Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Why do people from privileged class backgrounds often misidentify their origins as working class?

I know class is mostly cultural but there should surely come a point where you buy your sixth house and think "I'm not really working class anymore"

 
mojo pixy said:
It was mentioned on another thread that WC kids don't as a rule tend to form bands, and that crystallized for me a thought that's been growing for years, about what it really means to be working class as a musician. That world is closed to you, there will always be someone with more money for gear, more and better words from articulate, educated parents, more expensive equipment or a course at theatre school, a better book or record collection, more time to practise .. and always someone else who expects to be listened to, expects the gig, expects the attention. So why bother?

Just get a job.

There's no 'social capital' there, not as i understand the term.
Click to expand...

Over a year later but I disagree with this. Forming bands is/was one of the few avenues where working class kids believed they could escape the drudgery of having a job (or not having a job). And some made it - see The Happy Mondays, Oasis etc. Football is the other obvious one. You’re right that there’s lots of things that they would feel is above their station though and wouldn’t pursue.
 
The labelling on that first graph implies that e.g. tube drivers are wrong-headed for thinking that they are working class. Like if you have a decent union then you’re not poor so you must be a class traitor. :rolleyes:

It’s the New Statesman though so no surprises there.
 
My mum and dad both worked full time for various parts of the communist party, left school and 14 and 15 respectively and had deffo working class parents. And whilst i got a diet of marxism from age four I wasn't allowed to watch ITV kids' programmes - apart from Bat Man. And we had Vienettas not Artic Rolls.
 
A380 said:
My mum and dad both worked full time for various parts of the communist party, left school and 14 and 15 respectively and had deffo working class parents. And whilst i got a diet of marxism from age four I wasn't allowed to watch ITV kids' programmes - apart from Bat Man. And we had Vienettas not Artic Rolls.
Click to expand...
What was special about Batman and what was wrong with Arctic Rolls?
 
Puddy_Tat said:
:hmm:

how many of them are working people who are approaching (or past) retirement age and have paid their mortgage off?

because house prices 30+ years ago were such that working people who had a steady job could get a mortgage?

do they suddenly change class now?
Click to expand...

Would be interesting to see how many landlords consider themselves working class.
 
This might have been said before, but I’m not going to check through 17 pages. But one immovable factor for me is whether someone has ever voted Tory or even given it a moment’s thought regardless of background, accent, profession, tastes in life or economic circumstances.

Plenty of people who would qualify, in particular those who are actually poor, but if you’re so fucking thick as to be poor and vote Tory, then you cease to be WC and become a failed aspirational middle class wanker in my book.
 
T & P said:
Plenty of people who would qualify, in particular those who are actually poor, but if you’re so fucking thick as to be poor and vote Tory, then you cease to be WC and become a failed aspirational middle class wanker in my book.
Click to expand...
Some are sold on the idea that Labour will tax them more and dole it out to people who can't be arsed working and they don't see beyond that. Low wages with less tax better than low wages with more tax.
That they think that way says more about Labour tbh than those trusting the Tories more.
 
sadly its the media

already head people around 35 k saying it would be easier to claim the doll



give that a shout fella
 
T & P said:
This might have been said before, but I’m not going to check through 17 pages. But one immovable factor for me is whether someone has ever voted Tory or even given it a moment’s thought regardless of background, accent, profession, tastes in life or economic circumstances.

Plenty of people who would qualify, in particular those who are actually poor, but if you’re so fucking thick as to be poor and vote Tory, then you cease to be WC and become a failed aspirational middle class wanker in my book.
Click to expand...
If their kids grow up poor (very likely, especially nowadays), they can't really say they came from a middle class background.
 
T & P said:
This might have been said before, but I’m not going to check through 17 pages. But one immovable factor for me is whether someone has ever voted Tory or even given it a moment’s thought regardless of background, accent, profession, tastes in life or economic circumstances.

Plenty of people who would qualify, in particular those who are actually poor, but if you’re so fucking thick as to be poor and vote Tory, then you cease to be WC and become a failed aspirational middle class wanker in my book.
Click to expand...

Class is an economic, social and cultural phenomena. If you define it based on which party people periodically choose to manage the state on behalf of capital you aren’t going to get far in making sense of it
 
T & P said:
This might have been said before, but I’m not going to check through 17 pages. But one immovable factor for me is whether someone has ever voted Tory or even given it a moment’s thought regardless of background, accent, profession, tastes in life or economic circumstances.

Plenty of people who would qualify, in particular those who are actually poor, but if you’re so fucking thick as to be poor and vote Tory, then you cease to be WC and become a failed aspirational middle class wanker in my book.
Click to expand...
Whoever people vote for has fuck all to do with their class.
 
T & P said:
This might have been said before, but I’m not going to check through 17 pages. But one immovable factor for me is whether someone has ever voted Tory or even given it a moment’s thought regardless of background, accent, profession, tastes in life or economic circumstances.

Plenty of people who would qualify, in particular those who are actually poor, but if you’re so fucking thick as to be poor and vote Tory, then you cease to be WC and become a failed aspirational middle class wanker in my book.
Click to expand...

1649718051660.png
Idea for a programme : bits that Karl Marx misundertood when he wrote The Communist Manifesto
 
T & P said:
This might have been said before, but I’m not going to check through 17 pages. But one immovable factor for me is whether someone has ever voted Tory or even given it a moment’s thought regardless of background, accent, profession, tastes in life or economic circumstances.

Plenty of people who would qualify, in particular those who are actually poor, but if you’re so fucking thick as to be poor and vote Tory, then you cease to be WC and become a failed aspirational middle class wanker in my book.
Click to expand...
This has got to be the most stupid analysis of class on a thread with an already pretty low bar.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

R
Oceangate's Titan. The Bayesian yacht. Why do the deaths of rich people matter more than poor people?
5 6 7 8 9
Replies
241
Views
7K
bcuster
bcuster
hitmouse
Class background and the arts
Replies
1
Views
340
killer b
K
YouSir
Class in Academia
2 3 4
Replies
118
Views
4K
Funky_monks
F
N
Why do right-wing populists succeed?
2
Replies
45
Views
2K
nightowl
N
Bingoman
Conservatives delete their twitter account lol
Replies
27
Views
765
ska invita
ska invita
Back
Top Bottom