To think there are some strange views on "Class" on MN?

[Flapjacker48]

It is undeniable that there is still a class system in the UK. There seems be some odd ideas about it on MN. This is inspired by the recent thread about Christmas decorations.

1.) Possessing a certain item or not is a huge class indicator (rubbish)

2.) That obtaining (or not) certain standards of education defines, or indeed changes your class (again rubbish)

3.) That class is defined by income alone, the "I earn x so I'm middle class!" type views

Does anyone really think that money defines class? Would you say a aristocratic widow who has lost all her money/house is now working class? Or that Wayne and Coleen Rooney are upper middle class due to income?

4.) The view that your interests somehow make you a certain class. Saying, for example, "I'm working class, but have middle class tastes like radio 4, theatre etc" thus (offensively) implying that working class people could never have such interests....

Where does one stand when one has seven large televisions and a library?

I find class is getting harder and harder to define nowadays and money has nothing to do with class especially as there are an ever increasing amount of people from traditionally working class backgrounds making more money than those from traditional upper class backgrounds.
Even in personal terms I have no idea what my class would be as I live in a colliery village, have little money and due to unforseen circumstances I never went to university despite having great grades. However I also come from an aristocratic background which still shows through my speech, despite being raised in a working class environment I don't use the local dialect much and am well spoken but I don't use RP either.
As my English Language lecturer once said I'm undefinable, but I like that as I think class is a restrictive and segregating idea anyway

Accent is interesting. My mother was desperate to get out of London, so I speak very differently from the rest of my extended family who sound like the cast of East Enders. My mother is still definitely London but not as much like Peggy Mitchell as her sister - it’s more toned down. Money wise, they always seemed to have a lot more than us, despite having working class jobs - security guard, supermarket worker, sweat shop. My mother’s brother is a professor gambler, so not sure where he would fit!

@Onairjunkie

Where does one stand when one has seven large televisions and a library?

In my house, you'd be standing in the porch as they'd be no room in the front with all that suff in it. Probably shortly followed by the dock if you got caught for the tellys.

@Onairjunkie

Where does one stand when one has seven large televisions and a library?

One does not stand, one sits.

I am so disinterested in this I'm going to award my first .

@A580Hojas

I am so disinterested in this I'm going to award my first .

Well not too disinterested to read bad reply...

@Flapjacker48

It is undeniable that there is still a class system in the UK. There seems be some odd ideas about it on MN. This is inspired by the recent thread about Christmas decorations.

1.) Possessing a certain item or not is a huge class indicator (rubbish)

2.) That obtaining (or not) certain standards of education defines, or indeed changes your class (again rubbish)

3.) That class is defined by income alone, the "I earn x so I'm middle class!" type views

Does anyone really think that money defines class? Would you say a aristocratic widow who has lost all her money/house is now working class? Or that Wayne and Coleen Rooney are upper middle class due to income?

4.) The view that your interests somehow make you a certain class. Saying, for example, "I'm working class, but have middle class tastes like radio 4, theatre etc" thus (offensively) implying that working class people could never have such interests....

I agree with everything apart from your first item but I do know I can be quite unreasonable about grey/crushed velvet/love lemonade style items.

I find these threads fascinating. Other countries do also have class but I think it's more fluid. Like if you ''go up a class' you're not seen as a fraud. You're actually respected for say becoming a doctor if your background was stacked against that success.

It definitely isn't just on MN, although in offline situations it might manifest in different, subtler ways. As far as we British are concerned it can amount pretty much to a fixation. I have friends and acquaintances both on the continent and in America who scratch their heads in bafflement over it.

As a topic of conversation 'class' can become pretty boring, especially when it amounts to taste (to the tune of if you own a hot tub, you're a pleb, for example). What sometimes interests me is what drives it.

'Etiquette' is one thing I have little patience with. It's surprising how a system supposedly designed to make life more comfortable for others can so often be such a site of snobbery, exclusiveness and rudeness in itself. Cf. the practice of insisting on addressing a married woman as Mrs Hisforename Hisfamilyname, when you've requested them not to because your name is actually Ms Myforename Myfamilyname, because ... 'etiquette'. No, it isn't. It's just rude.

Equally annoying is the convention that there's a secret code of behaviour implied behind what invitations actually say. I.e I'm not going to shovel in food with my hands or (gasp!) use my knife and fork incorrectly, but if invited to show up at 8pm, I'll arrive at 8pm. Systems of behaviour designed as markers of social position, status and conduct which arouse tuts of disapproval in the face of non-adherence make me want to drop all my Hs and pitch up in DMs. As for 'carriages at midnight', no they're not. They're taxis or cabs. We're not in a Jane Austen novel.

