One would most certainly love to hear one's opinion on this subject ;)

Yes....but more people are, economically speaking, middle class than before. People doing so-called working class trades, such as plumbers, electricians, probably earn more than teachers in many cases. In general, people feel more comfortable with those who went to the same kind of school and had more or less similar upbringings. I hope I'm different.

Here's what I'm getting at -

Country Folk, S5 not Manc and myself were waiting to get into a club in machester.

It was a sci-fi themed bar, and I made a comment "It's a bit fucking nerdy looking". The girl in front turned around, and in the most upper-class student accent you can imagine said "Ohhhh, Were not good enough for you - Why not go to the Sports Bar? (Renowned chav club)".

I said something along the lines of "Yeah, these fuckers are way too prolitarian for us BOURGEOIS folk" and I was ready to fly off the handle when it somehow got turned into a jokey situation.

I fuckin hate the stand-offish upper classes and I hate how Manchester is full of posh student types trying to 'better themselfs' with other peoples philosphys...

I thought students were supposed to be radical and understanding of all other people but it seems I'm mistaken.

Sometimes I think it's a north vs. south problem...or even south-east England vs the rest, but that doesn't take into account the working class in that area. It's difficult to say...I'm not working-class, though many of my ancestors were. I was brought up in fairly comfortable circumstances, economically speaking, but I haven't got a car or my own house now...I just never aspired to that kind of thing. But attitudes like the one Gaz mentions are horrible.

I don't know anyone who treats the middle/upper class with any more respect they they treat their own - However I've met the upper classes who look down on us...Out of order, but what can you do?

Needless to say I've also met the upper classes who've treated me as an equal, and I've returned this by treating them likewise :) Money and accent is the only border and both are petty.
I've no probloms with the upper class who show me the respect I'm willing to show to them, but if anyone looks down on me and I'll react in kind.

I think the class divide shows itself in different ways these days. The whole thing about chavs and the like is just a form of middle/ upper class snobbery but it is dressed up as being about the way someone dresses or not being that smart. Actually "chav" is just a word for stupid prole.

The biggest difference between today and perhaps fifty years ago is that the working class is now more divided than it has ever been. The idea that bus drivers or posties that own their own houses and cars are suddenly a member of the bourgeois class is patently ridiculous but it seems to be generally accepted that unless you live on a council estate and wear a shell suit you are not working class. This feeds into this idea that is impossible for working class people to break out of a certain way of thinking and being, failing to realise their potential and getting stuck in a vicious cycle.

Also the whole asylum seeker issue has created an alternative enemy for working class people even though they share more in common with their asylum seeker neighbour then they do with their boss.

The class thing has changed really. There's still plenty of wealthy people who can effectively take themselves out of society by buying their own education, health treatment etc - they can still simply cut themselves off. I think we have loads of people who now think that they are no longer working class but they still are really. People form their own little (or large) groups now because of the shared (self) interests that they have - the groups help themselves and shut everybody else out. Society is still divided but it's divided differently, and not necessarily becasue of degrees of wealth. Life chances are still pretty well fucked if you're poor.

The biggest division in society is down to gender.

Money not class divides us.....

The world is still divided between two classes. The producers of wealth and the owners of wealth- workers and capitalists if you will.

How is gender more important than class? Surely Margaret Thatcher doesn't share anything in common with a single mother on a council estate?

I meant that gender is more important than class with reference to life chances. Women suffer greatly because of the way society pigeon-holes/stereotypes them. Women are categorised socially purely because of their gender, and people see people as members of social categories, not necessarily as individuals. Women suffer because of "tradition" - whether that be traditional male attitudes or because of traditional female roles. Stereotyping forces them into unequality - unequal roles, unequal power, unequal reward. Women have to put up with the "glass ceiling" that men don't even think about career-wise, despite lots of evidence about women consistently achieving higher exam grades etc. Men consistently under achieve educationally compared to women.

All the above transcends class. I don't remember Margaret Thatcher doing anything for women, or single mothers on council estates. She is personally reponsible for deregulating the employment market, fucking up millions of ("mens") jobs, and bringing in the end to the patriarchal system that pervades society, but in the end that just means more drudgery for women, who end up having to look after abandoned kids, having to do two jobs because the husband can't get work and still clean/shop/cook/wipe arses etc.

The Middles Class are Revolting.

I'm from family of working class dad, middle class mum (her mum looked down on him), and am myself middle class because of upbringing, education, profession etc. I'm quite aware of the difference between working and middle class people but the difference is different to how it used to be. Nowadays working class people have got much of the consumer items middle class people had when I was a kid (freezers, videos, central heating, cars, etc) - working class families in the north in the 70s had much less of this stuff.. the difference isn't defined by this so much any more. But it's still there.

Going to Oxford uni and coming from a working class background - or rather, having a strong regional accent - does mean that some people look at with the same morbid curiosity they would John Merrick. Saying that, most people are alright, and I'm sure it's better now than it was a few decades ago.

The only problem is, do I work inwards with me spoons??

I agree with the comment that it is wealth, not class, that now divides society. I work with a woman who is constantly trying to be one-up on her neighbours, and talks about her nice house. Even before she told me, I already knew that she had wood-laminate flooring, a conservatory, and wood decking in the garden. She has no class at all in my book.

Even though my earnings put me below the poverty line, I still look down my nose at people like her, and certain others that earn more money than me. I also look down my nose at many who fall into 'lowest common denominator' categories eg in music or television preferencs.

The fact is that a lot of these people will look down their noses at me for owning an older car and wearing jeans all the time. It is not a class thing though, I don't think.

