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?!?

In Britain the concept of class is entrenched because it goes back centuries. The UK really isn't a meritocratic nation and has never tried to be. It lacks a revolution so the upper class establishment are more established than in any other country and this breeds class hatred, or a kind of class-apartheid if you will.

Saying that, here in Spain there are definite classes that sneer at each other; pijos (the posh), paisanos (from the villages) and poligoneros (chavs/townies). But these are pretty much a modern phenomenum, although a lot of the pijos were part of the establishment under Franco

OP before I can talk to you, I need to know whether you sit on a couch or a sofa

What if OP sits on a settee?!

Nobody would argue that lumping whole groups of people together and making judgements about them is a good thing ever.
But, I seriously can't believe there are people on here arguing that there is no difference between those with all the privilege and power doing about those without and the other way round!!

(And I count myself as one of the privileged with my degrees and professional job despite w/c roots and very middling family income).

If I call a high court judge a "toff" it's not going to damage his self esteem or life prospects.
If I call a school-leaver from a failing school a "chav" it IS more damaging.
Because one has advantage and power and the other doesn't.

I fully agree with kew.

And I'm finding reading this thread with great interest because, wo knowing you are all more or less, proving the point I'm making.

As a non Brit, the idea that it will be so hard that it's impossible to manage 'to do better' is completely foreign to me. Where I'm coming from, you still gave the elite, you still have workers but you don't 'better yourself' (Note: in my mother tongue, I don't think that the expression to better yourself actually exists. You don't need to better yourself. You need to work, get an education and then you will be better off financially). There will never be a question whether you 'deserve' a better financial position. There will never the question as to whether you can or not do just as well as the 'Middleton'. Because the idea us that you can if you want to. The door is never closed.

But most of the posts are based on the assumption that this hie it is and it can't be different.
Not a criticism btw. Before going away from my home country, I use to do the same about our own ways if doing things. Maybe it takes really living in a different way to see how some if our ways to do things are unproductive.

Firstly it is utter, utter rubbish about only the UK having an obsession with class.

There are many more countries with even lower social mobility than the UK and they are even more class-fixated.

Tess - thank you for your post. It answers a lot of what the OP was querying, yet it seems to have been overlooked. Likewise Sanfairy's posts on the history of working class self education and self improvement.

I will await the flurry of posts that it is only middle class/ noveau riches upstarts who get angsty about class and how the "true and rightful" upper class are wonderful sorts who don't care about such things.

'I will await the flurry of posts that it is only middle class/ noveau riches upstarts who get angsty about class and how the "true and rightful" upper class are wonderful sorts who don't care about such things.'

Yes, I've always found that belief peculiar.
Proper toffs can be very, very snobby. As can quite a few working class people as well.

I would be very careful to say that people who are middle/upper class have it all easy.
People are still getting ill, they are heartbroken, some are still so desperate that they commit suicide, take stubs, use alcohol to numb themselves.
That is true regardless of the class and these are certainly areas where money doesn't make it easier.

There was also a thread on here not that long ago about a MNtter listening to a group of 'posh' teenagers. And a few comments from people who 'have been to their house' . The cocky soon I took from that was simply that
1- the class system is so strong that each group has develop their own 'rules' to be sure they would never mix with each other. It's like moving from one country to the next. Even vocabulary is different fgs.
2- people from privileged background are in a system that is just as stifling than the others. There was the example on that thread if a young man who couldn't imagine doing anything else than what is family was doing. So just as we had a butcher passing down the business from generation to generation, he was destined to do politics. Even though he certainly had the opportunity to whatever he liked.

In any group people who deviate from the norm are viewed with suspicion. It's just what happens. And mammals tend to view other groups or outsiders with suspicion.

So working class people trying to deviate by 'bettering' themselves are viewed with suspicion. The working class see their desire to leave as a rejection and the upper class see it as an attempt to infiltrate their ranks.

There were until 60 years ago far more working class people than either of the other two so the betrayal aspect was more commonly seen. Now who knows where the border between working class and middle class lies. Grammar schools played havoc with that line. My working class parents became middle class. Or at least their children did if a person can't change class.

And then middle class is fraught with division. It includes so many divisions. Cameron's idea of mc as not actually titled is very different to mine

I think that in Britian class is definitely defined by ones parents. So a professional person with WC parents would probably think themselves working class. But farther down the line less so. In my experience the middles in all their layers (lower middle, upper middle etc) are more chippy and resentful and place jostling than UC or WC. I am middle class, with Grandparents a mix of middle and working. I have cousins of both classes. DH is upper class, although he probably doesn't think he is!

IPity

Well, not really...

The UK has the lowest social mobility in Europe. And internationally, it is only rivalled by bastian of equality and liberty, the US...

www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Social_Mobility_Touchstone_Extra.pdf

I remember a similar UNICEF report saying the same thing

Revolution people, that's what is needed!

