Snobbery

[Guest Raids]

There is an article in The Atlantic which lays out Fussell's view a little better. For Fussell, class is more about tastes and preferences than it is about money (like a version of Stuff White People Like, if you replace "White" with "Poor," "Rich," or "Middle Class").

Also:

To be sure, Fussell’s universe is somewhat passé, in that its population is almost exclusively white (with the Mafia thrown in for color), and the three “classes” in his opening primer conform to clichés we might think of as Old-Money Wasp, Midwestern Insurance Salesman, and Southern Trailer Trash. The top classes, according to Fussell (with a hint of Nancy Mitford), drink Scotch on the rocks in a tumbler decorated with sailboats and say “Grandfather died”; Middles say “Martooni” and “Grandma passed away”; Proles drink domestic beer in a can and say “Uncle was taken to Jesus.”

And the classes are specifically labeled:

Top Out-of-Sight, Upper, Upper Middle, Middle, High Proletarian, Mid-Proletarian, Low Proletarian, Destitute, Bottom Out-of-Sight.

Most of the article is given over to critiquing Fussell's self-serving category X, the intelligentsia, who are apparently of no class.

[Guest Raids]

ETA: Is it me or is it a lawyer thing that they ask these leading questions for the "sake of argument"? :P Raids, you're making me think of Ser Scot more and more each passing day.

Oh, I see what you were responding to.

In the OP, I wasn't asking if we, personally care about class anymore, but whether our society, as a whole, cares about class as much as we did, because, as Ini pointed out as a joke (that was funny because it's true), the whole topic seems pretty quaint.

So you answered a question I wasn't trying to ask. I definitely was not trying to ask a question that I already had an answer to so I could pounce on the first person that gave an answer I didn't like.

[Balefont]

So you answered a question I wasn't trying to ask. I definitely was not trying to ask a question that I already had an answer to so I could pounce on the first person that gave an answer I didn't like.

hahaha, you are just so darn cute sometimes, Raid. :kiss:

[Guest Raids]

See, you think that wasn't intentional. :)

[DrownedCrow]

Anyone who doesn't think the USA has class snobbery should look in on one of the Internet boards where young women are talking about baby names. Names which are more commonly given by less educated parents (Nevaeh being the prime example) are branded with terms like "trailer trash" all the time.

I really think that classism will be harder to overcome than any other "ism". Precisely because so many Americans subscribe to the myth that we are a classless society, we have even more of a tendency than Europeans to assume that people with working class educations/occupations are stupid and immoral, and are poor solely because of bad personal choices. And that leads to more prejudice against blue collar people and things associated with them.

While looking down on someone just for having a working class job is questionable, doing the same to someone who named their child "Nevaeh" is entirely appropriate and, I think, an indicator of a healthy society.

[Hereward]

Anyone who drinks Scotch on the rocks, let alone someone so dead to the standards of decent behaviour as to drink it from a tumbler with anything on it, deserves to be horse-whipped on the steps of my club.

There. I said it.

[Ken Stone]

Since moving to a small town I have noticed a sort of reverse snobbery that I hadn't seen before. It's interesting because it's a snobbery based on the ideal of the "friendly Midwesterner". It all started a couple of 4th of July's ago. I had just moved into my new house and was drinking beer with the neighbors. I was asking about some of the people in the neighborhood that I hadn't met yet and was told "Oh them, they think they are too good for us". That was a strange sort of attitude that I wasn't familiar with. To me I sort of understand that there exist people in the world who like to keep to themselves, and are uncomfortable socializing and such. I've since heard that same thing from quite a few other people I know, all of who are from more rural areas. It's like big city folk don't expect to be besties with their neighbors.

[Guest Raids]

Anyone who drinks Scotch on the rocks, let alone someone so dead to the standards of decent bevahiour as to drink it from a tumbler with anything on it, deserves to be horse-whipped on the steps of my club.

There. I said it.

