to ask why the UK is so obsessed with classes?

[marghini]

I noticed both here on Mumsnet and in many other venues a lot of discussions about classes.

Since I am not British and talking about classes is really not a thing where I am from, I can't quite wrap my head around this: why do Brits care so much about classes?

Please enlighten this ignorant foreigner!

Of course all countries have social classes, but the English are far more obsessed about class: they talk about it all the time! All the nonsense about settee/ sofa etc - it's highly amusing to non-English onlookers when you go on about this stuff. And the obsession is utterly baffling.

Identity thing.

Trying to identify your personal identity = self-obsessed
Identifying as part of a group and therefore indirectly talking about your personal identity = more acceptable

It's also just laziness. Quicker to evaluate people in a busy world if you rest on your laurels e.g. what the dominant perception is.

I don't think we are. I find the MN thread about classes to be interesting at times but I literally hear no one refer to them what so ever in "real life".

They may not refer to 'the social classes' in real life as such but I find that the topic will be discussed anyway in terms of either sneering at Daily Mail or Sun readers or in hushed whispers of the boss having had a Mulliner Bentley or some other highly covetable (and expensive) item delivered. So people are very interested in social difference but don't refer explicitly to 'the social classes.'

Sorry, that was in response to PaulDirac

Grandma/grandpa are middle class. Nanna/grandad are lower class. Or Northern

Hmm. My Mum is definitely middle class and southern. She is not particularly interested in class in anyway. She is Nanna.

Meanwhile my MIL who is middle class but came from a working class background and is massively insecure about it, is Grandma.

I actually think that class today owes a lot to jealously and insecurity and a need to conform and make others conform as it does about what your social status, background, income or roots are.

Yes there are exceptions, but there are plenty of middle class who like to proudly shout about authentically working class they are and there are plenty of people who like to pretend they are better than they are too.

I couldn't give a fuck, but I've come across plenty of prejudice in both directions.

Waves to other Brits living in Canada.

Very interesting to see people's experience. Especially MrsTP - house vs apartment, uni vs not.

I agree they don't have class issues - I would definitely call it a class issue, but they wouldn't because it simply wouldn't occur to them, and honestly, why should it?

I don't believe there is any country in the world that's too much different from the UK in this sense. Yes, historically, in the UK it was about classes but now it's largely moved on to social status. I am sure many of us can see it even on Facebook among many of our friends, who keenly share photos from their lovely holidays, restaurants they go to, theatre and cinema trips etc. A lot of that is done to show off but at the same time you will notice that largely your social circle is roughly the same as you. At least 80% of it. We mostly hang out with similar people and that is driven by something as simple as the area we live in. Our neighbours are in a similar demographic etc.

If we happen to move to a better or worse area, our perception of our social standing is quite likely to change. When we become more educated, it changes too. When people lose jobs, again their idea of their social standing changes and it does again when they find new jobs.

Our perception of our social, economic, cultural and just generally demographic position largely replaced what would be the old class system, and I honestly don't think many countries in the world are that different from the UK in this sense.

I certainly don't believe that today's Britain is obsessed with aristocracy, for instance! In fact, I am not that sure it ever was. Aristocracy may have been obsessed with themselves but that's a different matter.

Are we? Or are we just more open about it than the false classlessness that I have heard many Kiwi's, Aussies, Americans (my family are from the east coast) and some Europeans claim is so much better back home?

Sorry, that was in response to PaulDirac

I don't think I'm the person who said the thing you responded to.

to half of Canada.

I agree they don't have class issues - I would definitely call it a class issue, but they wouldn't because it simply wouldn't occur to them, and honestly, why should it?

I think because in order to change something you have to name it. Canada is a peaceful, homogeneous, very pleasant, well-mannered place. I really like it here. It is very easy to live here. But there is a tendency to pretend there are no problems.

There are class, sex, religious, language and race divisions. There is very poor mental health and addictions treatment and housing. Homelessness is dreadful. Really shocking and unforgivable. Most people can say, "la la la" and put their fingers in their ears but I don't think that gets issues sorted out.

I think some of the right-wing vitriol about Justin Trudeau is based in this.

Are we? Or are we just more open about it than the false classlessness that I have heard many Kiwi's, Aussies, Americans (my family are from the east coast) and some Europeans claim is so much better back home?

