#86

Obviously social class is a thing.

I just don’t think social class stereotypes are quite as prevalent as people think, or fit neatly into things like how much disposable income someone has. I know people from really big households and are presumably minted, but at the same time don’t come across as remotely ‘posh’. Whereas I’m from a lower middle class background and used to get EMA/maximum uni funding, yet people sometimes think I’m really posh and I even get the shit ripped out of me for it.

Obviously social class stereotypes do exist and there are people who are really well-off and act it, but at the same time a lot of people don’t.

#87

Think it’s an amalgamation of intersectional social issues as DB identified earlier so the stereotypes are probably outdated but it’s definitely A THING and more important than everrrrrrrrr

#89

When this issue used to come up at uni, I’d describe myself as “first generation middle class”. Dad grew up on a council estate in North London, left school at 16, worked his way up in the world of electronic engineering and was a lecturer for the last 25-odd years of his career. We grew up in a village in Dorset in our own home.

I was the first of the family to go to uni; I now have my own house and enough income / savings not to have to worry about finances on a daily basis.

Mind you, I look at my dad’s new girlfriend and think actually, I’m less middle class than I think.

Just feels disingenuous to describe myself as working class just because my dad was born on a council estate.

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#90

I get this point. I understand that different people view it in different ways but, to me at least, “class” is a purely economic descriptor at a given point in time.

Thus, my parents were working class, I am from a working class background but I’m middle class as fuck.

Someone mentioned upthread the idea that certain cultural pursuits are middle class. Can’t get on board with that, even though I guess it’s more aimed at who has money to spend on these things. Even when my dad was on the dole, music, literature and art were massively important in our house.

Alternatively. Dunno. Want to hear a few anecdotes?

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#91

That second to last paragraph is really important isn’t it. The idea that certain things (e.g. classic literature or whatever) are out of bounds to certain social groups is a bit “know your place”.

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#92

Well intrigued about your dad’s new girlfriend! In my head she’s Lilo Lil???

#93

i think it’s imperative kids are taught this stuff. my mum and dad, bless them, couldn’t be fiscally prudent because they never made enough to bother opening savings accounts and the like, so it was a skill i’ve had to slowly, painfully teach myself with some helpful pointers from my longterm gf along the way.

#94

but then if that were taught in school who gets to decide what kind of fiscal responsibility kids are taught? maybe it would become a political weapon to turn the next generation into tories, idk.

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#95

Whatever the accurate (and useful and interesting) sociological definition of working class is, it’s always fascinating and galling to me how much of a role it plays in our inner-psyches and our opinions of each other in this country. (I say in this country, but I don’t have any extensive experience of living in other countries, just going off what foreigners I know have said). Like, my mum was just telling me that I had pneumonia as a baby and a doctor made her feel really ashamed that she had gone back to work - cos she sounded middle class so it didn’t enter into his head that she could be a single mum of three kids so had no choice. Or I remember a conversation not that long ago with some friends from university about what people had for breakfast as kids, and everyone thought i must be joking when I said I had cocopops every day until I was about 15. Like there was this moment where they were all like “huh, not the kind of background we thought you had…” or something. I remember being at university as an 18 year old and just assuming that all the northerners must be more working class than me. Read through this thread and everyone is tying themselves in knots trying to work out where they fit in the pecking order (inverse or otherwise). I probably think about it more than other people but woooooooooooah it twists my melon man.

#96

Class is about more than material relations. It’s also a set of competing aesthetics, ontologies and ethics, formed as a means by which power relations are both negotiated and reproduced.

It’s these things, more than our simple material relation to capital, that make transitions into a different class difficult. They are also inseparably enmeshed with the effects of other oppressive structures - race, gender etc

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#97

actually changed my mind I’m part of a parasitic underclass so I win at being the lowest and most worthless person here

#98

can you describe this for thick poor people like me please? (less fancy words)

#99

Idk man, no one pays any attention to what I say these days, so I mainly just say things for my own benefit.

Just talking about stuff like accents, preferences, morality, the way we generally see the world etc and how they’re linked to class. They arise cos of power (which exists in our relations with each other, not as a thing in itself that someone can just be in possession of if that makes sense) being exerted, and also because of resistance to power (which is obviously a form of power itself).

Just adding to the point db makes above, but also saying can’t just be explained by a Marxian economic analysis of capitalist socio-economics. If I’d read any Bourdieu I’d talk about Habitus when talking about this stuff, but db knows I haven’t and I’d feel like a fraud /she’d call me out.

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#100

tried to summarise it myself but I can’t do it, sorry!

#101

Basically this but my dad lucked into an entry position in stockbroking despite having a shit education, not having much money and being what my mum would call “common”, being surprisingly good at it, and working his way up to managing several floors at a City bank (after 20 years) so… earning £££.

But my parents just bought a new Jaguar so I feel uncomfortable pretending I’m anything less than at least slightly posh.

#102

ah I wasn’t too far off in my interpretation, it’s a code for people in power to work out who is and isn’t in their club. Words like ontology make me feel angry and confused for some reason, I think that’s some kind of reflection of most people in my old philosophy classes being rich.

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#103

i like your posts :+1:

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#104

don’t really understand why I get angry and hate rich people so much when I don’t particularly want much money myself. Just realised I don’t own a single pair of trousers without a hole in the crotch. Got no intention of buying new ones, what’s the point?

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#105

Because so many of them get that money by under-paying others for their time and labour and generally treading on others in their greed-driven race to the top?

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#106

it’s because they spend their money on boring rich people shit like houses and stocks. normal people would ski down a mountain of cocaine into a pool of champagne and give £20000 as a tip to the pizza delivery guy or whatever.

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