While seeming to vanish, class digs deeper

[imomus]

In my quotes for AFP about the Last King of Pop, I outlined the idea that social networking software might be joining with increasing Gini-gaps and the collapse of postmodernism's flattening of high and low culture to produce a new social stratification, or, rather, a return to a kind of social stratification not seen since the 1960s:

"I think we're seeing the re-appearance of class and caste. Michael Jackson's fame comes from a cultural period -- postmodern global consumerism -- when the distinction between high and low collapsed. When Pierre Bourdieu surveyed French cultural tastes in the 1960s, he found that blue collar and white collar workers had completely different cultures -- classical music for the brain workers, cheap pop for the hand workers. A few decades later, postmodern consumer culture had leveled that, at least superficially: now, people with college degrees spoke about Michael Jackson "intelligently", people from lower class backgrounds spoke about him "passionately". But everybody spoke about him. Now that postmodernism is coming to an end, and now that narrowcasting and social networking limit our encounters with "the class other", I think we'll see different classes embracing different cultures again. Things will settle back into the kind of cultural landscape Bourdieu described in "Distinction"."

Another way to put this is to say that the only kings to exist in the future will be actual blue-blood kings (since monarchy seems to show no sign of going away) rather than self-proclaimed meritocratic entertainment world kings whose pomp, though it might have annoyed some, was also a way to say "anybody, from any background, can become a king". Calling yourself "the king of pop" was therefore, in a sense, a statement about social mobility, and a deconstruction of the blood claims of the aristocracy.

Yesterday I happened to be reading a Guardian Media article about -- of all things -- Graham Norton, the camp BBC host. The article quoted BBC1 controller Jay Hunt calling a Norton show "popular with C2DE viewers who we traditionally struggle to bring to the channel". The journalist (Stuart Jeffries) added "I'm not actually sure what a C2DE viewer is".

Since I wasn't sure either, I looked the term up. The NRS social grade scale was devised in the 1930s and describes the British class system (except for aristocrats, mysteriously absent) in a coded way. The letters are assigned according to the occupation of the principal breadwinner of a household (ah, that's why the aristocrats aren't there!):

A = Upper Middle Class: Higher managerial, administrative or professional (doctor, solicitor, barrister, accountant, company director)
B = Middle Class: Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional (teacher, nurse, police officer, probation officer, librarian, middle manager)
C1 = Lower Middle Class: Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative or professional (junior manager, student, clerical/office workers, supervisors)
C2 = Skilled Working Class: Skilled manual workers (foreman, agricultural worker, plumber, bricklayer)
D = Working Class: Semi and unskilled manual workers (manual workers, shop worker, fisherman, apprentices)
E = Those at the lowest levels of subsistence: Casual or lowest grade workers, pensioners and others who depend on the state for their income (casual labourers, state pensioners)

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These categories can still describe the British class system fairly well -- and are still widely used by media and marketing people, despite the advent of rival systems from potato graphics to Mosaic geodemographics. You can use the NRS system to say things like "80% of Auto Trader readers are made up of social grade bracket B, C1 and C2" or "87% of Society Guardian readers are social grade ABC1 and 86% are educated to degree level or higher", and advertisers will know exactly who they have lined up in their sights. There's a fairly strong link between your NRS ranking and your cultural consumption patterns: "57% of Independent readers are deemed A or B on the NRS social grade, while just 11% of Sun readers, 14% of Daily Mirror readers, and 29% of Daily Mail and Daily Express readers occupy these socio-economic spaces," for instance.



But there's been a shift in the actual spread of the British population across the grid. The balance between ABC1s (middle class, white collar, broadsheet-reading) and C2DEs (working class, blue collar, tabloid-reading) has altered. The majority of British people are now ABC1s, whereas in the 1970s the middle classes would have been outweighed by C2DEs. This has happened through what we might call the "internationalisation of labour"; Britain doesn't really manufacture any more, so its working class has, in a sense, been outsourced to China (picture millions of Chinese in flat caps pigeon-fancying, supporting United, and watching Benny Hill). So it isn't so much that class has disappeared as that it's been internationalised. You have to travel a long way to see the people who smelt your steel now. They've been "hidden on the far side of the world".

Another reason that class has become less visible even as it's become more determinant is social networking. The internet has allowed us to filter our contact with others to such an extent that we're seldom likely to encounter anyone who thinks or feels significantly differently online -- unless we consciously seek them out. And why would we do that? To "challenge our own values"? Because "it's good for us"?



