Sunday NY Times piece on British Snobbery, for all you little plebs and gits

[Jacob]

Car: absolutely.

Maybe among suburban housewives. Or maybe people were secretly judging me on my car choice but didn't tell me.

So you wouldn't make assumptions about people drive a chromed up hummer with extra lighting vs a rusty K car vs a V8 pickup truck of American manufacture vs a Japanese hybrid vs a Porshe SUV?

Neighborhood: also true.

I mean while most places have good / bad parts of town, I don't know that most people look negatively upon someone who is from a bad place. Particularly not so when they are you co-workers.

What does whether they're co-workers have to do with anything?

Anyhow, as far as I know "coming from the wrong side of the tracks" is an American expression, which seems pretty damn class conscious at the very core. Gentrification is a big thing in several America cities and the class-conflict is called out in the very word. American magazines and discussion (not that this is limited to the US by any means) are full of classification of people based on neighbourhood stands serves as a characterization of the type of person they are and their values (Brooklyn Hipsters, suburbia, inside the Beltway, the Hamptons).

College: c'mon.  Get real.  Of course they do.

No. Apart from perhaps the college sport enthusiast, I don't think this matters much. I suppose there is a divide between elite school and not, but that's probably it.

[garbon]

So you wouldn't make assumptions about people drive a chromed up hummer with extra lighting vs a rusty K car vs a V8 pickup truck of American manufacture vs a Japanese hybrid vs a Porshe SUV?

Sure, if that is the only thing I know about a person than yes. Pretty rare though for that to be the case.

What does whether they're co-workers have to do with anything?

I was just thinking that a person would see them regularly and initial snap judgments might matter less.

Anyhow, as far as I know "coming from the wrong side of the tracks" is an American expression, which seems pretty damn class conscious at the very core. Gentrification is a big thing in several America cities and the class-conflict is called out in the very word. American magazines and discussion (not that this is limited to the US by any means) are full of classification of people based on neighbourhood stands serves as a characterization of the type of person they are and their values (Brooklyn Hipsters, suburbia, inside the Beltway, the Hamptons).

I don't know what to tell you on that as there are definitely neighborhoods that are less safe than others. Those tend to be poorer, less educated areas.

I suppose I could have added - with regards to employment. I don't know that any of that matters on a regular basis, but like I said, I don't generally spend time on that subject.

[Razgovory]

No, this is a British obsession that doesn't make much sense to Americans.  We were much more stratified in the past.  The American obsession is race.  Class warfare gains very little traction here in the states.  You see some folks try to stoke it and more people who accuse others of stoking it, but it's essentially a non-starter.  The issues of race cut very deeply into the US though.  That's where the bad feelings and riots come from.

Not disagreeing that race isn't the bigger issue in the American national psyche, but I'm not sure "little traction" is an accurate description re: class warfare. Terms like "poors," "rednecks," "white trash"; the obsessions with Ivy League and where you went to college, single mothers, welfare; and a whole bunch of the cultural markers associated with what music you listen to, what car you drive, or what neighbourhood you reside in all makes Americans seem pretty invested in class.

I don't know if anyone uses "poors" outside of Languish.  And while there is some contempt for poverty in the US it doesn't go both ways.  The poor don't despise the rich in the same way you see in Britain.  I'd also say that terms like "rednecks", "white trash", and "welfare queens", usually have a strong racial component.  "Single Mothers" has as strong misogynist element. I'd say these terms refer more to subcultures, race and the like rather then economic standing. Someone might claim to be a "Proud redneck" and a be as rich as Croesus.  On the other hand President Obama, who is now quite wealthy is often described by conservatives as a "thug", a term used for criminals in the ghetto. I haven't seen a big obsession with where people go to college.  People know about the Ivy League schools because they are famous (and are often expensive).  There certainly was economic elitism there, but that has sort of declined over the last hundred years.  The days of the Boston Brahmins are over.

