Class

[Mr. Tea]

are we to think that the poetic arts and constitutions are available to any other than the enlightened classes? can the gypsies understand their own pathos?

I wouldn't call it 'enlightened' as such to spend a lot of time psychoanalysing oneself and wallowing in 'angst'. I think this tendency to over-analyse oneself (which seems to come very much from America, although it's becoming increasingly common over here) is in general quite a destructive, not so say self-indulgent, habit.

I'd have thought a more traditionally working-class, and probably healthier, approach to bun-u's antagonism towards perceived snobbery would be to say to him/herself "Sod these snooty wankers, I'm going for a few pints".

 

[bun-u]

I'd have thought a more traditionally working-class, and probably healthier, approach to bun-u's antagonism towards perceived snobbery would be to say to him/herself "Sod these snooty wankers, I'm going for a few pints".

Maybe, but where I work I’m surrounded by ruling class twenty or thirty-somethings, good school, good uni, world-travelled, holding down real estate…I got nothing against any one of them but collectively their impact, the culture they’ve created, agitates me … the passive aggressive code of politeness, the very subtle slagging off of poor people for not ‘getting up off their arses’, their faux concern for world poverty and the environent. Trust me I’m happy to have come from where I have, to have the dual perspective and if I have kids I will do what I can to pass this on (note: I think most people who climb the ladder and ‘escape’ their background tend to eulogise to the kids about how hard they worked which adds to this prophecy)

 

[tht]

I wouldn't call it 'enlightened' as such to spend a lot of time psychoanalysing oneself and wallowing in 'angst'. I think this tendency to over-analyse oneself (which seems to come very much from America, although it's becoming increasingly common over here) is in general quite a destructive, not so say self-indulgent, habit.

I'd have thought a more traditionally working-class, and probably healthier, approach to bun-u's antagonism towards perceived snobbery would be to say to him/herself "Sod these snooty wankers, I'm going for a few pints".

typical english clothcap fetishism, the middle classes have no reason to be upset and the others can self medicate with neurotoxins and clean up the sick

 

[Mr. Tea]

Oh, I see: if I have anything good to say about workling class people I'm a 'clothcap fetishist', whereas if I have anything bad to say I'm no doubt an appalling snob, right?

typical english clothcap fetishism, the middle classes have no reason to be upset and the others can self medicate with neurotoxins and clean up the sick

Er, that's not exactly what I meant...I was just saying that while it's obviously a good thing that we're not all stiff-upper-lip emotional retards any more, there has been a tendency to swing too far the other way and you end up with a kind of psychopathological hypochondria - like in certain sections of middle-class America where people have a therapist as a matter of course, just as they might have a personal trainer of piano teacher.

And if you view alcohol primarily as a 'neurotoxin', I'm glad I don't have to go to the pub with you.

 

[bruno]

Slight digression but I ask because I'm not sure myself - is it "tow the line" or "toe the line"? I always thought the latter because I assumed it was to put your feet by some kind of line telling you where to stand but I'm not certain.

that's exactly it, literally not stepping over the line. so it's toe, not tow.

 

[swears]

Yeah, that makes sense. "Tow" the line is meaningless.

 

[Lichen]

possibly has a parliamentary root: the line being the one running along the front benches and over which MP's can't tread

maybe not though

 

[Lichen]

Right....again!

"The longest running use of the phrase, often mentioned by tourist guides, is from the British House of Commons where sword strapped members were instructed to stand behind lines that were better than a sword’s length from their political rivals. Thus the cry to “toe the line!” was echoed to return order to the House and to quell a potential mortal conflict"

I read it on Wkikipedia; it must be true.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Aww, man, dudes packing heat in Parliament?
We used to have proper democracy back in them days.

 

[Guybrush]

the majority of posters here seeing class privilege as something to aspire towards rather than as a destructive pathology

I think you are slightly off the mark here—it is the leisures of the traditional privileged class many persons find wholesome, not all the undeniable offal that comes with the system—but it is an interesting topic. Why do people harbour these aspirations at all? And, perhaps more interestingly, what good are such ideals?

I would like to veer the question round, though. Hundredmillionlifetimes, what do all you naysayers propose one should aspire to instead?

 

[nomadologist]

Yeah... there are the political elite and big oil families and whatnot, but they're so far removed from the rest of the population... and that old, stodgy or preppy image has very little visibility or influence on pop culture (except when rappers like Jay Z dress preppy). If anything, Hollywood celebrity culture is the more visible elite and aristocracy here.