There is no class system in New Zealand. There are rich Kiwis and poor Kiwis, but by and large the only difference between them is that the former have more money, bigger houses and more things.

Our Prime Minister grew up in a council house. It is normal for rich children in poor neighbourhoods to attend the local school. The universities contain people of all backgrounds. People's tastes in food, interests, accents, terminology, friends, work, clothes, do not differ here because of class consciousness. Due to wealth inequality I suspect this will have changed in a generation or two, but it isn't there yet. Accordingly, analysis of social issues here really doesn't concentrate on class simply because it's irrelevant, not because everyone's ignoring it.

Many things in NZ society remind me of English working class culture, however, as (ethnicity considerations aside) everyone is part of that culture, there is no class system as such. By contrast, in the UK there is a strongly embedded cultural system that assigns a 'class' to each person.

None of this is to ignore the really quite shocking living conditions in some parts of NZ, especially Auckland. However, they are not a class issue.

tiggerkid

I don't believe there is any country in the world that's too much different from the UK in this sense. Yes, historically, in the UK it was about classes but now it's largely moved on to social status.

I think it's moving on, but it's not there yet. The UK still has a monarch and a parliament that contains people there explicitly by right of birth. More importantly, all its senior politicians, judges and captains of industry went to the same rather peculiar schools which inculcate the secrets one needs to know to be part of the Establishment. I find that now I'm outside the UK looking in, it's hard to overestimate how much British people will deliberately conform to a specific cultural status, especially if they're moving up the ladder. To Kiwis, British people at the top of the (British) tree can look aloof, secretive and downright puzzling with their obscure but clearly important cultural motifs.

I say 'British' deliberately btw. It's across the whole UK, not just England.

Working class and northern here and have always said Grandma and Grandad
Class impacts on life. I am working class but have bought my house and have a profession, money in the bank too which was saved. I will never inherit
I have a working class accent and live in a snobbish area, there are places and groups I would never be welcome in with my local accent
The other fuckers have moved in! Playgroup in the village had more well spoken off comers and they ignored the 2 of us with local accents

The UK is not an egalitarian country. A small, self-perpetuating social elite continues to exert a vastly dispropotionate influence on the way in which the country is run, and by whom.

Private schools and Oxbridge are the basis of this system, and the products of these institutions are over-represented in Parliament, government, boardrooms, the media etc etc.

At the top of this system we have a hereditary monarchy and aristocracy, together with a legislature which even in the 21st century remains partly unelected.

That's why British people are obsessed with class. Because it still matters.

^^This. Uk is a deeply divided and very hierarchical system. It always was. The class you are born into strongly affects the opportunities you will have, your ability to make the most of them, your expectations and aspirations in life. We refer to being able to get more (or less, but that's unusual) out of life than expected for the class you were born into as social mobility.

The key thing to remember is that social mobility is very limited. There was an increase of it for those born from the 60s through to the 80s I think (ime only, dunno where I'd get figures). Now it's settling into hardened concrete again as so-called 'austerity' bites those from the lower middle class down, leaving the rich elite to grow ever richer and more powerful. The brief period of mobility meant some of the divides have blurred thanks to cross-overs in various directions (like me, privileged educationally but not well-off thanks to no rich family background and cost of living soaring).

It is based on wealth I think, though it has been going for such a long time it's difficult to say. Wealth has a known tendency to travel upwards and concentrate in fewer hands if it's not consciously redistributed, and the latter is frowned upon now. I've wondered a time or two if it really began with 1066, when England was invaded, systematically ground down, and taken over by a Norman warrior elite. Anyway each group has picked up various different cultural attributes, such as vocabulary, hence the discussions on this thread about how you name things. They tend to be fairly mutually hostile and antagonistic thanks to natural questions such as 'who deserves what exactly'. Especially as the oligarchic government are pushing those questions more and more and classifying anyone who hasn't been lucky in their birth or all the lives as undeserving.

And as the questions are being asked more and more (mostly by right wing government and media imo to take attention away from their own failures) the divides increase, the hostility increases. As the only ethic allowed increasingly becomes greed and materialism yet so many are shut out through really no or little fault of their own, so distrust and hate soars. This is not healthy within a society. Those divides will crack open if we're not careful. We need bridges, we need to stop this internal conflict before it breaks open.