From Twitter: "Jon2aylor Trevor Phillips attacks grip of middle class http://bit.ly/dw2aHB >Phillips is right about this.."The definition of 'middle-class' is so fluid as to have rendered itself redundant as this article clearly testifies. The term is so meaningless that it has now begun to irk me, like so much else, when I see it used by people who you would think would know better.
I don't have a university degree but I have a pretty well paid job, does that make me middle class?
I might have a pretty well-paid job but I don't have anyone working for me, i.e. I am not a manager, so does that make me working class?
I live in Cheshire, near to Hale and Bowdon (home of numerous footballers), so does geography make me middle class?
Not only that but I have a mortgage on my house (I don't like to say "own" as I am really just paying a big fuck-off loan back) so does that make me middle class?
Or does the fact my wife and I have effectively saved for years (a working class trait allegedly) to get to where we are, along with the fact that we live very frugally, make me working class?
I used to work for BT and they gave me free shares so does that fact make me middle class?
Or does the fact that I would never dream of buying shares off my own back make me working class?
My daughter attends the local state primary school (so am I working class?) but do my aspirations to get her into the local grammar school make me middle class?
I do not think of myself as well educated but anything I do know is largely self-taught through reading and making an effort to educate myself so where does that put me?
See what I mean - a completely fucking redundant term that only seeks to create differences between people. 'Divide and conquer' is the tactic deployed by bosses when it comes to attacking their workforce. I would argue that social classification is the 'divide and conquer' tactic deployed by the State to attack the population - albeit at a low level. But do it for long enough and it has a significant psychological impact.
If you have to work for a living and can not afford to do anything else then you are working fucking class my friend.
The Sisters Of Mercy - Temple Of Love (1992) (Single) (East West MR53 1992) 320kbps
- Temple Of Love (1992)
- I Was Wrong (American Fade)
4 comments:
Indeed.
If your labour (with muscle or mind) is your only means of support and if you don’t own property (actually own it) you’re one of us.
I’m always a bit perplexed by the way in which some people fetishize working classness.
Growing up in a traditional working class council house setting the message I was consistently fed as a boy was- get out, do whatever you can not to be working class. Thatcherism preyed on this by selling people their houses- making them play the game of capital on a more personal level and fooling them into believing that they had more in common with the Duke of Westminster than their less well off neighbours because they owned property.
Like you said, H- divide and conquer...
Anyway, when the revolution comes ideological compatibilities will count for far more than ‘class’.
That sticker alone brings memories flooding back of days gone by.
Its funny how the fetishising of the "working class" often comes from those who were brought up in an economically priveledged setting. Speaking personally, I was brought up in a working class mining and steel town and there were so many aspects of working class culture I loathed but equally there were some core values expressed as solidarity, mutual-aid and a healthy distrust of power and control that stay with me to this day.
Our society is no longer codified along traditional class lines, its more about who is included and who is excluded from the dynamics of transnational consumer capitalism.
Anyway, onto the Sisters release, as soon as I hear the intro I am immediately jettisoned back to the realm of dodgy gothic and post-punk club nights and of course "that" propeller dance with the arms glued to the side...in my opinion along with "Alice" "Emma" and "Phantom", this was one of the Sisters finest moments...a great post!
Having seen the word(ish) 'fetishize' twice in the comments I am going to have to say that I don't think there is a working class culture to 'fetishize' about. My definition of 'working class' covers probably 90+% of the population and they can't all be wearing flat caps and keeping pigeons or going down the pub and following the footie or whatever the current Vogue (note the capital) definition is. I do think it is 'them' and 'us' but the 'them' have done a very good job job of dividing the 'us' with a whole load of redundant terms.
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