in the past, and we kept harping on about it, but we were all equal now
but we aren't and can't be.because of our class system

which is more likely in a society

that the ruling, hereditary elite arr there because noone else wants to be?
or because noone else is allowed to be?

It's nothing to do with how hard the life as a working class is or how many advantages the upper class has. It has everything about the way you look at things.

I think it's all to do with advantages.

I worry about my DC education - a very middle class - thing to do because I can't gift them loads of money or land to give them options and choices in their lives - a decent state education with few additional activities so they can make their own way is best I can really do.

Obviously throughout history some individuals have personalities, lucky or shear intelligence that gets them from right on bottom of society to right to the top. They are the exceptions.

I think what foreigners find hard to get is not why people may resent those better off than themselves, that's fairly self evident. But why there is so much resentment towards people of the same class who aspire to better, the 'who does she think she is?' mentality.

Also, having more money than your parents or sending your kids to private schools etc, ie what Mintyy calls 'bettering' oneself, should not be the subject of derision unless the person doing it is being obnoxious themselves. But I find that is not the case. I cannot tell you baffling the hostility towards Carole Middleton seems to an outsider.

So no, as someone born in a former colonial country, my heart is certainly not bleeding for Britain's upper classes but the sneering towards those who aspire towards more (and are not from the upper classes) is demoralising.

But why there is so much resentment towards people of the same class who aspire to better, the 'who does she think she is?' mentality.

I agree with this.

One of the worst aspects of inverse snobbery is the idea that working class = virtue and middle/upper class = oppression/privilege. There are people of all levels of morality in all levels of society.

Also pernicious is the idea that if you have money you have got it through privilege. The idea that people might have bettered themselves through hard work and brains is sneered at. That having acquired money, they might then want to do differently with it than previous generations, is seen as a betrayal.

I am an inverted snob about people trying to better themselves when its all wrapped up in money.

If they want to become better educated, kinder, more thoughtful, spiritual, philanthropic, healthier, then I couldn't admire people more for those endeavours.

But having the money to buy a 4x4 and send your brood to be educated well away from the proletariat is nothing to be proud of, imvho.

ArsenicFaceCream
The fact that you consider them 'silly little things' demonstrates that you don't understand the phenomenon. Cultural identity is, of course, always made up of many 'little things'.
Of course, you are correct, and people are perfectly entitled to identify with any social group / class they wish, but my problem is people deciding that being 'posh' makes it okay to have a pop at someone.

You can't imagine what it is about polo that might appear problematic? Even I can see that what that aversion might be about smile Although I'd be perfectly happy for my children to take up any hobby they fancied (and could finance wink).
I honestly don't, you'll have to help me out I am afraid.
If it's the cost thing then I don't buy it. I have friends who are into motorsport (seriously costly) and no one thinks any the less of them. I have another friend who sails competitively and has even completed the round the world yacht race, no one insults her. So why is polo any different?

NutCrackerFairy
But what really gets my goat is when I meet someone who feels the rich are rich because they are just somehow more deserving, more industrious, more intelligent than the poor. However when you look at a lot of wealthy people's backgrounds [not all admittedly but in this country quite a lot of politicians, famous actors, business people] you can see that they have come from money, the best education that money can buy, powerful and influential parents and connections....

I agree but don't lump everyone in together. It seems it is okay to lump people deemed to be posh / rich / fortunate together in this way and hate them all but if I lumped all lorry drivers together as fat, uneducated, junk food eating, Sun newspaper reading sorts (which I would not because anyone with half a brain can see that would be incorrect), I would be shouted down and called lots of horrid names (probably based upon my apparent 'poshness' / wealth etc).

Mintyy don't know how long you've been on the thread but I was talking earlier about the village I live in, where having books is considered to be getting above yourself. Particularly if you ever mention having read one of them.

People round here value the things you talk about enormously, above all else - money, designer goods, flash cars etc., but what they hate with a passion is any form of education, any discussion of politics (other than the lets shoot em all brigade sort of politics), watching documentaries, liking art. That's the sort of thing posh fuckers do.

But I find your position interesting; do you actually call having all these things "showing a little class and culture" or is it people reading books, admiring Miro and thinking about economic reform that really loosens your lunch?

I was raised on a sink estate and anything aspirational would of been a cause for sneering/ bullying. It's a bit sad really as these are people who'll never really get on. I'm sure they'll enjoy teaching they're children they're values on that same estate in years to come.

Sorry Mintyy I see you have gone on to explain further. I think you'd be burnt as a witch here.

But having the money to buy a 4x4 and send your brood to be educated well away from the proletariat is nothing to be proud of, imvho. Why not? Is there a virtuous 'social elevation' that need to be the standard? Did you and your forebearer set it?
Working hard, stepping out of one's confort zone is something to be actually proud of. Aspiring to more money for more confort, better education and the means to travel the world and see something other than the city you lived in all your life and 100 miles around is a honorable ambition. Or is ambition a swear world in the world of the working class?

Staying in one's position in a misguided sense of loyalty to one's "roots" is actually pathetic.

^I think what foreigners find hard to get is not why people may resent those better off than themselves, that's fairly self evident. But why there is so much resentment towards people of the same class who aspire to better, the 'who does she think she is?' mentality.

Also, having more money than your parents or sending your kids to private schools etc, ie what Mintyy calls 'bettering' oneself, should not be the subject of derision unless the person doing it is being obnoxious themselves. But I find that is not the case. I cannot tell you baffling the hostility towards Carole Middleton seems to an outsider.

So no, as someone born in a former colonial country, my heart is certainly not bleeding for Britain's upper classes but the sneering towards those who aspire towards more (and are not from the upper classes) is demoralising.^

This^

There also seems to be an assumption on MN that anybody that is well off, comes from wealth and has had doors opened for them through connections that has earned them a successful career. Whilst in some cases this may be true, its not always the case.

The pseudo-Bohemian "class" is the one that really gets up my hooter.
The trustafarians playing at poverty.

It seems it is okay to lump people deemed to be posh / rich / fortunate together in this way

Manina, in what way?

Do you mean that they are all lumped together by believing their good fortune is purely down to their personal attributes rather than the circumstances to which they born?

Or that they are lumped together as only having got where they are via their circumstances, i.e. family wealth and power rather than being a fantastic actor or clever entrepreneur?

I actually don't think I lumped anyone together... I said "when you meet someone who believes..." and "...not all admittedly..."

And I think this is less a stereotype than your analogy of the fat, uneducated, Sun reading lorry driver.

Rather it is a personal observation of some wealthy people I have actually met who didn't seem to be able to see [and probably didn't want to see] that their success was at least partly gained via their family background and privileged place in society.