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

Summing up non autistic people in one sentence! They all do it. We don't.

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

I'm kind of the opposite. I grew up very middle class but didn't get a middle class job, so I've spent my life in menial jobs and I'm kind of working class now. Go figure, as Americans say ♀️ 

Thanks for the kind comment. Seems like 99% of people are like that now. I keep away from them.

So true!

haha Desmond I literally just wrote that above before I read your comment! Great minds think alike!  

Britain has always been classist. Always, probably since the Romans came. These days 'class' is a dirty word, but classes still exist for sure.

It is ironic that Britain has a form of Christianity deeply embedded in the state, but has a decided minority of practising Christians, whereas the opposite is the case in the US.

Jefferson and Paine laid the foundations for Militant Scepticism. America was only Christian at a superficial level. 

In fact, had it not been for CS Lewis, Britain would have abandoned Christianity after WW1. 

 I think the American War of Independence had some effect in Britain, Tom Paine and Jefferson were certainly intellectuals.

More so the Hugenots. They viewed Rome as the Church of the Tyrants and Rulers. The Reformed Churches were Civilised, in their eyes. 

Thats a good definition

I would have said religion, but it was on Europe we had the Inquisition.... 

So they don't get ripped off in DIY shops?

Just like the opposite, working class people pretending to be middle class, it's presumably a status thing.  In a meritocracy, your current economic status may be something to flaunt, but it could be undermined if you had a privileged background, and you can maintain that little of your good fortune is down to luck.  Why does a banker pretend to drink beer and be a man of the people, if not for social popularity?  Even if people see through the tactic, it shows he is seeking, and dependent on, your approval, and therefore closer to you than an uncaring and out-of-touch elite.

Otherwise, maybe it shows that working class people have some political power and regard or are seen as more honest. People may rightly listen to someone who struggles on the frontline for 'real' experience. (I'm working class by my definition, but like relatively middlebrow pursuits.)

Not sure if those ideas are plausible. Class and pretence is pretty odd to me too.

You may be right.  Recent trends include commodification of education, an association of intellectualism with the political left, and an economically disempowered class who no longer see an escape through education and may be resentful of being talked down to.  Michael Sandel looks at this in The Tyranny of Merit.

Is it possible that anti-intellectualism came from over the Atlantic rather than over the Channel? Isaac Asimov wrote a one page article 'The Cult of Ignorance' in 1980.

Aldous Huxley defined an intellectual as someone who's found something more interesting to think about than sex.  I'm not sure I qualify.

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.

I was constantly bullied at school by the so called middle classes, called a dosser etc because of my bad hygiene and clothes falling apart.

Thats interesting what you have written about Marx, I keep meaning to study politics and history a bit more but never get round to it.  I always wondered why communism was so bad as on the surface it looks like a good idea, you have explained why.

I think that an enlightened society should take care of the less fortunate people in it, but also that hard work and merit should be rewarded. The extreme logical extension of a belief that the successful should not support the less fortunate, is the Nazi extermination of the disabled, including autistics. Why should society look after those who cannot materially contribute to it? Much of the wealth in this country is in the hands of people who inherited it, people who did not succeed in anything, other than in being born advantageously. The Duke of Westminster is worth over £10 billion and was the richest person under 30 years of age in the world . As far as I can see he has personally done nothing to merit having even a tiny fraction of this wealth.

Marx envisaged the countries most likely to have a Communist revolution to have been highly industrialised nations, specifically the UK and Germany. Unfortunately, the countries that had such revolutions were Russia and China. Both were huge, largely agrarian, peasant societies, knowing only despotism as a form of government. That Communist government became despotic in both, is not surprising. As proof of this, Russia overthrew its Communist government, had a few years of quasi-democracy, then went back to being a despotism under Putin. Despotism in Russia is due to the country and its history, not the ideology of its leaders.

Yeah but why should those who didn't succeed gain extra wealth from those who did. I accept I've made my bed and will lie in it as I didn't so well at school but don't believe in the system where you rob from those better off just to give to the poor. Some people succeed in life some don't that's democracy. Otherwise your governing a comunist society where the rich stay rich but the middle and working class remain worse off than before. Grass is never greener on the other side even if you think its like saying I'm poor so everyone ellse should be. Be no point in further education or better paying jobs either