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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2009 23:48:16 GMT
Working Class Middle Class Upper Class And all the ones in between. Who defines which 'Class' we are from or that we belong to, and how do they do it? This article makes some interesting points: money.ca.msn.com/savings-debt/insight/article.aspx?cp-documentid=21866154
Quote: In India, a scooter company aims ads at a schoolteacher who earns $2,500 a year and lives in a tiny brick house with no running water. Why? Because that teacher, according to marketers, is middle class.
In the United States, meanwhile, a family that earns $200,000 a year and has a 2,000-square-foot home, two cars, three computers and an Xbox game console so the kids don't have to play outside barely blinks before labeling itself middle class.Any opinions on this at all?
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Post by fumobici on Sept 26, 2009 2:20:34 GMT
Status/class is almost completely relative and situational. If the World were made of billionaires, the millionaire with only a 5 bedroom 3 bath house and a E-class Mercedes but without a golden toilet and a megayacht wouldn't feel poor , they actually would be.
If you have a safe warm place to sleep and enough food, you've got it made I reckon, worrying about the rest is mostly a game for the insecure.
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Post by hwinpp on Sept 26, 2009 2:47:49 GMT
Oh, oh, quicksand...  |
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Post by lola on Sept 26, 2009 3:02:26 GMT
I'm going with fumobici. And, heck, hwinpp while I'm at it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2009 4:56:28 GMT
There have been some interesting reports lately about completely redifining some of the criteria for comparing countries. Some of the ideas are revolutionary, because they are not based on money at all for the first time.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2009 21:12:58 GMT
Yep, the notion of class is changing. In some places it already has little significance. I find that here in Canada, most people will downplay their 'class' if you like, or rather to which finance bracket they belong to, it's almost an embarrassment to be rich for some. I'm sure it's different from country to country however.
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Post by fumobici on Sept 26, 2009 22:41:43 GMT
Even regionally within a country. I find people from the East coast of the US fairly obsessed with class distinctions compared to people on the other coast.
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Post by lola on Sept 26, 2009 22:59:51 GMT
True, fumobici. Easterners talk about class, Coastal Californians drop celebrity names, and St. Louisans, where I live, talk about the best route to drive from one part of town to another.
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Post by BigIain on Sept 27, 2009 22:07:45 GMT
Status may be attained with money and material things.... Class is in the mind and has little to do with projected image.
I can spend 30 mins with so called middle or upper class people and decide that they are just trying to appear something which they are not. I have never been hung-up on the whole class thing despite having started my working life in a working class job.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2009 3:22:31 GMT
"Class" breakdown is alive and well in my home town. The WASP's still think they rule the roost because they still have a golf club that doesn't admit Blacks,Jews,Polish Catholics.
They still walk around in their madras golf pants and the wives in their Lili Pulitzer skirts.
Hasn't changed a bit.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2009 4:56:55 GMT
In France now, one mostly talks about "lifestyle groups" rather than classes. It probably started when terms like "yuppie" were invented. Whether or not the term is pejorative or not (it is for some people), I for example, would be called a "bobo" by most people -- that is short for bourgeois bohemian. Probably about half of all Parisians could be placed in that category, which is why it is now considered to be a left wing stronghold after being a bastion of the right for 50 years.
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Post by spindrift on Sept 28, 2009 9:21:44 GMT
In England I guess it's all about who your parents were, the circles they mixed in, the 'clubs' the man belonged to and where they came from and nothing to do with money. Some of the most upper upper class people I know have no money to speak of.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2009 10:59:42 GMT
"Class" breakdown is alive and well in my home town. The WASP's still think they rule the roost because they still have a golf club that doesn't admit Blacks,Jews,Polish Catholics. They still walk around in their madras golf pants and the wives in their Lili Pulitzer skirts. Hasn't changed a bit. Who are the 'WASP'S? Are they legally allowed to not admit Blacks etc Quote:
In England I guess it's all about who your parents were, the circles they mixed in and where they came from and nothing to do with money. Some of the most upper upper class people I know have no money to speak of.
Yes, I've seen shows where poor 'upper class' people have been showing the viewers around huge crumbling mansions that they can no longer afford to maintain, and in some cases don't even own anymore. But they still talk, nonstop, about their lineage. |
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Post by spindrift on Sept 28, 2009 11:13:09 GMT
Yes, that's true. The thing is that they only mix together. It's next to impossible for anyone from outside to break into their society. It seems to me that the only way is for a woman to marry into the circle or, possibly, for a man to be gradually taken in via an 'upper class' school or university friend.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2009 11:15:53 GMT
So that's how it is? That's all my chances gone then!
