Outclassed

Polly Toynbee writes compellingly about class and did so again this week in The Guardian in relation to politicians proclaiming their working-class roots, often tenuously and usually tendentiously.

Toynbee, who has always been open about her own privileged middle-class origins, praised Sir Keir Starmer, who often refers to his working-class upbringing, for acknowledging that he is now, self-evidently, middle-class. As a millionaire he has just paid off his £2million mortgage but it is not just his wealth that makes him middle-class; his education (University of Leeds), his profession as a barrister-at-law and now his status as Prime Minister, would make any claim to the contrary preposterous.

Roughly 46% of Starmer's cabinet had parents with working-class occupations and only 4% were privately educated, compared with 63% of Rishi Sunak's. This entitles them to lay claim to working-class roots, but to describe themselves as such would be  disingenuous; although, as Toynbee points out, many professional people do. She cites a recent LSE survey of those in professional or senior managerial jobs that found 47% of this well-paid cadre self-describing as working class. 

So is social class about more than education and income? Is it, in fact, perfectly legitimate to align oneself with one's parents' or even grandparents' class status, despite one's own economic circumstances, if one chooses to do so? In this day-and-age, where self-definition is de rigueur - leading the right wing press to fulminate about school kids allegedly being allowed to define themselves as cats, horses and even dinosaurs unchallenged - should anyone care? Possibly not, providing they are prepared to face down ridicule and snorts of derision.

I can see how there could be a sort of class solidarity in play here. If people are proud of their working-class roots and feel that the label middle-class doesn't adequately describe them, despite their lifestyles, who are we to cavil? As Kierkegaard said, "label me and you negate me". There is a danger, though, of falling into the middle- or upper-class mindset lampooned by the band, Pulp, in their song, Common People, of patronising the working-class by claiming affinity where none exists. In other words, the romanticisation of poverty and deprivation by those who have never experienced it - what used to be described as "slumming it". This is clearly insulting.

When I was a student in the early-'seventies middle-class was synonymous with bourgeois, in the pejorative sense of materialistic, comfortable and smug. It was much more inspiring to think in terms of class struggle and identify with striking miners and dockers, rather than the Semi-detached Suburban Mr James of Manfred Mann's 1966 song, with its disparaging references to a boring life of buttered toast, hanging out the washing and doggie-walking. To be middle-class was not cool and no self-respecting hipster would own the moniker.

It used to be said that believing oneself classless was a sure sign that one was middle-class. That speaks of a sense of insecurity felt by the middle-class, a fear of inauthenticity, of being neither upper- nor lower-class but something floating blandly and amorphously between the two more clearly-defined social strata. 

This was not helped by the publication in 1954 of an essay by Nancy Mitford, The English Aristocracy, exploring linguistic codes defined as U and Non-U, or Upper and Non-Upper. Although intended humourously the essay caused some anxiety amongst the middle-classes that words used to describe everyday objects would betray their class origins. Using 'toilet' instead of 'lavatory' or 'settee' instead of 'sofa' would be to literally condemn oneself out of one's own mouth. 

As famously captured in the 1966 TV sketch by John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, the middle-classes of the time felt keenly their position as what used to be referred to as 'the middling sort' in society. That feeling has changed over time, possibly in response to the decline of the traditional working-class and the influence of the aristocracy.  

In a post-industrial world no generally understood sociological category for what used to be termed "the lower orders" has emerged and one can hardly use 'proletariat' or 'plebeians', much less (pace Pulp) 'commoners'. 'Blue collar' was used at one time but the various categories of the Approximated Social Grade (ASG) system have hardly found their way into common parlance. 

Given this social shift, defining as middle-class today arguably provides a more solid descriptor; one to be, if not exactly proud of, at least embraced without embarrassment.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie has come of age, perhaps?

Popular posts from this blog

Looking to Africa - long read

As I sit here on an island just off the coast of North-West Africa I can't help pondering the future of that vast and seemingly unknowable continent, so near and yet so far. I'm writing this in Tenerife, one of the eight Canary Islands forming an archipelago off the coast of Morocco and Western Sahara - tantilisingly close and yet a world away from the 'mainland' of continental Africa. As an Autonomous Community of Spain, the Canaries form an outpost of the European Union (EU). Yet, despite their proximity to Africa, their outlook, politically, culturally and economically, is resolutely European. Africa may as well be Mars, though only a narrow gulf of the Atlantic Ocean separates these offshore islands from their continent. I say resolutely European but that resolve may, little by little, be weakening. There is a growing sentiment, especially, though not exclusively, amongst young Canarians, that they have been sold a pup. True, the economy is superficially buoyant, du
Read more

On old age

"The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that there are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that it withdraws us from active employments; second, that it enfeebles the body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures; fourth, that it is the next step to death."  Writing his essay,  De Senectute (On Old Age), in 44 BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero went on to refute these four supposed reasons in characteristically robust and forthright manner. Cicero wasn't one to sit about moping in his own old age; he remained actively engaged in the political life of the Republic whose survival, in the face of tyranny, he championed so fiercely.  Cicero was nine years younger than I am now when he met his untimely end yet he considered himself already an old man; or, rather, his society judged him to be so. His second point about age enfeebling is more germane. Physical decline had not yet impacted him but, six years on from my retirement, I
Read more

Born to rule

When, ten days ago, I posted my piece about the manipulated image of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her children (see Snap Judgment) I didn't know of her cancer treatment. Had I known, I would have adopted a gentler, though I hope no less critical, tone. But I didn't know, and nor did any of us outside the immediate royal circle, which rather goes to strengthen the case against the monarchy. For Kate and her family the diagnosis of cancer (as yet unspecified) will have been a devastating blow, as will the chemotherapy she is currently undergoing. On a human level, of course I sympathise and extend my best wishes for a full recovery as, indeed, I did at the time of her father-in-law's diagnosis. It is particularly cruel, then, that on top of all this she has been obliged to record a video statement to reassure the public. As if she didn't have enough to contend with already. But such is the unpalatable obligation placed upon any royal personage - noblesse oblige. Whic
Read more