Social Class

[Hachimitsu]

Yov

[Primula Baggins]

The whole idea of parents having any say in their offspring's marriage is a creepy one to me.

Yes, but parents almost always have wishes or hopes about that, which they hide with varying levels of success. The result can be, maybe not control, but some pretty strong pressure.

[Maria]

The whole idea of parents having any say in their offspring's marriage is a creepy one to me.

Yes, but parents almost always have wishes or hopes about that, which they hide with varying levels of success. The result can be, maybe not control, but some pretty strong pressure.

Almost always? Am I that far from norm in this respect also? I don't really have any hopes or wishes at all about if my kids marry or who- as long as they are more or less happy. I can't think of any *sort* of mate I would object to, really, as long as the situation made my kids happy.

Well. I take that back. I'd object to incest. That's about it.

[Primula Baggins]

"As long as they are more or less happy."

That's actually the biggie, from what I've seen. Kids sometimes make choices that parents are sure won't work out. Maybe not so much the wrong class, these days, as the wrong ambitions, or the wrong personality, or the wrong attitudes toward all kinds of things.

I am not saying parents ought to interfere. I'm just saying it's pretty common to wish we could. (And also pretty common to end up being very glad we didn't, because things work out fine.)

[Maria]

My oldest daughter's first boyfriend in high school got kicked out of his home by his father, was ready to drop out and become a fry cook and told her he was a Wiccan- which at the time I knew nothing about.

Rather than be alarmed, I saw how it could work for them. She was much smarter than him and could support the family with a good job while he stayed home and raised the kids. I read up on Wicca and found it to be a faith that really resonated with me. However, when my daughter and I compared notes, it turns out he lying about the Wiccan stuff and had many basic precepts backwards as well as some fairly icky ideas that had nothing to do with that religion. She started looking at him harder, found a few more lies and dumped him soon after.

I was OK with her choice, though, up until then. It's been like that with all the potential mates my kids have brought home. I see the positives and assume the negatives are something they can work out. From dropout fry cooks to wealthy heirs to musicians to military cadets to the guy that kinda looked like Shrek..... I haven't been able to predict which ones will be the keepers. I always see how it could go well- but so far it hasn't, not with any of the three.

I'm not sure what that had to do with class.

[yovargas]

Nothing, I don't think, but it'd seem to show you're an extremely nice person.

[axordil]

So - "class" is a collection of self-enforced stereotypes about socioeconomic status?
"Rich New Yorkers are like X."
"Hispanic immagrants love Y."
Like that?

Both examples are missing a pronoun:

"We rich New Yorkers..."

"Those Hispanic immigrants..."

Class is enforced from the top down.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

If the terms, 'wrong side of the tracks', 'trailer trash', 'country club', 'WASP', 'street kid', don't have any resonance in America then I'd say America doesn't have a class system.

[Túrin Turambar]

So - "class" is a collection of self-enforced stereotypes about socioeconomic status?
"Rich New Yorkers are like X."
"Hispanic immagrants love Y."
Like that?

Both examples are missing a pronoun:

"We rich New Yorkers..."

"Those Hispanic immigrants..."

Class is enforced from the top down.

In a large part, but the working class seems to have a sense of solidarity as well. Not so much as it used to in the heydey of Trade Unionism and violent strikes and ruthless capitalists, but they still seem to be aware that the whole edifice would collapse without them and take a collective pride in that. The underclass, of course, is a different matter.

And just responding to this:

examples and a huge osgiliation: like Shakespeare and opera. It's taught that opera is for rich people and something not for poor people. Who decided people needed to dress up for opera? Who decided that it had to only be done in an opera house? Who decides ticket price? I never used to be like that.

Opera was always going to be expensive because it requires a large orchestra, a large stage with a lot of technical equipment to move sets and screens and the like, and as such a large building to house it all. As such, tickets were always going to be beyond the reach of the poor. At the same time, prior to modern labour laws many people worked 15-hour days and simply wouldn’t have had the time, nor would rural workers who rose and retired with the sun. And given that opera houses needed to built in decent-sized towns to make them economical, inevitably made opera the domain of the upper-middle and wealthy leisured classes. And as the wealthy have always dressed up when socialising, they naturally dressed up for the opera as well. Nobody decided that it was to be an ‘upper class’ activity, but it turned out that way because of all those factors. And today, even when many middle-income earners can afford tickets, they often won’t think of going to the opera because nobody they know does.

