Snobbery

[ShrikeAttack]

So much, and all pointless.

I've just come from a thread about garden furniture. Do people really care about other's garden furniture?

Is it not just a manifestation of your own insecurity? There are many, many things I wouldn't choose, because I don't like them, for whatever reason. But to not choose them because you consider them beneath you?

How utterly dreadful. How utterly small of you to judge somebody because of their choice of garden furniture, or their sofa or plates.

Why do you care so much?

Because you use micro-signifiers to reassure yourself that you're better. That you've come far.

There's a huge amount of bollox on MN about class, it's almost an obsession.

Many of you have been sold a pup. It's not really about class, it's about confidence. There are plenty of 'working class' people who have done well for themselves, and feel very happy and confident about it.

I think after WW1, and WW2, followed by huge death taxes on estates there became a huge mass of UC folks who became the mental custodians of a life that no longer existed. And thus the 'genteel poverty' idea came to be something to aspire to.

The majority of these people actually came from 'new money" though. There are very few true 'old money' families still extant today.

Look at the National Trust houses that the 'Middle Class' like to visit. Full of guilding, marble, gold, plunder and excess.

The wannabe Middle-class seem to want to be the disenfranchised upper-class.

The new upper-class are actually the tech lords.

I guess my AIBU is, why do people think they are better just because they cling on to a mad idea of what is good, or classy, or right?

I think there are fewer snobs than their are people raging about snobbery.

There are as many people here determined to slate the middle classes as there are people you deem to be “ snobby”. Inverted snobbery isn’t any more appealing.

Who cares. Old money is alive & flourishing in the rural towns & villages where I grew up btw. Their money is still in land, property & trust funds . My Dad was working class ,went to university & had a middle management job. I have a degree & get told I sound & look posh now I'm in London, but I'm not considered middle class where I come from. I'm not fussed what others think is classy. I've worked for new money & they can be obnoxious & me,me, me. But I've worked for old money & they can be clueless about practical every day things, so swings & roundabouts. Jilly Cooper's book 'Class' was quite accurate years ago & still is.

[quote mootymoo]@littlepattilou

I loved that meal thread, hilarious that anyone thinks the time you eat has any impact on your class! Many of us an enigma - income, job, upbringing, interests a complete mismatch. I say tea because that's what exh said (20 years of marriage means you adopt each other's ways) but that's a regional thing - that new class structure thing that came out a few years ago puts us well and truly in the elite category. (And I covet an outdoor sofa plus dp really fancies a hot tub despite having gone to boarding school etc.)[/quote]
I don’t think anyone was saying it has an impact on your class, it was more the other way around.

@Clicketyclick21

Agreed. I'm Northern so I call my main evening meal tea and my Southern sil calls it supper. I can see her visibly cringe when I say tea so I make sure I say it often in front of her in my best OTT Northern accent 'come on kids teeeeee tiiiiime!'

Keep at it I'm northern and my husband is southern. He has now learnt to say tea (for dinner) and asks if I want a brew, rather than a cup of tea. He's getting there.

Just looked at the fruit bowl thread. I don’t have a view but it does seem impractical to keep it in the conservatory, surely it would go off quicker because of the sun being on it?
Still don’t understand the concept of the MN stunt pineapple either. They are £1 and no more difficult to prepare than a melon!

@littlepattilou do you lack reading comprehension??? My post is quite clear. It is not true that all of those earning 100k+ work all hours. Of those I know my DH and BIL work standard hours with the exception of my BIL busy period. However my SIL who works for one of the big 4 does fit for that stereotype and works all hours. It’s not that difficult to understand.

Why is it funny that these high earning jobs are always finance and sales? These are high earning professions ergo people working in them have high salaries. You are very bizarre.

I'm redecorating my house and I notice it a lot on the home decor threads

Christ, yes! Must be Farrow and Ball or Little Greene. B&Q tiles are shit, I wouldn’t buy a £million house with those, must be Fired Earth. On and bloody on. They seem to think you can buy taste.

* I don't know if anyone remembers the how you hold your cutlery thread. That was an eye opener.*

Yes, I remember that thread, too, I couldn’t believe the horror about people who hold their cutlery the wrong way. When in fact it’s purely cultural, and other cultures have their own etiquette which is very important to them.

It’s cultural. Each culture thinks their way of doing things is the only acceptable way of doing them. But that isn’t the case. However, accepted behavioural norms run deep, so it isn’t surprising that a lot of people take a dim view of what they see as poor table manners.

It was amusing seeing how many posters got worked up on that thread, though.

@Walkacrossthesand

Those who matter, don't mind; those who mind, don't matter.

That's my personal philosophy, hasn't failed me yet! I really can't believe the trivia that 'upsets' people, is it any wonder that so many people are seeking help for various MH problems, they remind me of those ant-eaters whose noses are permanently on the ground, sniffing out something to be offended, upset etc by. Chill, go with the flow, it really isn't worth fuming etc about the lives of other people.

@Mittens030869

* I don't know if anyone remembers the how you hold your cutlery thread. That was an eye opener.*

Yes, I remember that thread, too, I couldn’t believe the horror about people who hold their cutlery the wrong way. When in fact it’s purely cultural, and other cultures have their own etiquette which is very important to them.

