Minor irritant

[annwfyn]

For some odd reason I'm beginning to really dislike the word 'classist'.

I'm not sure why, but I think it's because it strikes me as a silly word, and is furthermore symptomatic of a strange 21st century urge to turn all forms of unreasonable social prejudice into 'isms'.

What is wrong with words like 'snobbery' or 'social prejudice'? Why the hell does everything have to have its own goddamn 'ism'? And is the addition of an 'ism' a blatant piece of emotional manipulation to somehow add weight, to make class prejudice somehow on the same level as 'racism' (which has connotations of KKK members burning crosses) or 'sexism' (with its own dramatic images)?

Gah.

Stupid, stupid not-word. Stupid exaggerated evils of today's world we live in.

Comments

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

You're wordist, you are.

[madwitch.livejournal.com]

Better tabloid headline material. Probably.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Jez was saying that just last night.

I think he may be right :p

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Ahem.

CHAV CHAV CHAV CHAV CHAV CHAV CHAV.

I just had to get that off my chest.

It bothers me too. Especially the context most people use 'classist' in. It demeans the original 'isms by putting one form of 'discrimination' to another harsher form. How is calling someone a Chav similar to the Jena 6?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Pretty much.

The other thing that has been running through my head is that class is such a fluid and subjective thing. Racism sucks because there is this massive history of oppression and persecution that the oppressed COULD NOT GET AWAY FROM COZ THEY WERE BLACK.

Classism - erm - who counts as working class? If someone gets a good job and strikes it rich, how can you tell what class they were within a single generation? And is it 'classist' when the upper upper middle class mock the middle upper middle class for using the wrong words at the dinner table?

It's making a social problem out of nothing.

I'm also muttering darkly at the determination to turn 'chav' into a racial epithet. I'd never even heard of the Rom connection prior to today.

[lawrencegillies.livejournal.com]

you're obviously not incentivised to action the word.

"Incentivised" I would say is probably my least favourite non-word

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I think really you hate it because it sounds a bit like classicist...*grin*

I think discrimination against working-class people (now rebranded the "working poor" in the States) is pervasive and often goes ignored, much like prejudice against disabled people has been until very recent times. The fact that it has a label is good, but I agree it's not a great one.

Injecting some awareness of class, aside from the use of the horrible word "chav," is pretty cool. Also, let's not forget that social mobility is decreasing in this country and the UK and so lots of working class people can't get away from it due to a lack of education etc.

It's not making a social problem out of nothing; time I've spent campaigning on a local council estate over the past year has shown me there are definite problems that are not being addressed because these people often feel marginalised, don't vote, and are thus ignored by politicians...

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

I have a deep hatred for 'work colleague.'

WELL. YES. THEY WOULD BE SOMEHOW INVOLVED IN WORK. RIGHT? THAT'S WHAT A COLLEAGUE IS.

Grrr.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

Most of the arguments from yesterday were from people protected from this certain subset of society. There's a certain elitism in protecting the downtrodden. I think it's similar to the compulsion to buy shitty plastic wristbands to support Africa or something.

Throw 3/4 of these people on my estate for the 6 years I've lived there and frankly, I don't think they'd feel so sorry for what I refer to as chavs. (Drug dealing, vandalism, fights, theft....)

Yeah, I hadn't heard of the Romany connection either... The Wikipedia article lists about 3 different possibilities. Only one having to do with ethnicity. I liked Rhona's explanation on madwitch's LJ: Council House And Violent. That sounds pretty accurate for our estate....

classism

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

I felt really guilty for having 'classist' feelings recently when I came across this highly inconsiderate family of dog owners at Wimbledon Common the other day - who let their huge dog run riot, push our dog into the water; run circles around my heavily pregnant legs and walked along slowly like they didn't have a care in the world - laughing at the fact our dog had been pushed in - and not doing anything to call theirs back.

I first of all asked them to please call their dog back but they just kept laughing. So I asked them to 'control' their dog and got told that 'he weren't doing nuffing'. So I explained I was heavily pregnant and didn't want a huge dog running round me and got told 'oh shut up'.

I was so frustrated that they could not come up with a suitable excuse or apology and that 'shut up' was the only argument they could think of.

This is in contrast to me and Chutney who always apologise profusely even when our dog just wanders over to say a friendly and placid 'hello'!

I felt bad about having 'classist' feelings because I think of myself as having working class roots - both grandparents dockworkers, both parents from Council Estates - family still very much in that vein. Although, to be fair when I was at Oxford someone told me I was now upper middle class in virtue of my degree. Maybe but I don't feel it. If I feel anything it's a well educated young professional with lowly roots.

Then I realised it wasn't really their class that got to me it was a few things - 1) their inconsiderateness 2) their inability to apologise or explain - lack of intelligence 3)the fact they laughed at my dog falling in - nasty and 4) their overweightness meaning they couldn't or wouldn't walk or run over to get their dog.

I wanted to call them 'chavs' because that's what they looked like but there are nice, considerate, fit chavs who have dogs responsibly. This lot were just idiots.