I am snobby about many, many things like this, to the point of being impolite. I have, I think, actually refused to honor a guest's request for ice in their Lagavulin. I keep a bottle of Skye vodka around for people who want to mix it with Sprite.

I am also a movie snob. Not that I'm a conoisseur or anything, but I realized this when me, my husband, and three friends were trying to decide on a movie to go see. As described by the author of the Slate article, my husband and I had a full conversation with eye contact only. A friend suggested we go see the new Adam Sandler movie. Eye contact. Someone else declared that the King's Speech looking "boring." Eye contact.

And so I have another thought: is shared snobbery about the same things necessary for a healthy relationship? I have watched a friend with a taste for classic French film try to date an MTV addict, and it seemed like he was always belittling the partner's taste and the partner was always calling him a snob. IMO, would this not eventually doom any relationship?

[Guest Raids]

She TiVo'd, like, Rock of Love?

My friends have similar reality TV tates, FYI, and while I could just care less about Teen Mom, or whatever it's called, Campus PD is pretty entertaining.

ETA: Of course, if I were affecting an upper class demeanor, I would claim to not watch TV at all.

[sologdin]

For Fussell, class is more about tastes and preferences than it is about money

yeah, a vulgar pseudo-weberianism. worthless.

[Guest Raids]

Well, Solo, as I'm sure you would agree, the middle class suffers from false-consciousness about actually belonging to the class of the proletariat. Because of private health care, the petite bourgeosie are worse off than some members of the proletariat. And people are used to being insulted as being "bourgeois" - they don't even realize that they're not a member of the class in the first place.

Since the means of production are, in my understanding, in the hands of fewer and fewer to a greater and greater degree every year, and populist anger is widespread, the idea of the "middle class" and the desirability of belonging to that class is the #1 thing preventing an uprising.

Therefore, while we are having an uprising of sorts, it's an uprising whose sole purpose is to give more money back to the capitalists, so desirable is it to be seen to admire the top 1% that owns us.

[Tears of Lys]

Pretty sure. Gossip Girl was her favorite, but I think she was into The Hills and all of that stuff too.

How disgusting! What a know-nothing. :smug:

Excuse me while I watch my Celebrity Rehab reruns.

[Guest Raids]

What the hell is Celebrity Rehab? For that matter, VH1 is still on the air?

[Guest Raids]

You know, I have never seen an episode of the Hills, but I know all about Audrina, Speidi, and Whitney's spin off show in NYC thanks to trashy celebrity magazines and my love for a good pedicure.

[Balefont]

Tears of Lys - Can you imagine how much better Raidne thinks she is than us?

hahahaha

You know, I have never seen an episode of the Hills, but I know all about Audrina, Speidi, and Whitney's spin off show in NYC thanks to trashy celebrity magazines and my love for a good pedicure.

And the hole gets deeper. :P

[Tears of Lys]

What the hell is Celebrity Rehab? For that matter, VH1 is still on the air?

Oh, yes, it's still on the air and more fah-ab-ulous than evah. Watch and be

while your IQ plummets.

[Spoony]

I find myself hating all classes of people.

But the lower class is the class I tend to hate the least.

[Harlot]

In terms of snobbery, my wife and I don't have cable.

I'll join you in looking down on these slobs. I just picture them in their Lay-Z-Boys slurping Mt. Dew and covered in Cheeto dust. :cheers:

[Guest Raids]

In our defense, that a super fucking long and, IMHO, blindingly stupid article. Anything that starts with, "I became a (____) when I was (____<18) years old" is just silly.

I'm pretty certain it's supposed to be a silly article...and the convention you describe works for me when the author is describing carrying a briefcase to high school because he wanted to be like Alex Keaton.

In terms of snobbery, my wife and I don't have cable.

But do you have a TV?

[Harlot]

But do you have a TV?

Only 1 TV in the whole house and it's only 27"

We have the digital converter. There are no shows that I follow weekly at all. We more watch things on DVD and more recently Netflix which we only got last month.