[CountDeMoney]

I suppose I could have added - with regards to employment. I don't know that any of that matters on a regular basis, but like I said, I don't generally spend time on that subject.

You don't have to, Leland.

[derspiess]

On the other hand President Obama, who is now quite wealthy is often described by conservatives as a "thug", a term used for criminals in the ghetto.

I believe we can thank Bill Clinton for originating that remark back in 2008.  But agree with you on most of the other stuff.

[Razgovory]

On the other hand President Obama, who is now quite wealthy is often described by conservatives as a "thug", a term used for criminals in the ghetto.

I believe we can thank Bill Clinton for originating that remark back in 2008.  But agree with you on most of the other stuff.

You believe all sorts of strange things.  "Thug" is what I see on Breitbart to describe the President.

[CountDeMoney]

Oh we can just go with "Liar" in the middle of an address before an assembled Congress.

[Jacob]

Alright I concede the field to the Americans

Your media and your discourse is full of stuff that elsewhere would is classified as being about class, and your social organization has fairly discernible social classes. However, you are absolutely right that class-war stuff gets little traction.

IMO, it's not because those bits that get classified as being about class elsewhere do not exist, but because you like to call them something else and look at them in other frameworks.

Which I guess is fair enough.

[derspiess]

Oh we can just go with "Liar" in the middle of an address before an assembled Congress.

YOU LIE

[CountDeMoney]

Alright I concede the field to the Americans

Your media and your discourse is full of stuff that elsewhere would is classified as being about class, and your social organization has fairly discernible social classes. However, you are absolutely right that class-war stuff gets little traction.

IMO, it's not because those bits that get classified as being about class elsewhere do not exist, but because you like to call them something else and look at them in other frameworks.

Which I guess is fair enough.

The real problem--and it's been highlighted by Ferguson, Occupy Wall Street, to the Civil Rights and Culture Wars of the '60s, all the way back beyond the Depression to the Pullman strikes--is that if there's one thing the American people dislike more than social injustice, it's demonstrators, strikes and protests about social injustice.  It simply rubs the Average American the wrong way.

Americans may dislike social injustice, but they dislike disruption of peace and quiet even more. 

Sound familiar?   

[derspiess]

Those protesters should get a job.

[Capetan Mihali]

What are the British cultural implications of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry?  I just bought a bottle ($8.00) on a whim and am not sure what to do with it, or whose ranks I'll join once I start drinking it... 

[mongers]

What are the British cultural implications of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry?  I just bought a bottle ($8.00) on a whim and am not sure what to do with it, or whose ranks I'll join once I start drinking it... 

No idea, I think it's only ever bought by widowed grannies.

[Ideologue]

Car: absolutely.

Maybe among suburban housewives. Or maybe people were secretly judging me on my car choice but didn't tell me.

Possibly not a NYC thing--if you can afford to park a car, even if it sucks, you've made it.  Also, by society, I mean chicks.

I mean while most places have good / bad parts of town, I don't know that most people look negatively upon someone who is from a bad place. Particularly not so when they are you co-workers.

I may have misinterpreted this as "home ownership" and its even more discerning cousin, "size, opulence, and cost/exclusivity of home and housing development."

No. Apart from perhaps the college sport enthusiast, I don't think this matters much. I suppose there is a divide between elite school and not, but that's probably it.

How many people from Harvard do you think I hang out with?  I know one person from Dartmouth, and I recognize her as hilariously downwardly mobile.  (I don't like her very much.)

[Capetan Mihali]

One Charlotte judge insisted on calling me "Harvard" to my face in open court while I was practicing as an intern for a summer.  That was excruciating.

When I first got there and we had an intro chat at the bench, he told several anecdotes about his law school days that differed a lot in content, but each having the theme that the U of S.C. Law School (where he went) was always known as the Harvard of the South; or rather, that Harvard was the USC of the North, aha.