Yes, I know it's childish. But this sort of BS has that effect on me.

What I find fascinating is not so much those who are working class insisting they are middle class but those who are clearly middle class who insist that they are working class.

I think the lines are far more blurred between WC/MC than they are between MC/UC.

@UnsuitableHat

I’ve had conversations about class irl. People seem to get quite tangled up in it, particularly (in my experience) the need to be seen as essentially ‘working class’ whatever that means these days.

I recall hearing Stuart Maconie talking about the time he and a few other friends from the North now London/SE based were standing in his kitchen discussing something like paninis, it was a while ago, and they all suddenly realised how far removed they were from their roots. Everyone has their own ideas of what 'class' means, the thing that always amuses me is the idea that it only exists in the UK! All countries have some form of class.

I have friends and acquaintances both on the continent and in America who scratch their heads in bafflement over it.

I always laugh at Americans who think they don't have a class system, their's is just a bit more subtle but it's certainly there.

@AuntieMarys

DHs family think we are posh because we use garlic and buy European cheese.

Tha comes back here with thy fancy ways!

@PlanktonsComputerWife

Not as posh as me. I can't afford the ointment for my ancestral piles.

This one raised a belly laugh!

Yep. Posters on here are paradoxically obsessed with class & also making out class doesn’t matter to them.

Lost count of the number of posts wanting recommendations for a ‘diverse, multicultural, interesting, quirky’ place to live, but what they really mean is a white middle class area next to a multicultural area, so they can pop in once a week and feel ‘open-minded’.

I think the two most defining characteristics of middle class vs working class are an ability to delay gratification and an open minded attitude with a continued desire to learn.

What the fuck are you talking about it?

@weekend2021

Working class myself, but know and socialise with both working and middle class types - and maybe a few you may consider to be ‘upper’ middle class. On many occasions I have heard the working class be extremely disparaging towards the middle and uppers - but never the other way around. Reverse snobbery is definitely alive and well.

Because being rude to middle/upper class is considered acceptable, eg toff, but reverse that and call working class a similarly derogatory name, eg pleb, oik, and see the abuse you'll get. The problem is the use of the phrase 'working class' which applies to everyone in employment when it also encompasses of the many who don't/won't work, maybe we need a new phrase.

@Onairjunkie

Where does one stand when one has seven large televisions and a library?

Next to ones butler, one would assume?

Why is teaching seen as a middle class profession? All the teachers I know are working class.

I was brought up in a pit village and the next village to ours is a farming community, when I went to school in the mid seventies our headmaster referred to our community as the great unwashed.

I find the upper classes to be the most unfortunate of creatures. They are so terribly incapable of even the simplest of tasks and have to employ servants to do them all. The servants rule them with a rod of iron, they have to ask permission from the gardener if they want to plant a new tree or rose, the cook if they fancy something different for dinner, the interior designer if they want to replace a horribly uncomfortable chair. Even their own hair is subject to opinions. They're not allowed to look after their own children, nurse then nanny and then they're shipped off to boarding school and Oxford or Cambridge for some indeterminate amount of time until a middle aged stranger arrives at the door shouting "Hello, Mother!'.

No, I'd rather fully live my life!

I've got a job no one else from my private school has. In the offices I've worked in I've felt a huge class divide. I never tell anyone where I went to school. And I never talk about money. But my accent, and attitudes, opinions and things I buy/don't buy mark me out as different. (Not in a good way)
I didn't choose my class background but it chooses who will be friends with me.

I think it's really interesting actually, because like it or not there is a class system in the UK. We all 'spot' what class other people are, but imperceptibly, unconsciously.

A lot of it is accent and background, it's not money. I know someone who is so obviously upper class, but he is always stony broke, has never had a proper job,his interests are pretty basic- football and soap operas mainly. But because he went to public school and his mother was the daughter of a baronet he will always be upper class.

@Pontypandytaxpayer

I think the two most defining characteristics of middle class vs working class are an ability to delay gratification and an open minded attitude with a continued desire to learn.

What the fuck are you talking about it?

A lot of people who have got to be middle class in terms of financial and career rewards have done so by delaying gratification. They chose to continue education in a way which built towards a career, they put in the extra hours for no extra pay now, knowing that it would benefit them down the track with promotions. They will put in the extra hours as paid overtime to help them save the deposit to buy. They save towards things rather than buying them in credit. They are less likely to engage in conspicuous consumption. They delay gratification.

With regard to the open minded attitude, they are open to new ideas, concepts, ways of working, technological change, as well as continually developing and learning, they study outside of work hours, they read to amass knowledge that will be useful in life.

Or I guess you could just swear because you choose to deliberately not understand.