Most Britons 'are working class' - discuss

[auric]

Can you receive a wage or a salary and not be working class, if so is middle class then just a state of mind?

However, working class people were more likely to place an emphasis on income, while middle class people tended to cite education and the house and area you lived in as being important factors.

Most Britons 'are working class'

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Can't say I dissagree.
Most British seem to spend their lives trying to improve their status symbols, hence the desire for a big house, BMW on the drive and an insistence on trying to show how big, important and tough they are (see how far too many drive like plonkers, feel free to drop litter wherever they feel like it etc).

Unfortunately we have a national press that seems to encourage us to think that complaining rather than thinking about solutions is a good thing, and that status is more important than waking up in the morning with a smile on your face.

 

[johnhunt]

i'm more class d than class a

 

[greg]

I don't really subscribe the these definitions. Life is very different now and the things which one person considers a clear definition of "class" no longer necessarily tallies with the next person.

Can anyone actually define "Working Class" or "Lower Middle Class" vs "Upper Middle Class"?

 

[julian2002]

it's all a state of mind.

lower classes place importance on graft.
middle classes place importance on education and qualifications.
upper classes place importance on who you know and who knows you.

money doesn't come into it. although once you get enough of it you become 'eccentric' which trancends class and gets you invited to some really interesting parties.

i would go on to say that lower class doesn;t encompass the 'professionally unemployed'.

 

[narabdela]

Class is an English, not a British obsession. In Scotland, a person's education and achievments are more important than his origins.

(does that make us all middle class?)

 

[auric]

I must agree about it being a state of mind thing plus an advertising thing with postcodes offering others a glimps into what they think may be your world.

PS the view from ACORN

 

[amazingtrade]

This is a strange one, I have always considered myself as lower midle class, my up bringing was very middle class, we never had much money, but I lived in a good area, my parents had a car and we did go on holiday a few times a year even though it was always in the UK.

My dad had a very middle class job and was from Chelsea and Fulham so he was from a welll to do background, my mum on the other hand came from a council house but both her parents had management level jobs.

Education has always been important in my up bringing but it was never a huge deal.

I've done crappy jobs like counting the number of people in lectures, delivering news papers and selling second hand batteries.

So I have no idea what I am, I currently earn less than the average working class man but I am as well educated as the average middle class person.

I think class is bollocks .

 

[la toilette]

I'm in a class of my own


(but that's only cos no-one else wants to join me in here, apart from the spiders, and it gets lonely sometimes )

 

[rodrat]

Class is very much on show. The way you hold your knife for example. If you hold it like a pen, you are clearly lower class or have the trappings of middle class but are really a poor person at heart. Other examples are good taste or the lack thereof. The footballers wife syndrome illustrates this to perfection.

I don't really care because I'm upper class and look down on both.

Rod

 

[Bob McC]

You might have a beemer but do you drink yer tea out of the saucer, having put the 'sterra' in first?

 

[greg]

Class is very much on show. The way you hold your knife for example. If you hold it like a pen, you are clearly lower class or have the trappings of middle class but are really a poor person at heart. Other examples are good taste or the lack thereof. The footballers wife syndrome illustrates this to perfection.

I don't really care because I'm upper class and look down on both.

Rod

These examples illustrate you're middle class with aspirations. Only the middle classes are concerned with such pointless scrutiny

 

[auric]

Still good after all these yuears.

The English class system I look up to him because he is upper class but I look down on him because he is lower class, warning a 34MB RealPlayer vid.

 

[auric]

Still good after all these years.

The English class system I look up to him because he is upper class but I look down on him because he is lower class, warning a 34MB RealPlayer vid.

 

[wadia-miester]

Personally I'm Class 'T' it works for me !!!!

 

[Joe]

Can you receive a wage or a salary and not be working class, if so is middle class then just a state of mind?
[/URL]

It's all my arse, this class stuff.

 

[julian2002]

i'm going to ammend my opinon.
it comes down to:
you either have class or you don't it's as simple as that. you can be church mouse poor and dress like a chav and have class (ok, difficult but possible) or, on the flip side, you can wear designer suits and drive a bentley and be an oik. god i sound like mick parry. it's all down to how you deal with the world.
cheers


julian

 

[Joe]

i'm going to ammend my opinon.
it comes down to:
you either have class or you don't it's as simple as that. you can be church mouse poor and dress like a chav and have class (ok, difficult but possible) or, on the flip side, you can wear designer suits and drive a bentley and be an oik. god i sound like mick parry. it's all down to how you deal with the world.

Which is precisely why 'class' as a descriptor is useless.

Though anyone who wears brown shoes in town is clearly a bounder.