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Musicmystery -> RE: Class Warfare (12/1/2014 7:54:35 AM)
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
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ORIGINAL: MariaB
whilst money can buy you a lot of things it can’t buy you class. How can wealth alone be sufficient to allow entry into the upper class? This means if you are a waitress that wins big money on the lottery you automatically assign yourself to the elite upper classes? What about a laird who donates all his land and property to a heritage trust. A man who has had the best education money can buy and who has only ever mixed with the gentry. Does giving his money away make him working class?
Fundamentally class isn’t mobile unless you marry into it. At least that is how I see it.
I think the difference between Britain and the US is, in Britain there is no shame in being working class unless you're an inverted snob. Because of the pseudo middle class people here, people often feel embarrassed to state themselves in that category and proudly opt to be working class.
What you're describing is the difference between the UK, where class is based on blood and is inherited, and the US, where class is indeed entirely economic, including the examples of mobility you named.
Granted, wealth can be inherited.
England is far more conservative in this respect, because it's seen as shameful to aim to forget your roots.
Class is not based on blood. For example, down the centuries both Germans and Americans who have studied at places such as Oxford and Cambridge have been accepted as English gentlemen. The fact they were born in a different country is irrelevant in this.
Class is a way of thinking and a way of acting in England, whether upper class or anything else.
Seriously, 'blood' has never consumed the thoughts of the English.
What, then, would you describe as the determinants of class in the UK?
On the one hand, you note blood isn't important, but then on the other hand, stress the importance of remembering one's roots.
Perhaps I didn't quite grasp your thoughts when you mentioned 'blood'.
Put it this way, in England, a person clearly of Asian descent, speaking with a Middle Class accent; will have more doors opened up for him/her than a white Englishman speaking with a Working Class accent. That's what I meant by blood or stock or whatever you want to call it.
When I said roots, I in no way meant race. I meant that a lot of people in the old industrial heartlands of the North and the Midlands, and some parts of London and the South, too, would never in million years aspire to being part of any Middle or Upper Class society.
Determinant of class in the UK? It's possibly down to the individual and it's not set in stone, but money is not usually the common denominator. My salary and profession would certainly be placed in the Middle Class bracket, but my outlook, accent and interests would place me firmly in the Working Class bracket that is where I intend to stay.
It's difficult to explain, really, because in this respect England and the United States is so culturally different.
From my understanding, being the President of the United States is something for everyone to aspire to in the US; ask most Working Class Englishmen and they're rather die than be the Prime Minister of England because the implications would be that you'd have to mix with a load of snobs and people with whom you have pretty much nothing in common.
Correct, race is an entirely different matter, and not the point here.
Appears you and I are actually in agreement.
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