The British Working Class:C or D?

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What's with all the body art? Why don't they lose some weight and eat something besides chips? And why do they teach their horrid, shaven-headed children such a disrespect for law and order? A little refinement wouldn't go amiss.

― tarden, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah! Absolutely! Bloody proles!

Er, what body art?

― Johnathan, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

[ADMIN] I won't delete this thread if it turns into a proper discussion somehow, but if it becomes just a flamewar it'll go.

― DG, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Smart move, DG. But if it gets too ridiculous, you could also start talking about hosers in Canada. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It is difficult not to get angry and insulting with such an attack on ones kith and kin. I suspect even tarden would be full of righteous indignation if someone posted similar abuse about an ethnic group or a sexual minority. An appalling caricature. But I should be used to it by now. Whether used as cannon fodder by imperialists (WW1) or subjected to a systematic political assault (Thatcherism) the British Working Class has displayed remarkable stoicism and resiliance. The level of income, and quality of life, for those on lowest incomes is far worse in the UK than any other prosperous western European country. They are poorly served by an education system that frequently leaves many hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with post- industrial labour realities. I am very proud to be working-class tarden (Dad on sickness benefit, Mum school dinner-lady). You could do with 'a little refinement' yourself.

― stevo, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i can only echo what stevo said, i have heard it said that the british working class is only rivalled by the russians for stoicism.

― gareth, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The BWC *are* resilient and stoical, so much so that a signif.proportion actually voted FOR Thatcher's systematic assault (and have voted, also, for every Tory party before them): which has to be taking R&S too far. Marx said (paraphrase): the British are a strange nation, obviously their bourgeoisie is bourgeois, but their aristocracy is bourgeois also, and so is their proletariat. But he was German, and married a princess (or something) — so maybe he was tripping.

Seriously: stoicism and resilience are a disaster, though they're sold to us as a virtue. The only *major* Brit mutiny in the WW1 trenches was led by a Bohemian toff (Percy something...): and Sassoon was a fox- huntin' man. The French troops (NOT officers) mutinied several times. The German soldiers returned to German and demolished the political order that sent them to the front: Germany was a whisker away from revolution in 1918 (and even the nazi counter-revolution, when it came, had to be dressed up as socialism and delivered in the name of working-class war vets). Cities across America went up in flame in Red 1919: race riots, the rage of soldiers who'd only fought a single year. And we all know what happened in Russia.

And here? Business as usual. By the 30s, in the lee of the Great Depression, Stanley Baldwin was once again busily and effectively wooing working-class voters away from Labour. Where does this deep strain of self-abnegation come from?

Or is it just reactionary foolishness to slather virtues OR weaknesses over such a large and obviously varied group of people?

― mark s, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

In answer to Mark's last sentence - yes, absolutely. Chip-eating shell-suit wearing English working class as much a stereotype as the plucky individualist fighting against the ruling classes - both have some basis in truth, but are not the whole story. Would tarden characterise the American working class solely as Oprah-watching, junk food guzzling trailer trash?

And what do people think of Baudrillard's proposition that the proletariat's only remaining form of resistance/protest is complete indifference/silence (eg low voter turn-out).

― Andrew L, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

British working-class voting for Thatcher = Reagan Democrats?

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Subject: The British Middle Class:C or D?

What's with all the garden gnomes? And gravel driveways? How come they spend Sunday's driving to out-of-town garden centre's in their ridiculous 4x4, 'Off-Road', over-sized Tonka toy's? What else are they responsible for: Feng Shui; Aga's; Jamie Oliver; Dinner Parties; GARDEN GNOMES; Mockneys; British Middle Class reading matter: Captain Correlli's Mandolin, Bridget Jones' Diary (cheers), Nick sodding Hornby; British Middle Class movies: Notting Hill, Forrest Gump, anything with Juliette Binoche; Middle Class guilt which leads things like BMC students to start 'slumming it': dressing 'down' and dropping their aitches - *pretending to be working class*; Sun-Dried Tomatoes; Walking Holidays in the Lake District; That stupid bloody scrunched-up, Blue Peter presenter hair-style (Blue Peter: atypical BMC mumsy, bossy, finger-wagging children's programme; BMC: Swap Shop, BWC: Tiswas; amusingly pronouncing 'Masses Against the Classes' as Masses Against the *Clar-sses*; Hello magazine; Garden Gnomes.

Hey, taking a lazy sideswipe at a lazy, stereotypical idea of a huge group of people is easy and fun!

Now, I - the lumpen prole that I am - must get back to my tea, which is fish fingers, frozen peas and oven chips. Obviously.

As the man said, quote: "Take yer Year in Provence and shove it up your ass".

― D*A*V*I*D*M, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Er, group responsible for Feng Shui = even larger (and more varied?) than BMC, possibly: the Chinese.

― mark s, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

> How come they spend Sunday's driving to out-of-town garden centre's in their ridiculous 4x4, 'Off-Road', over-sized Tonka toy's?

A really dumb question -- Brits have SUVs now?

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

A really dumb question -- Brits have SUVs now?

Not quite. Our "soccer mom" market is covered by people-carriers (=7 seat minivans) hence we have absolutely no excuse for owning SUV's. What we do have is even more ridiculous: Entirely impractical, entirely pointless, easy to drive, pedestrian smashing, *small* off-roaders (Most just look like off roaders, and would be challenged by a particularly deep puddle), that the BMC use to appear powerful over the BWC in their ordinary cars. They are the vehicular expression of the BMC's unrequited lust for rule over the great unwashed.

(this all assumes that "SUV" refers to fuck off big luxury Canyonero things, not our pathetic 3 door short wheelbase castles-on-wheels. And I'm making massive class stereotype assumptions)

― Graham, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ignore what I said about class. Mark's Marx quote probably fits here. All class stereotypes want to make themselves seem more significant. It's not just a middle class thing.

― Graham, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They eat chips now so that they may eat organic spinach in heaven.

― maryann, Monday, 2 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

six years pass...

Cities across America went up in flame in Red 1919: race riots, the rage of soldiers who'd only fought a single year.

lol

― gershy, Thursday, 20 September 2007 04:49 (seventeen years ago)

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