One thing that puts this into perspective is when I was driving around Solihull, which is a very affluent area, with my cousin who lives there. As we passed various huge houses, she would point out which ones belonged to the drugs dealers, or the dodgy tarmaccers. In fact, about 50% belonged to people who had got their money by dishonest means.

This must be our new middle class then.

Personally, I don't think women suffer any more than men.It's just they suffer in a different way to men. For one, they can bypass a lot of the rat race by bringing up kids and having home responsibilties, where they can go at their own pace and be their own boss. They might still moan about it all, but a lot are secretly happy by this deal. They don't all want careers. Just as not all men want careers. How much you suffer depends on what you want. If it ain't a lot - you will suffer more as a man. If you want a lot - you will suffer more as a woman.

As for class- a lot of it is bound up in traditional attitudes in this country - just sounding posh harks back to a day when such an accent implied you should be automatically assumed to be more intelligent and be valued more and expect better service etc... The residues of all this still subconsciously linger, even though in reality, people are much more consciously aware that an accent can be very misleading.

Hit em with a 2 x 4 ;)

On the head? :lol:

Your choice ;)

The roar of the masses could be farts...

Yeah, everyone now has (through credit) a near infinite access to bread and circuses.

Less well off members of the proletariat can now join the rich and shameless in their pursuit of "he who dies with the most toys wins" ethos.

...but the class thing is still out there. I have a friend who just loves the toffs. As a consequence he has to acquire all those country tweeds (one accepted brand at one accepted price, ie. too expensive) and if you ever find yourself at a big hunt, you will notice that there is an unofficial dresscode and accent.

I find it interesting that I work with people who buy toys outright, and those who can't afford them buy them as well (on credit, eventually paying a lot more). So everyone wins.

...so it's not so much to do with earnings/savings, but access to credit which is the great leveller.

What infuriates me now is being a wage slave (literally, if I don't work I can't pay my rent after 1 month, I have no savings) and having to work with people who play at it (ie. have a well off husband/wife and use their salary to buy golf clubs and fine wines).

I concurr with previous posts about the peasant class having the new enemy of Johnny Foreigner as opposed to Lord and Lady Snot.

Remember that essentially your government wants to train you up to be a lifelong tax payer as their first priority as opposed to any ideas about equality and fairness (consider that school doesn't teach you to love learning but to get keys that open locks: gcse = FE college place, FE qualification = HE university place, degree = more slalary you can be taxed on).

sadly true. no wonder so many 'learners' aren't very motivated in studying these days. just another damn hoop to jump thru. i wish education was really about interested ppl studying the things they want to be interested in.

in principle 'widening participation' (the governments attempt to get more people, and indeed more diverse ppl through the doors of educational establishments) is of course a good thing. but what seems to happen in my expereince, is that it just becomes de rigeur for all middle class families to presume a place for their child at uni. i just see more middle class kids, with lower grades and less motivation coming to uni, rather than the seriously disadvantaged getting any chance. i have found that the group of students with whom i work is divided by a gap between the motivated & the couldn't care at all about their studies. the top flight feel they aren't being challenged and the bottom tier haven't a clue about what they are supposed to be doing. it seems a little like the situation and debates over comprehensive education. we are beginning to wonder if we need to run streaming of some kind - as at present there just seems confusion & discontent where ever you look. *sigh*

on the link between education & economics, i read an interesting book by alison wolf a professor from the Institute of Education. the book is entitled: 'does education matter: myths about education and economic growth'
http://www.politicos.co.uk/item.jsp?ID=1696
worth a read :)

Trouble is, "class" means too many things. I use it in a technical anarcho-political sense, for others it hinges on earnings, or cultural preferences, or whatever. There is no way we are all talking about the same thing.

For me, so long as there are people with significant social power and people without significant social power, there will be a class divide.

Dan

Exactly. Which means that a teacher living in a semi detached house in Surrey is just as much a member of the working class as a dustman from Salford. And more so than an unemployed drug dealer from Salford.

Nailed the problem of the debate in one. I see it that way too, but also cultural. No-one would give a fuck about your monetary status or accent where I work (Meedja). But nail your colours to the wrong cultural mast, and you won't get ahead.

Again, context complicates it. A gay middle-class person could love Robbie Williams, and his campness would authenticate his take on the zeitgeist, and he'd be seen as a good potential producer. If a married working-class woman declared the same position, she'd be seen as hopelessly chavvy and unsophisticated.

My Dad came up with a good saying once about people who aspired to be posh (he had a Yorkshire accent, but well spoken in a Michael Parkinson way, rather than an "ee'up lad, thas nowt s'queer as folk" way) And it was:

"Anybody who tries to sound like they have a plum in their mouth usually ends up sounding like they have a plum up their arse".

I often think of this when John Prescott tries using his "I have a degree you know" voice.

I dunno about class. There are twats on all "levels" not to insinuate actually hierarchy but coz I cant think of an actual word. Fuedalism and the Church have basically conceptualised our whole western philosophy of thinking. The US is not as classless as it says as a previous comment is right. Money. Its about money. But then you have to respect people ho work hard no matter what they do or how much they get paid. I think the bviggest crime is really people pretending to be something "other". If someones born into a "class2 where they are taught to be a way they are prisoners of upbringing. That doesnt mean they have to have those attitudes but its very much the case that a lot of normal folk actually hate "posh voices" the moment they hear them. But is a posh person any more guilty for who there parents are than anyone else? Much better than those who start going to football to watch "The Arsenal" and put on Jamie Oliver voices surely? (Guy Ritchie the Mockney) its better to be honest than to affect an image is what Im saying. Blah.

We do seem to place a lot of emphasis on accents. Other countries don't look down on these differences so much.

You've either got it or you haven't. B)














































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