I actually live in a pretty upper-class sector of Orange County at the moment (which is one big, never-ending, oceanic suburb... it's hell, really), and if anything, the rich kids around here try to emulate lower-class hip hop culture. The upper-echelons of suburbia do that is. Metropolitan rich kids are more hipster-y... that whole spoiled, Vice Magazine-reading contingent.

We sure do have those old money people! I somehow made friends with a lot of them in college. One girl who I didn't particularly like was of old oil money stock, GW Bush was actually her fucking godfather, and I remember her taking a private jet home once for a weekend after she'd had a bad week at school. It was pretty sweet when one of her Soc professors tore her a new one when she tried to claim she should go be a maid in Mexico for a few years after college to undo her privilege.

Incidentally, I have never met cheaper bastards than the old money elites I've met in the U.S. Disgustingly, embarrassingly cheap tightwads, the ones I've met.

This thread is interesting. It's far more interesting to read about peoples' personal histories than it is to read them arguing about class and structuralism. If you ask me...

 

[nomadologist]

Zhao: I'm probably what's called "second generation" immigrant. I think that's where class distinctions are drawn in the U.S.--directly along the lines of "how recently did you get here"? (If not along race lines...)

My mom's dad came from (Reggio) Italy, where they were filthy rich, to be a ganster and continue making money. The pictures of him are great: he always has a handle of liquor in one hand, a cigar in his mouth, and usually cards in the other hand. He owned a "shoe store." Her mom was some sort of model from Denmark, and the marriage caused a huge family rift (because not marrying an Italian whose family was in the business is the ultimate faux pas in 1955). After his premature death, my mom's family of 5 siblings was written out of all the money by the family. For some reason, la famiglia is nice to me, but I think they have ulterior motives. I have some land in Calabria that I want to build on. That requires more money than I have now.

My dad's grandmother was left on a doorstep by gypsies around Syracuse. The rest of his family were "Zellers", apparently traveling Jewish salespeople. His father's family was the product of some sort of con man who came from Quebec to marry his wife's sister after his wife was institutionalized. Sometimes I think I should make a movie about the weirdness.

Then again, all Americans are fucking weird. I love hearing about American's heritage. I still feel stigmatized in my hometown, like my family is seen as "immigrants" by the WASPs and the other whiter people. Cops hate us, we always get pulled over up there.

 

[nomadologist]

Er, that's not exactly what I meant...I was just saying that while it's obviously a good thing that we're not all stiff-upper-lip emotional retards any more, there has been a tendency to swing too far the other way and you end up with a kind of psychopathological hypochondria - like in certain sections of middle-class America where people have a therapist as a matter of course, just as they might have a personal trainer of piano teacher.
[/I]

There's something wrong with therapy? Good god I can't wait until the scientific establishment succeeds in proving to people that the brain, and its attending "psyche", can be disordered just as any other organ/system can be, and that most with those disorders can benefit from professional care and attention.

 

[tht]

This thread is interesting. It's far more interesting to read about peoples' personal histories than it is to read them arguing about class and structuralism. If you ask me...

sort of, it's always diverting but isn't it sometimes nice to read people in class neutral terms (something specific to the internet)

there are a lot of people who are very quick to define themselves in terms of class (birth) and seem to think very little about it beyond everyday signifiers (twitching lace curtains etc), maybe they could use some althusser ;-)

though apparently even without compulsively stating your class identity people will try to suss it even from written words cf edward saying that 'different ways of speaking set you apart from others' (my words clearly sing through the pixels)

 

[noel emits]

I'd like to hear from some Indians and Japanese. I suspect the situations there might well make Europe and the US appear very straightforward. Or maybe not - perhaps what's so confusing and nefarious is when the class system isn't all out in the open.

One thing I wonder about in the UK is where do 'manners' fit into this. Does it mark one out as being middle or upper class to be habitually polite? Is it more 'real' and salt-of-the-earth to be blunt and direct? Does minding Ps and Qs assist the smooth running of society under less than ideal conditions, or is it just a veneer of civility that obscures true power relationships and something we could do best without?

 

[hundredmillionlifetimes]

though apparently even without compulsively stating your class identity people will try to suss it even from written words cf edward saying that 'different ways of speaking set you apart from others' (my words clearly sing through the pixels)

The Importance of Being Edward?

