To not find middle class ‘socialists’ laughing at the poor and uneducated very funny.

[Mightymucks]

I’m currently a mature student and am on a lot of FB pages related to my Uni. I need to be on there for news, but an awful lot of the content seems to be middle class self proclaimed socialists laughing at jokes poking fun at the thick unwashed masses who might have the temerity not to slavishly agree with them on every issue.

Take this morning. One of them posted a joke about an imaginary rabid Brexiteer called ‘Sharon from Croydon’ who voted for Brexit ‘because she thinks brown neurosurgeons are stealing jobs she would have been qualified for if she hadn’t dropped out of her hair and beauty NVQ’. Cue much hilarity from these students and lots of comments about ‘thick northerners’ whose capability of engaging with the political process doesn’t extend beyond looking at one slogan on a bus.

I called him ‘a snob’ and he responded that he was ‘calling out racism’ despite the fact that ‘Sharon’ is fictional and therefore doesn’t need calling out. It was just a series of lazy stereotypes designed to stoke predjudice and exactly the thing socialism is supposed to be explicitly against?

A symptom of this in a ward by the Uni near me Labour has actually removed a local candidate with long standing Labour links and huge respect from locals because he is
‘too working class’ for the students to vote for and replaced him with a history academic from out of town.

I should point out that in my working class northern area I don’t know a single person who isn’t aware that Marxism and socialism represents the working classes and the poor and uneducated. But apparently a University education doesn’t extend to teaching that these days.

I also know it isn’t universal in Labour because I had a fantastic female middle aged canvasser around this weekend who was totally clued up on issues of local concern like school funding and libraries and actually convinced me to vote for them.

But AIBU to hate these middle class millennial fuckwits who pretend they’re socialists but are actually massive fucking crashing snobs?

TBF I find all professional Lefties and socialists who bang on about it all the time fairly unbearable, whatever their social class.

OP:
I literally have contempt for you seeping out of every pore because you’re daft enough to...

The above is impossible. What you are attempting to grapple with is a metaphor which cannot be “literal”.

Is it possible YOU are the daft one?

How ironic that a thread complaining about the stereotyping of work class people ends up sterotyping the middle class/leftists/socialists. Must be an election coming up.

They care more about Palestine than Preston.

My working class FiL drove through Preston the other week and complained that it was full of "foreigners". I think what he actually meant was that it was full of British people with different colour skin than him and dressed differently (ie. not an adidas tracksuit) because they had a different religion. He also voted Brexit because "Turkey was joining the EU". Go figure.

I find the hate, agression and rudeness that some people, who would claim to be educated and liberal, dish out on Fb quite extraordinary.

Not millennials either.

White working class, Brexiteers, anyone who voted for Trump, BBC political correspondents, just about anyone who does not agree with a Corbyn/momentum world view seems game to be called stupid, slags, racist and so on. What happened to the idea that if you disagree with someone you argue the point, and try to convince them. Not just insult them.

I find it nasty, and ill educated. And weird. I am struggling with a couple of friendships as a result. If people say happily dish out insults to others, will they do the same if my views fail to co-incide, and what gives them the right to dictate what I should be thinking. It feels very Weimar republic.

The no platforming of Conservative students, the shutting down of debate around transgender, the inability to consider why large numbers of ordinary people voted Trump and Brexit, read the Mail and so on. Some of the stuff about the white working class is just vile, and well, racist.

Kindness, tolerance, and communication please.

'Sharon from Croydon' and 'thick Northerners' are lazy stereotypes.

As are 'Islington elite', 'Champagne socialist' and 'bleeding heart lefty liberal'.

Not everyone outside of London is an ignorant racist.

Not everyone in London is a media luvvie sitting on a property goldmine. (As the millions of Londoners living without a living wage and raising children in poverty will tell you).

Tbh I find both sets of stereotypes irritating.
You just don't see as many threads on MN complaining about the middle classes being lambasted for their almond milk flat whites.

Agree with scatterolight 12.07.

Also with whale that actually people are not stupid and sense contempt. They felt it with Marie antoinettes famous line...and look what became of her.

Yes the useful idiots...they call them.
I think scales are dropping from people's eyes, fast about the hard left..

I find the typical "Loony Lefty" fetishisation of the WC, abhorrent. I'm sick of them putting the WC on a pedestal. Growing up WC is shit, we have lower life expectancy, access to crappy education, only have options for certain jobs etc but the MC don't see this and instead see being WC as something to be praised.

What I find hilarious is anyone who is willing to vote against their own interests just because they feel slighted by another person online.

Left wing people are often some of the nastiest people on an individual level you'll ever meet.

NeedsMoreSleep spot on post.

Andromeida ‘tis all bollocks though no self respecting MC socialist would be seed dead in Butlins instead of centre parks

Left wing people are often some of the nastiest people on an individual level you'll ever meet.

Yes to this, liberals seem to be the most intolerant people, you only need to look at the Antifa pages on Facebook

Most far left and far right thinking people are pretty repellent though.

Both are racist patronising and react violently to criticism. Very unpleasant people as a rule

The right and their media pals demonised the working classes for decades. It was the right that decimated manufacturing and traditional working class jobs. When these people lost their jobs they were derided as scroungers from sink estates.

When the working classes had meaningful work - they had power, power through unions to be collective and stand up for their rights. This included caring as much about Preston and Palestine! The right hated that so they took it away, curtailing unions powers.

Most people growing up in former industrial towns need education to escape and have a better quality of life elsewhere. Those left behind are still "used" by the right - telling them that their woes are caused by foreigners etc - vote Brexit! I grew up on a wc council estate. Working class to me is union solidarity not voting UKIP.

NeedsMoreSleep

Completely agree - I immediately switch off from what someone is saying when they start bandying around insults based on someone's political choices, even if they don't apply to me. E.g DrScully accusing people of being "Brexit idiots". It's lazy and it's narrow-minded. You can disagree with the idea of Brexit without having to insult people who voted that way.

What I find hilarious is anyone who is willing to vote against their own interests just because they feel slighted by another person online.

The way to win them over is to unironically double down, way to go you !!

Yes to this, liberals seem to be the most intolerant people, you only need to look at the Antifa pages on Facebook

If I want to see intolerance pick up a right wing tabloid newspaper.

If I want to see intolerance pick up a right wing tabloid newspaper.

I pick up a left wing one.

At least with right wing intolerance, what you see is what you get. It's the hypocrisy of the left which I find so nauseating.

I pick up a left wing one.

Much talk of muslims, foreigners, scroungers, remoaners or snow flakes?

At least with right wing intolerance, what you see is what you get. It's the hypocrisy of the left which I find so nauseating.

Yes

At least with right wing intolerance, what you see is what you get. It's the hypocrisy of the left which I find so nauseating.

Ah ok, so when high court judges are deemed "enemies of the people" we shoudn't fuss because the Guardian is running an article on the 10 best ways to cook Quinoa

theres a lot of accepted snobbery in this country towards northeners, or the poor and god help you if your both we are a country largely run by snobs.

YANBU. The left in this country hate the working class. I think this is because rather oddly the British working class tend to be quite right politically, generally patriotic, believes in bettering yourself and for smaller government. Everything the left hates.

Yanbu OP.

Totally agree with PigeonStreet1