I don't think it is exclusive to Britain. Unearned privilege (like private education) is met with resentment pretty much everywhere.

Carrot - how can you say having money doesn't make life's problems easier?

Let's turn it around. Take those life's problems and add "not having enough to eat" "live in an overcrowded house, barely fit for human habitation", "Can't afford to turn the heating on in winter", "No car, poor public transport, have to walk miles to get anywhere, despite being ill".

Of course money makes life easier and the lack of it, doesn't just make your life harder, but often shorter too.

Those who have only moved to the UK in the last 20yrs need also to realise that the massive and rapid de-industrialisation of the 1980s is still a very raw wound in the UK.
Up to the 80s you would have found very proud working class communities where mining or steel working or ship building was a good job with skill pride and respect. In a very short time those industries disappeared to be replaced unskilled service industry jobs on minimum wage without career progression or with mass unemployment.
The negativity about escaping the working class is a new thing. Both thd attitude that it must be escaped and the attitude that is impossible to do.

Perhaps you've been spending too much time on mumsnet OP. I tend to be quite astonished by exactly those attitudes on here (I probably do spend too much time here :) ). Happily in The real world I don't come across it very much!

IPityThePontipines I see your point (distantly), but you are talking about misery, not being working class. Let's avoid playing the extremes to illustrate what is actually mainstream. Or maybe the UK turned into Kosovo overnight...

I know some people that are sooooooo middle class, yet insist they are working class.

museummum that's not a purely British thing though. Mines closed in other countries as well, the Ruhrgebiet, industrial and mining heartland of Germany, pretty much closed down in the 70 and 80ties, the pits in the Eastern part of Bavaria, all closed, a friend of mine from Eastern France says the same about his region. Clothes manufacturing, my mother worked for years in this sector, vanished from our region within a few years with manufacturing being moved to Asia. Britain isn't different to other Europena countries in this respect.

I know I keep making jokes about it, maybe that's why no one is picking up on what I've said. harryhausen said earlier I've been called a snob for even looking at a better secondary school outside my immediate local area. Also, because I said I liked politics and Radio4

I know so many people who have this attitude, and aggressively so. Some of you seem to be justifying it by saying oh well we just resent privileged people and that's natural.

But in the fairly large and well defined groups of people I am referring to, its as if even being willing and able to think about listening to Radio 4 is a class act which they, the salt o' the erf, must fight against. This is the sort of inverse snobbery that many ordinary folk have to live with from one day to the next.

Its this burning resentment of those who look around and think hmm, if I work harder or try something else, can I earn more, and/or make my life more fulfilling etc. Why are people like that so reviled?

I don't think it is exclusive to Britain. Unearned privilege (like private education) is met with resentment pretty much everywhere.

I'm shocked you seem to think this is normal? its a horrible flaw of human character. Why resentment? why not aspire for something better yourself? afterall if the good fortune came to these people in question, would they turn it down?

Gunznroses
Because in earlier time, it was Vae Victis. Like it or not, it gave people the impulse to defend their positions and aim high.
Now, we are rather ashamed of success, it is suspicious... And this 'winner' mentality is doing wonder to the ambitions of the new generations... Why bother?

The one thing i don't get is that art, theatre, music, books are things that middle class do and working class don't. I find this very bizzare.

Like the poster from Germany (sorry i cant remember your name) my parents did 'working class' jobs and every time they made exta money they took us to the theatre or concerts. We had lots of books and not a washing machine.

The way some people talk about Art makes to wonder if they actually understand Art (including books).

Imo it is not a chore. Not something you 'must' do. As my dad used to say 'it comes from inside you'. You dont force yourself to like it, you dont write in your diary 'i must go to theatre fewtimes in 2015' .

Many people 'do' arts and books naturally, maybe it is just that we dont mention it that much and we dont get 'surprised' (or is it panic) if we find out that the cleaner/hairdresser/electrician read every day to their dcs or write poetry in their spare time. Why is this refusal to accept it?

It seems people have accepted that its not hard work that elevates you but 'luck' therefore working harder will not yield any benefits, it is accepted that you will be stuck in your position and so all that's left is to sneer at those better off. Whilst I agree there are those born with a silver spoon in their mouths, i personally don't know anyone in my circle who was, they are mostly hard working immigrants who have studies hard, gained the right qualifications, set their eye on the 'right' career and prospered through it. Yes luck plays a part but you have to positioned correctly first and then luck comes in and finds you.

I am also equally aware of the snobbery in the other direction, equally appalling. Statements like the rich/upper classes don't talk about money has been said airily so many times on MN, this is no virtue, of course they bloody don't!, that's because they have it. I don't often spend my time talking about cars that's because i have one and dh is car mad, so has about 3.

I heard someone say on Radio3 the other day "art is the baseball bat against the hardening of the soul" or something very much like it Laquitar