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Is it offensive or wrong
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
To seperate society in to working class, middle class ect?
I had a chat with my flatmate and it was about art classes and I said how the art campus for my university is very white middle class, whereas the campus I'm on is mostly working class people from ethnic backgrounds.
She said that believing in classes segregates people and also believes that a lot of hate can come from it. For example, one guy she knows has worked very hard and has made money and then people would take snipes at him because he's middle class now.
Any thoughts?
I had a chat with my flatmate and it was about art classes and I said how the art campus for my university is very white middle class, whereas the campus I'm on is mostly working class people from ethnic backgrounds.
She said that believing in classes segregates people and also believes that a lot of hate can come from it. For example, one guy she knows has worked very hard and has made money and then people would take snipes at him because he's middle class now.
Any thoughts?
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Comments
Indeed
The problem is that when people talk about the "upper class" they mean the preening toffs who bray in good university towns; when people talk about the "working class" they mean the tracksuit-clad dole-dossers.
actually race to the extent of skin colour doesnt exist, there are very pale black peopel and very dark white people, and lots inbetween, its one of the silliest things to judge a person by
half the english population would be black from their perma tans then
Why? Some chav with 8 children is equal to an erudite, Oxbridge educated person? Shit no.
Class is what makes life.
Or do i. I don't really know what the difference is between the classes.
people are people, now matter what theyre parents were, how much money they have, or any of that.
I bring this from my friends auntie. He said she became a nurse so she decided to rent a house in the nicest area of the city (£800 per month renting) and started to make new friends while totally cutting off those that supported towards becoming a qualified nurse. She put herself at another level thinking she is another class. I just don't see the point.
I think that there are far to many factors to class for anyone to really be pinned down. Education, salary, assets, type of job (unemployed, unskilled, skilled, professional, business owner), social circle with which you associate. I think in the past, if you told people one of these attributes about you and your familiy, they would be able to accurately predict the others, and put you into a class. And while these attributes may often be linked, not reliably enough to label people based on a few (which explains why someone like the Beckhams get called Chavs). And for things like studies and research, I think looking at any of these aspects individually is far more important than coming up with an obscure class to put someone into.
Good point, I overlooked that.
What are your definitions of class Blagsta?
What I mean is that there are at least 2 competing definitions going on here. There is the cultural/social definition, which can be loosely divided into lower and upper working class, lower and upper middle class and upper class/aristo. This is loosely defined by job, attitudes, culture, what sort of school you went to etc.
Then there is the Marxist definition which is about your relationship to capital - basically whether you have to sell your labour to survive or not - working class Vs boss class (with some people also positing the middle classes as a "manager class" who sell their labour to survive but whose self interest lies more with the owners).
Then there is also the A, B1, B2, C, D, E classes that market research bods use.
Now i go to school in the next town, and when i first went there everyone was afraid of me because of where i come from. They all thought i'd be a mouthy cow who'd deck them if they looked in my direction. And when they asked what primary school i went to, no one had ever heard of it. :rolleyes: It's quite interesting. Now my parents have split and my mum only works part time as a dental nurse, we're on a very low income. But i still associate with the people in my home town and my friends (who all live in the next town) who are alot better off then me and are i guess 'middle class'
But they can't always associate with me because they've all grown up in a better area with wealthier families and don't really know any different. I actually feel that i'm at the advantage because i feel i've experienced more.
I think it's interesting that even though they'd be considered 'middle class', and i'd be 'working class' that i've gained more experience in life that what they have so far. I don't think classes have much point, but they're always going to be there.
if that makes sense
http://www.zabalaza.net/pdfs/varpams/class_cw.pdf
Are they the only reasons?
I was lucky. I've done these and now I managed somehow to get in to a university, but for people who don't want to go, or who have commitments at home and can't go, I can see why people would hate to work packing chicken in to a box because the time drags and there isn't really any chance to make a career out of it.
At the same time, I know a lot of lazy people who don't even bother to look for a job.
I've been given a lot of shit because people think I come from a wealthy background (when really I was brought up on benefits by a single parent until the middle of my teens), just because I am relatively articulate and because I hold very liberal views on certain issues. It really bummed me out because I was sometimes treated morally inferior, or like an enemy just because I read broadsheet newspapers and talked differently.
I also noticed that not only was the snobbery awful from the less affluent people, but also from those who have a little bit more money. Now I'm living in somewhere more affluent and have served millionaires at the bar and they have been lovely.
Being down south, especally being in Surbiton makes me feel a bit common. But then at the same time, there doesn't seem to be the same class identities here as there does in Wrexham. I was surprised actually because I thought I'd be treated like riff raff and talked down to. It has been quite the opposite.
It seems that people often don't know any different, so don't feel the need to go further.