Class

[Simon]

By the way, the request for a definition doesn't mean that I think S-A's comments are wrong: indeed, it was IMO an excellent post, but I wondered if we could narrow it down to a sentence that we can all agree on.

Please, as I asked in my OP, could posters NOT just quote other posts with a tiny throwaway comment at the end: it really does make threads unwieldy. People complain about it all over the net!

[Beef Oven]

The Grammar school system was the thing that lifted so many of us out of our poor backgrounds - the greatest social mobility vehicle in the last 100 years!

Sadly, my generation will have been the last to have benefited

Nice thread Simon

[Serial_Apologist]

By the way, the request for a definition doesn't mean that I think S-A's comments are wrong: indeed, it was IMO an excellent post, but I wondered if we could narrow it down to a sentence that we can all agree on.

Please, as I asked in my OP, could posters NOT just quote other posts with a tiny throwaway comment at the end: it really does make threads unwieldy. People complain about it all over the net!

I appreciate that, but why narrow down class definition to a sentence?

OK then: class is defined by the individual's relationship to society's means of production and distribution.

Will that do you?

[Serial_Apologist]

There seems to be a confusion in some people's minds between class and status; but status is a very subjective quantity: one can have as much status as leader of a teenage gang as the ceo of a top pharmaceutical company.

[MrGongGong]

The Grammar school system was the thing that lifted so many of us out of our poor backgrounds - the greatest social mobility vehicle in the last 100 years!

Sadly, my generation will have been the last to have benefited

Nice thread Simon

Other myths are available
It doesn't seem to have educated you enough to realise that there are still lots of these institutions left

Passing the "11 +" was , in retrospect, one of the worst things i've done ....... but i'm over it now

[pastoralguy]

One of my all time heroes was my late father in law. He left school at 13 to become an apprentice joiner and retired as Principal of one of the top Edinburgh colleges.

[Richard Barrett]

One of my all time heroes was my late father in law. He left school at 13 to become an apprentice joiner and retired as Principal of one of the top Edinburgh colleges.

And of course the reason why you think of him as a "hero" is that, contrary to what Simon implies in the opening post, such stories are extremely rare.

[Beef Oven]

And of course the reason why you think of him as a "hero" is that, contrary to what Simon implies in the opening post, such stories are extremely rare.

No they are not. sadly, this sort of thing does not fit in with your world-view so you deny it.

[MrGongGong]

Not a myth, for example, for 5 of us children from 1 small street in Lower Clapton that all escaped to Ivy League or top British Universities, lifted out of poor backgrounds and 5 to a room housing without an inside toilet never mind a bathroom - speak for yourself, you middle-class prat.

Of course

2 anecdotes = evidence

It all depends on what you mean by success

IF (as is often cited) one thinks that Finland has an excellent education system then ....................

[pastoralguy]

Perhaps the best measure of 'class' is just trying to be a good human being regardless of money, education and social status...

[Tony Halstead]

a good human being regardless of money, education and social status...

i.e. a Christian

[Simon]

I'll tell you what guys. I GIVE UP.

Thanks to those half dozen who tried, but when we get people here who either don't read other posts before commenting, or don't understand them when they do, or just comment as a knee-jerk reaction because they can't manage to construct a measured or reasoned response, it's time to go.

If any of you are interested in discussing these things in a relaxed and sensible way, over a period, off board, as some of us do already to avoid the idiots, then please PM me.

(And if a certain other poster reads this - yes, I know I owe you a reply on another subject, but I only found the reference I wanted today. Sorry for the delay!)

[Beef Oven]

Middle class people feel guilty about what they got, they feel they don't deserve it, so they slag off things like grammar schools. Working class people don't have any worries like that. So we can see grammar schools for what they are - something that promotes merit, NO MATTER WHAT YOUR BACKGROUND IS! We should embrace and celebrate liberating things like this!

[MrGongGong]

I'll tell you what guys. I GIVE UP.

Thanks to those half dozen who tried, but when we get people here who either don't read other posts before commenting, or don't understand them when they do, or just comment as a knee-jerk reaction because they can't manage to construct a measured or reasoned response, it's time to go.

If any of you are interested in discussing these things in a relaxed and sensible way, over a period, off board, as some of us do already to avoid the idiots, then please PM me.

(And if a certain other poster reads this - yes, I know I owe you a reply on another subject, but I only found the reference I wanted today. Sorry for the delay!)

Don't give up simon
Some people like to use supposed "class" as a badge
I know someone who is a (real) professor at a University with a PHd in esoteric musicology YET still insists he is somehow "working class"
His grandparents were ....... but ................

[Beef Oven]

Don't give up simon
Some people like to use supposed "class" as a badge
I know someone who is a (real) professor at a University with a PHd in esoteric musicology YET still insists he is somehow "working class"
His grandparents were ....... but ................

It's called social mobility - it's not a bad thing. He isworking class, in a sense. You don't have to view class in a crude economic deterministic way.