It’s cultural. Each culture thinks their way of doing things is the only acceptable way of doing them. But that isn’t the case. However, accepted behavioural norms run deep, so it isn’t surprising that a lot of people take a dim view of what they see as poor table manners.

It was amusing seeing how many posters got worked up on that thread, though.

I can't believe that people think that there is a 'right' way to load a dishwasher, put a toilet roll of the spindle and so on. No love, there's your way, that doesn't make it right.

I once mentioned on a "how much do you earn" thread that there was an unusually high proportion of the thread on 80k and more- you know, considering that the average salary at the time was about 28k. I was quickly (and quite haughtily) told that MN would be good for me as it would help me see life outside of my bubble.

Despite all the high powered, highly educated lawyers (it's always lawyers) with even more high powered husbands in The City, the ONS seems to have eluded all of them. There are lots of helpful, fairly accurate, statistics. All readily available to let them know that 80k, being more than twice the median salary, is actually quite a lot. Even in London.

[quote ShrikeAttack]@OnYourWayOut, I hate the middle-classes so much I can't have much to with them. I lived in a town that is the apogee if MC, it was embarrassing for everyone that lived there. For shame.[/quote]
You should get help for that.

@Clicketyclick21

Agreed. I'm Northern so I call my main evening meal tea and my Southern sil calls it supper. I can see her visibly cringe when I say tea so I make sure I say it often in front of her in my best OTT Northern accent 'come on kids teeeeee tiiiiime!'

Good for you! Passive aggression is the very best kind, it really gets under people's skin. Many friends don't understand why I don't find Peter Kay particularly funny but I realised that because we lived less than 3 miles from him much of what he says isn't funny, it's just how things are said in Notlob.

Come on now...snobbery is why I love mn...hours of entertainment as women agonise if they should wear boden or Joules to the school gates.
Or inverse snobbery

Why are mumsnetters so obsessed with Farrow and Ball paints?
Our Crown Decorating Centre just down the road from me will mix any colours to match any brand of paint. So why must it be F & B?

I'm from London, and call our evening meal tea BTW.

Mittens030869

Interesting you say about cutlery, because I’m left handed and I can’t tell you the amount of times people have said to me ‘You’re using your cutlery wrong’ or ‘You’re holding your pen wrong’ or ‘you’re not using scissors correctly’

My reply now? Try doing {insert activity here} with your left hand and come back to me. Some right handed people are really nasty to left handed people and don’t actually consider ‘hey what if I was forced to use my left hand to write/eat/carry my bag/throw a ball/whatever. And it often verges on snobbery, as if we should have learned to use our right hand.

It's even worst in real life, but people are generally too polite to let you know.

It's definitively a thing to be refused a promotion, not to be invited somewhere because of "class".

Everybody cares but some people are more hypocrites than others. It's already obvious with children friendship, but wait until your son or daughter wants to get married. Then you'll have something to say about the background and family of the chose one.

and reverse snobbery is just as bad as snobbery!

@DWPmisery1972

I'm sorry you have to cope with that. It's awful that that prejudice still lingers in the 21st century. I'm not left-handed but my DH is. I couldn't tell you which hands he holds his cutlery with, though, I can't imagine why anyone would care. 

@Ginfordinner

Why are mumsnetters so obsessed with Farrow and Ball paints? Our Crown Decorating Centre just down the road from me will mix any colours to match any brand of paint. So why must it be F & B?

I'm from London, and call our evening meal tea BTW.

Because they cost a fortune. Apparently they have magical qualities and change colour oh so subtly in different lights. When here in the real world decorators hate them because they’re a bastard to work with.

Mittens030869

It’s funny because I’m 27 so it’s not like I come from the generation like my mum (52) where she was chastised at school repeatedly for the crime of being left handed... people don’t realise tools, scissors, cutlery arrangements, all sorts of things are made for right handed people and we just work our way round it- but when we get called ‘kack handed’ or laughed at because we look silly using a pair of scissors in a ‘funny’ way, it pisses me off. Also at school I was never picked for PE because being left handed I couldn’t throw, couldn’t play rounders, although being left handed did come in handy when we played hockey and the opposing team weren’t expecting a left handed swipe

I know it’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things but it’s something ive always noticed (both my parents are left handed, I am and so is one of my sons so we notice these things).

I earn over what anyone on mums at believes you can earn however no I don’t work 9-5 and if all depends on the job. I am not a high flying lawyer and some of my wage is not my day to day to job but on top of it.

True, but so is the "how dare anyone like classical music, non-fiction reading, art etc they are all horrible middle class posers who automatically look down on me and mine/oppress the workers" inverted snobbery.
Variety is the spice of life.

@Clicketyclick21

Agreed. I'm Northern so I call my main evening meal tea and my Southern sil calls it supper. I can see her visibly cringe when I say tea so I make sure I say it often in front of her in my best OTT Northern accent 'come on kids teeeeee tiiiiime!'

I’m from the South and we called it tea growing up. I call it dinner now and not sure why and when that happened!