[Hachimitsu]

I used opera as an example because we did a huge thing on it in my class and it was on my mind.
We actually had to read on how the idea of opera house and all those other trappings came about. There never used to be opera houses, people just used a stage. The very idea of having an opera house, well why does it need a special building just for that, really? You could just use a stage. There wasn't a dress code and a person didn't have to be rich to attend it.

Also people didn't sit quietly in rapt attention either, even had heard of cases of heckling. (I remember listening to one podcast (I think it was Geek Nights: Thursday) (totally outside of class) an they totally critiqued how movies portray opera shows in the past. They would complain it was totally historically inaccurate now I know why they said that.) Things like dress codes were added later specifically decided. A lot of opera was in English. It used to be for everybody and people were not sitting quietly dressed up in an opera house. That whole idea was totally decided to create opera as something only for the rich. The biggest clincher of opera being taken from the masses (I guess) was the decision to only having opera in a language other then English. All those trappings were added, since only the rich could overcome all those obstacles.

I could look up some specific examples (in the US especially) but I am too lazy to find the book. I only brought it up at the time since the subject was on my mind since I had just finished an exam covering that material (that is why I put it in an osgilliation).


I think we all know how Shakespeare plays used to be done.

[Primula Baggins]

If you're curious, Wilma, rent the movie Amadeus. Mozart wrote operas for everyone, and at the time, everyone went.

[MithLuin]

But of course it was a big deal that he wrote an opera in German, not Italian, showing her point. Politics and class play a role in art, especially that kind of art in that time. (Why did Shakespeare write Macbeth?)

[axordil]

Shakespeare is illustrative of a period where there was a lot of class mobility, upward and downward. Support the wrong faction and what's left of your family is suddenly much poorer and shy its titles. Make a lot of money in shipping and you can buy some of those excess titles.

His history plays in particular are full of material on the balance of power between the old noble families of England and those recently raised in status by various monarchs. That's not an accident: at that moment such questions were the lens through which many English viewed their political past, since they were part of the political present.

Class friction remains a staple of literature and entertainment, even in the US. From The Graduate to Caddyshack to Meet the Fockers it still shows up as a plot device or theme.

[vison]

I was OK with her choice, though, up until then.

And then, you weren't?

I understand what you mean, Maria, since I feel much the same way myself. "All I want is for my kids to be happy" and that's the truth. I never wanted them to marry rich girls or upper class girls or a certain race or ethnicity, just a girl who would "make them happy". But, you know, sometimes they make crappy choices.

What did I do about those crappy choices? I mostly kept my mouth shut.

The other thing is, both of my sons met girls from about the same "class" as us, why wouldn't they? The sort of people we hang around with, our friends, our neighbours. They weren't out wife-hunting in strange domains.

[Primula Baggins]

It's an old piece of parental wisdom that letting an adult child see that you disapprove of one of the child's choices often makes the child cling harder to that choice. Not to mention that once they're adults, it really is none of the parent's business.

It's just that they're adults at 18 now, and some people at 18 are still years away from being able to make intelligent decisions about their own lives. And those that are ready, don't have a track record. So being a parent of children around this age and stage can be wrenching and frightening stuff—or at the very least, worrisome. Even with the best kids in the world (and I know, I've got 'em).

[Aravar]

If the terms, 'wrong side of the tracks', 'trailer trash', 'country club', 'WASP', 'street kid', don't have any resonance in America then I'd say America doesn't have a class system.

Or, if there's no class in the United States, what was Frasier about?

[Túrin Turambar]

Interesting and relevant story in the Australian today:

Petrol bombs hurled at upmarket house

A HOUSE in the upmarket Melbourne suburb of Toorak was targeted with a barrage of petrol bombs early today.

Police detectives have appealed for information about the attack on the residence in Torresdale Court, Toorak, about 4.40am (AEST).

The petrol bombs were thrown at the front of the house, smashing windows and setting fire to some shrubs, police said.

No one in the house at the time was injured.

The number 3020 - the postcode for the working class western suburb of Sunshine - was spray-painted on the front fence.

Police have urged anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.

link