As a word, though I don't have a problem with classist being all that different from sexist or racist - all are constraints placed on people that are not of their fault or making.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think discussing the social inequality in our society and the everyday snobbery and prejudice that is rampant is good. It's just a LOUSY word. I also dislike trying to turn this prejudice and inequality into something akin to sexism or racism, when to my mind it is so very different.

Sexism and racism are both prejudices which are based entirely on a single fact about you that you CAN NOT CHANGE. There is no real way that Parvati can stop being Asian, for example. There is no chance for Julie to stop being female (unless she wants to face a whole new world of prejudice and odd gender issues). Furthermore, they are based on things about someone which is quite objective. You can objectively tell if someone is male or female. You can normally objective tell if someone is white or not (although 'white' is a bit of a social construct and has some odd bits around the fringes, like latino being a race in the US and not really in Europe).

Class, on the other hand, is almost entirely subjective. OK, so there is the basic definition of 'lower class', 'middle class' and 'upper class' being based on income, but I don't think anyone (especially in the UK) believes that to be true. It's far more than that. It's also fluid and changing.

I'm all in favour of saying "there is a lot of social inequality in our society which needs to be addressed" and "it's not nice to be a social snob". I loathe the invention of a word which tries to load inappropriate baggage (in terms of associations, guilt and suggested definition) onto this phenomenon.

Does that make sense?

Re: classism

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I guess I see class as being really different from sex or race, mostly because the sucky thing about sexism or racism is that it is being prejudiced against someone for something they have no capacity whatsoever to change, whereas I know so many people who have proven that isn't true of class.

I do still think it's pretty nasty to judge someone purely on how they speak or how much money they have, but I don't see it quite the same. To be fair, I could be wrong, and I am a bit of a middle class brat so shouldn't really be judging.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

You're right about the elitism. On a slightly different note, I remember getting so vexed with an LJ community which was bitching about the evils of all these spoilt white kids going to third world countries with projects such as VSO or the Peace Corps and how very neo-colonial it was, and how inappropriate it was to have white kids teaching children of colour and letting them buy into...something.

And I remember sitting there thinking "you can say that because you're all living in a first world country with the spare time and money to fuss over the imagery of a white girl in a sari. The Africans, Nepalis, and South Americans who are profitting from these projects probably don't have the time to worry about that, and would just appreciate getting access to the skills they need to sort out their country right now, without dealing with your post-colonial guilt"

It's a similar sort of thing. It's kind of a luxury and a privilege to worry about these kind of things and to have the time to want to enforce your world view on others.

[ulaidhan.livejournal.com]

Classist, like an accurate definition of racist, would cover prejudice against those deemed "privileged" by society, whatever form it took.

There is resentment in much of the "middle class" of the perceived free-loading culture... just as "lower class" resentment of those deemed to have the perks of "posh" upbringings or lifestyles can also be both tangible and vocal.

Curiously, surveys on class identity in the UK tend to suggest, if I remember right, that more and more people are identifying themselves as "working class" - including many with professional qualifications. Being "middle class" is now seen to be self-consciously snobbish (Hyacinth Bucket & co) rather than a mark of having worked "up" from a lower level.

[mangochutney04.livejournal.com]

I suppose the argument against that though is why should someone have to change their class just to be accepted or avoid discrimination or criticism? No one expects anyone to change their race or sex - in those cases it is the antagonist who is seen as being in the wrong.

Thinking about it what would anger me about classism would be if it were levelled against either my Grandad or my Auntie. Both of whom are quite obviously working class through accent, manners etc. However, neither are unintelligent or talentless or unkind. So the fact they haven't changed their class says nothing at all about how good they are as people. In both cases it's probably more a question of not having had the right opportunities. My Grandad for instance got called to War and lost an apprenticeship to become a skilled carpenter because of the timing - when he came back he had to look after his orphaned brothers and sisters and the apprenticeship was gone. I never doubted my Grandad was intelligent though - you don't get an intelligent daughter or granddaughter who gets into Oxford without there being something there down the generations - but I was the first generation that had the opportunity to do it - i.e. the money and support. My Mum had to pay 'board' from age 16 but by the time I was older my Granddad had saved hard and could provide back-up, moreover he'd come round to the idea that education was good.

It's pretty much the same on my Dad's side (inc my Auntie) - the family having started as foreign refugees. I also don't doubt my Dad is highly intelligent - they couldn't have stimulated me as a child otherwise - but speaking English as a second language was a barrier for all of them.

Okay so that's a really personal anecdote but it would drive me wild with anger if anyone criticised any one of my family based on class because I'm immensely proud of them - completely irrespective of my own socio-economic group (and my husband's and that of our future family) which I suspect is now a lot lot higher.

That's why I berated myself for thinking 'chav or common' at first about this group of people just because they had lime green football shirts and gold chains on.

It works both ways though. I had to bite my tongue recently cos I was describing someone I couldn't stand and I wanted to say 'you know he was that really annoying public school boy type' but that's not really fair either as I have so many friends from public school who are kind and decent.

I don't really see how being classist is any different to being racist or sexist - any discrimination against someone for reasons other than merit is just plain wrong. If someone was mean to my Grandad for his class I would be just as angry as if they were mean to me for my gender. It's just the same.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah...those are good and valid points.