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Post by spindrift on Sept 28, 2009 11:21:14 GMT
Not really.....no doubt you'd bowl over some 'toff' ! Betcha!  (Believe it or not - I've turned down the chance twice  ) |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2009 11:29:46 GMT
Deyana, the WASP's are the White Anglo Saxon Protestants whose ancestors founded the town in 1652.
The Golf and Tennis Club that they founded has always shunned membership from anyone outside. Sure,someone "outside" could apply and may be accepted and legally could be challenged on not being admitted due to discrimination but on a social level will always be an outcast.
One of the fancier ones in a nearby town was challenged by Diana Ross a while back and she was eventually "accepted" but shunned by the members and treated as an outsider.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2009 13:24:56 GMT
And of course there is always the question "what black person could possibly want to be a member of a club full of racists"?
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Post by imec on Sept 28, 2009 13:28:41 GMT
And of course there is always the question "what black person could possibly want to be a member of a club full of racists"? Or white, or yellow or brown... |
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Post by fumobici on Sept 28, 2009 17:25:20 GMT
Polish Catholics? My word, what an exquisitely arcane prejudice to cultivate!
I've always found the combination of wealthy and narrow minded a strange one. People of means have often gone to good schools, traveled and been exposed to other cultures etc. How short of blinkered willful ignorance can one be exposed to all that and remain as uncosmopolitan and small minded as some particularly uncultured back woods bumpkin who hasn't had those same opportunities?
I've been acquainted with a couple of English peers and it's a bit fun once they realize they are dealing with a colonial and that they can't expect the same sort of deference they assume as an entitlement among their countrymen. They must assume none of their patrician mannerisms, accent, or references to exclusive clubs and schools will carry any particular weight with us and further they cannot read those same sorts of clues about us to try to establish our relative social stations and therefore ground rules for appropriate social interaction. Once all that has been digested, usually the guard will come down and it's just people enjoying each other's company.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2009 18:30:07 GMT
I have also enjoyed not according traditional respect to certain people. I have not met many peers (just a few), but I have met a number of famous actors and I have always treated them as though they are just "ordinary Joe" which most certainly seems to perturb them a bit. When it is a real conversation, they sometimes seem to appreciate having a crumb of normal life, but for a brief contact, such as taking the extra chair at their café table or sitting next to them at the theatre, they seem to miss the "Oh, aren't you so-and-so?!? I've seen all of your movies and I love you!" -- especially when you give absolutely no sign of knowing who they are even though you live on the same planet.
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Post by lola on Sept 29, 2009 1:22:59 GMT
I'd think the hereditary class system would be less annoying than the US kind based on wealth. It's galling having to treat people as if they are hot stuff because of what kind of material goods they can afford.
I'm glad you're throwing the famous a curve, K. Shake up their expectations. I'd think it would get pretty tedious having everyone tell me they'd seen my movies.
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Post by rikita on Sept 30, 2009 20:37:21 GMT
i have the feeling that class is becoming more important here, though the term "class" isn't actually used...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 30, 2009 21:28:35 GMT
Not really.....no doubt you'd bowl over some 'toff' ! Betcha! (Believe it or not - I've turned down the chance twice ) Probably, Spinny.  Not sure if I'd want to put the energy into doing that though! I can't blame you for turning that offer down, perhaps they were too boring to bother with? ;D |
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Post by lola on Sept 30, 2009 21:38:17 GMT
If they'd been worthy of her, Spindrift might have given them a chance.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 1, 2009 5:54:37 GMT
I'd think the hereditary class system would be less annoying than the US kind based on wealth. It's galling having to treat people as if they are hot stuff because of what kind of material goods they can afford. Do you really lola? Really? If it's hereditary, one has NO chance to better oneself, to raise oneself up to a higher class. India's caste system is hereditary. I'd much rather live in a society where it doesn't matter who you were born, but who you became. I'd rather the measure not be material wealth, though, but achievement. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2009 13:46:28 GMT
I'd rather the measure not be material wealth, though, but achievement.
In a perfect world that's how it would be.
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Post by lola on Oct 4, 2009 22:57:57 GMT
I question whether being in a higher class is actually bettering oneself. If Spindrift had thought it was, presumably she'd have jumped on the toffs' offers.
(toffs' offers: try saying that 10 times quickly.)
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 4, 2009 23:03:45 GMT
Toffs offers of toffee!
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Post by spindrift on Oct 8, 2009 21:32:54 GMT
Only the other evening I was dragged into a similar conversation about 'Class in England'. My Nepalese friend remarked that it is just like the Asian caste system. She has a point.
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)
Not sure if I'd want to put the energy into doing that though!
