Random question but why do middle class people pretend to be working class when there not

I know a few and it's really annoys me for some reason no idea why it greats on me either being from a middle class back ground myself but unedcuated so have to do a working class job when I do get back into one. Think id discribe myself as mudle class. I say be proud of your class and hertige why hide it out of fear or embrasment no matter what class you are and those who denigh there even is a class system are usually the ones who hate people for there class.

Parents
  • Class is a nebulous concept. How do you measure it? Wealth? Yearly income or savings? Whether or not you went to university? My Parents worked as a nurse and an accountant. My father the first in his family to go to university and my mother never went. One side of the family was from a rural area. My grandfather was a traveling salesman, his wife a nurse. My mothers side we know little about but their family had been wealthy industrialists once but had fallen on hard times and her youth was a very frugal one. So what class am I? My dad has always put on airs and graces, became president of his rotary branch and the chamber of commerce, but we grew up in one of the roughest parts of our city. I've been mugged in my local park, threatened with guns by drug dealers. I've been on benefits, my brother still is. Yet he has a good degree and I have a PhD. Grandfather worked as salesman, a cog in the wheel of their corporate machine for a pittance just to send his only son to uni then to save till he could start his own business. Then he died shortly after starting it.

    What is class? Owning your own house? Used to be buying your council house was a big step towards becoming 'middle class'. I can't afford that and my job is better paid than most who did. Is it going to uni? Almost 50% of people go to university now. Class is meaningless. Wealth is period specific, Wealth in the 2020s is not the same as wealth in the 80s. Fewer and fewer people can afford to save now or put money into property. It's going to be a huge issue when this generation gets old because they will also be the generation where the government realised pensions were unaffordable and started to squeeze them. Middle class, working class? unless we take drastic action now they'll find themselves side by side in the same run down retirement home abandoned to rot by society.

Reply
  • Class is a nebulous concept. How do you measure it? Wealth? Yearly income or savings? Whether or not you went to university? My Parents worked as a nurse and an accountant. My father the first in his family to go to university and my mother never went. One side of the family was from a rural area. My grandfather was a traveling salesman, his wife a nurse. My mothers side we know little about but their family had been wealthy industrialists once but had fallen on hard times and her youth was a very frugal one. So what class am I? My dad has always put on airs and graces, became president of his rotary branch and the chamber of commerce, but we grew up in one of the roughest parts of our city. I've been mugged in my local park, threatened with guns by drug dealers. I've been on benefits, my brother still is. Yet he has a good degree and I have a PhD. Grandfather worked as salesman, a cog in the wheel of their corporate machine for a pittance just to send his only son to uni then to save till he could start his own business. Then he died shortly after starting it.

    What is class? Owning your own house? Used to be buying your council house was a big step towards becoming 'middle class'. I can't afford that and my job is better paid than most who did. Is it going to uni? Almost 50% of people go to university now. Class is meaningless. Wealth is period specific, Wealth in the 2020s is not the same as wealth in the 80s. Fewer and fewer people can afford to save now or put money into property. It's going to be a huge issue when this generation gets old because they will also be the generation where the government realised pensions were unaffordable and started to squeeze them. Middle class, working class? unless we take drastic action now they'll find themselves side by side in the same run down retirement home abandoned to rot by society.

Children
  • Yes, but class is rampant in Britain, always has been...Groups of people excluding others because they're not quite right Rolling eyes

  • Class is a social construct. For a long time I felt 'class' was a word being used without clear meaning by human beings to order themselves.  Money is also a similar construct that sounds more definite because it's quantified.

    The British usage confuses multiple traits like education or accent with economic class.  So I've adopted my own definitions, even if some are still rough. If you have to work, you're working class.  If you've enough unearned income you don't need to, you're not.  A more definite dividing line, based on money, if you have more coming in through rent or investments than you have going out you are (petite) bourgeoisie; if not you're proletariat.

  • We'll yeah this is another concept that illudes me about the class system and why we even have one as realisticly you can't. Valid point tbf if you were a politician dude I'd vote for you that's the most sense anyone's made to me in years when it comes to this topic.