... My dad's grandmother was left on a doorstep by gypsies around Syracuse ...

At least this could be considered as an advance over being found in a handbag at Victoria Station ...

... Good god I can't wait until the scientific establishment succeeds in proving to people that the brain, and its attending "psyche", can be disordered just as any other organ/system can be, and that most with those disorders can benefit from professional care and attention.

Hasn't it - the neuroscientific establishment - already done so? And paradoxically, isn't this - its reductivist exclusion of the wider social system - also its weakness? Indeed, neuroscience, biogenetics, ego-psychology and cognitivist-evolutionary reductionism should be challenged precisely for this glaring exclusion, the principle weakness of theories such as those of Daniel Dennett etc. In his critique of Dennett, Bo Dahlbom is absolutely correct to focus on the social character and formation of 'mind'. Theories of mind/brain are obviously conditioned by their socio-historical circumstances: just to take the example of Fredric Jameson, who recently suggested a reading of Dennett's Consciousness Explained as simply an allegory of late capitalism with its rhetoric of competition, networks, communications, decentralisation etc. And, as Zizek proposed: "Even more important, Dennett himself insists that tools, the externalised 'intelligence' on which human beings rely, are an inherent part of human identity: it is meaningless to imagine a human being as a biological entity without the complex network of his/her tools - it would be like imagining a goose without its feathers. But in saying this he opens up a path which should be followed much further. Since, to express it in good old Marxist terms, man is the totality of his/her social relations, Dennett should take the next logical step and analyse this network of social relations."

And class antagonism is central to such an analysis, with or without the cucumber sandwiches.

 

[Mr. Tea]

There's something wrong with therapy? Good god I can't wait until the scientific establishment succeeds in proving to people that the brain, and its attending "psyche", can be disordered just as any other organ/system can be, and that most with those disorders can benefit from professional care and attention.

Therapy is great for people who really need it, obviously. The further we can go towards ending the stigma attached to mental illness, and helping people seek help for themeselves when they really need it, the better. But the impression I get of America (and I admit this comes mostly from TV, so it could be way off the mark, but I think it probably isn't) is that lots of people who don't really have anything wrong with them are seeing 'therapists' of one sort or another more for an ego boost than anything. On the other hand, if it's their own money they're spending and they think they're getting value for money, then it's up to them I suppose, it's just that people have traditionally used cheaper alternatives in the form of a spouse/sibling/best buddy/priest/local bartender etc.

What does make me fucking cross is when people get their kids 'diagnosed' with a 'personality disorder' so they can dose them up with Xanax or lithium or Ritalin or whatever at the age of five, because they basically can't be arsed to bring them up properly and help them through some difficult phase of development.

 

[nomadologist]

though apparently even without compulsively stating your class identity people will try to suss it even from written words cf edward saying that 'different ways of speaking set you apart from others' (my words clearly sing through the pixels)

of course, all of this gets thrown off if you have, say, a board full of trustafarians using patois who've never set foot outside their parents' duplex except to go to the country house

 

[nomadologist]

Hasn't it - the neuroscientific establishment - already done so?

over and over. there are simply "no ears to hear" the truth.

mr. tea--yeah, there are the park avenue shrinks in the states (mostly just the "blue states", and even then, mostly just New York and L.A. or other cities where you'll find jewish people and many influential ones, this is the stereotype) who cater to an overly indulged/indulgent bunch of neurotics with no "real" problems (as a less privileged person may define them), but this phenomenon is surely exaggerated in the media for satirical effect.

sadly, the people who need real psychiatric treatment and care the most are those who have no health insurance, and therefore, no access to it.

 

[tht]

mr. tea--yeah, there are the park avenue shrinks in the states (mostly just the "blue states", and even then, mostly just New York and L.A. or other cities where you'll find jewish people and many influential ones, this is the stereotype) who cater to an overly indulged/indulgent bunch of neurotics with no "real" problems (as a less privileged person may define them), but this phenomenon is surely exaggerated in the media for satirical effect.

sadly, the people who need real psychiatric treatment and care the most are those who have no health insurance, and therefore, no access to it.

and i imagine a psychoanalysis with some 70yr old paleofreudian is going to be a long way from the feelgood platitudes and compulsive disclosure of selfhelp psychology, why would someone pay $1000 a week if they weren't going to suffer just a little