What Social Class Do You Belong To?

What class are you? Upper class? Middle class? Working class? Are you part of the "under-class"?What do these things even mean?The other day my father accused me of being middle class. Now I suspect that to our American cousins the idea of being "accused" of being middle class sounds rather weird because (as I understand it) in the US the term "middle class" refers to pretty much everyone who isn't either a member of the much maligned 1% at the top or some sort of ghetto gang-banger at the bottom.But here in the UK the term "middle class" has all sorts of other connotations.So I wondered - What class do you think you are and what is it that qualifies one as belonging to a particular social class?

Pushily aspirational. Overly obsessed with house prices, living in the right area, getting kids into the right school and that sort of thing. Overly conventional. A bit dull. Either hand wringingly liberal or self-righteously conservative. Polite to the point of ineffectual. A bit obsessed with the minutae of social mobility because there is neither the drive to "get out" that the working class are supposed to display or the presumed-right-to-rule of the upper classes. Being middle class suggests a life of routine commuting from the suburbs into the city to work in a rather dull office. Knowing exactly which train to catch each day (the 7:47 from Paddington) in order to both get to work on time and give one-self the best chance of getting a seat. Living a materially comfortable but rather uninspired existence.Something like that.........

To this day some British pubs have a "public bar" and a "saloon bar". Although the old distinctions of the saloon bar being middle class in the sense of being carpeted with chairs and tables and slightly higher prices whilst the public bar was more spit and saw-dust have pretty much vanished. These days the "saloon bar" is more where people eat rather than just drink.So is Canada a classless society then?

I think I agree with you that many of the old distinctions no longer apply. But I'm not sure that we live in any sort of meritocratic Nirvana either.If anything social mobility seems to be declining and one's place in society increasingly dictated by situation at birth and the social position of one's parents.So I don't think we live in either a classless society or anything that can be really be called a genuine meritocracy.

"Keeping Up Appearances" is indeed a piss-take of many British middle class stereotypes. None of which - I think - particularly apply to me!!My dad was an alcoholic, drug addicted, communist, can't-leave-the-sixties-behind local-demagogue-of-sorts for most of my upbringing. In his old age he has become a rather reactionary right-wing self-righteous old git (bless him).So whilst I take his accusations of middle-classness with a pinch of salt I also think:A) In many material respects he is correct that I am 'middle class' whatever aspects of my upbringing I might more self identify with.B) I might well be more 'middle class' in terms of attitudes than I might like to admit.C) He's my dad, he is a key contributor to what might be referred to as my 'world view' and I can't help but take some of the things he says more to heart than they probably deserve.Hence my question in the thread I guess.....

LinkCanada certainly seems to be more meritocratic than the UK or the US.

Can you change your "class" by virtue of education alone? I don't know. But it must be a factor. Perhaps "educated working class" fits you....?It probably suggests that if you have any children they will be raised with what are generally considered middle class attitudes towards education and knowledge.Perhaps one's education has a more telling effect on the class of one's offspring? I don't know.

I don't think David Brent would consider himself middle class. He would instead think of himself as some sort of working class hero. Someone who (in his view) exemplifies what you can achieve if you work hard and have natural talent.You too could be a manager in a Slough based paper firm if you just have the talent and desire to succeed in life....