But perhaps the ultimate class gap today is between people who are and people who aren't on the internet. If you have internet access, you're part of a 15% global elite. Don't expect to encounter the other 85% online, your highness. They ain't here.

Comments

Re: today's word:

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

I don't think the scale conforms very well to American social class. There aren't very well-drawn boundaries between "middle" and "working" class in America, for example.

A lot of people who do working class jobs (plumbers, electricians, contractors, etc) would consider themselves middle class in terms of how they can afford to live from year to year. In fact, it seems that much of the time, when Americans talk about their own class, they'll shift between "middle" and "working" depending on the tone they want to create. In this way, "middle" is often a stand-in for "normal" and "working" plays somewhere along the lines of "idiosyncratic," as in the case of growing up with divorced parents or something like that.

Realistically, I'd be inclined to agree that American class is as complicated as British class, when we're talking about objective living conditions. But Americans are far less likely to draw those distinctions themselves, preferring to lump themselves into the often interchangeable categories of "middle" or "working" class.

Re: today's word:

[(Anonymous)]

Somehow American class was turned into an educational thing, as in, class = where you went to school. It's either that or how much money you have. A redneck contractor who makes millions and can afford a lavish lifestyle has bought himself into the upper middle classes. Or, the son of an African immigrant who goes to an Ivy League school can now break into the American upper class (yes upper class, American "aristocracy" is an interesting thing... of course it's nothing like the British version, so don't cross wires here).

The US cares absolutely nothing about family background, history, etc, nor does it care much about any kind-of cultural education. You could be of noble blood back in the old country, have centuries of worthy family culture and history, etc. What does it all mean in the US? Nothing if you don't have 1) the money to back it up or 2) the high flyng Ivy League degree to wave around at parties.

So ... the British chart probably wouldn't reflect American tastes as much re: class. Cultural tastes in general mean nothing in the US since you're basically a "fuckin homo" if you're into anything other than football or cars.

Re: today's word:

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

Britain has definitely shifted, especially under Thatcher, towards a more American concept of class, with cultural tastes less strictly polarised and the nouveau riche not feeling quite the same determination to conform to the ways of the old elite. With the political comeback of the traditional upper class, that may perhaps be reversing - but note also that that class was only able to make its return by jumping on the pop-cultural bandwagon and asserting their affinity to mass (or at least the ABC1 part of the mass, Coldplay etc.) tastes. In many ways that's the culmination of the way Britain has been heading for many years now - the traditional parties losing all principles in the quest for power (Labour did the same at a similar point of desperation) and pop culture *also* losing its meaning and being exposed as something that merely props up old-elite attempts to regain power, create an allusion of classlessness, rather than *genuinely* break down boundaries.

I do tend to feel that the worst mistake the British babyboomers made was to regard the US as their model for a less class-bound society, rather than (say) Scandinavia. Obama obviously proves what can still be possible there, but never forget how and why Bush II was able to become president in the first place ... the US has many virtues, but Obama/Cameron, for all that it would reinforce a sense of the old British elite as unkillable if they're smart enough to know how to rebrand themselves, wouldn't really bring back 1961. That naive yearning we used to have here could not be recovered, partially because pop culture is now so omnipresent and partially because we all know too much now to be hysterically carried away by one leader (rather than regard him as A Good Thing compared to all the alternatives) in the way we did with JFK (probably more so in Britain, among the nascent Beatles generation, than in the US itself).

Re: today's word:

[(Anonymous)]

Class is alive and well in America.

Despite the delusion that America is a classless society, you can predict with a high degree of accuracy how rich a person will be in life based on how rich his parents are. In fact, America has significantly *less* social mobility than countries such as Sweden and Germany.

Of course, that's "just" economic class. The social class indicators are just as real. Here's a great article referencing a great book on the subject:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/class-system

Re: today's word:

[(Anonymous)]

I consider myself fortunate to have served as an enlisted grunt in the Army before becoming of all things a fucking corporate lawyer, because I've seen firsthand the quite real class distinctions in the US. It would be nice if there were a non-militaristic way for young future professionals to work with and befriend the "lower" classes. Maybe work in a pit crew or as a construction worker.

Re: today's word:

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Just the point I made upthread.

It's relevant to Britain because, unfortunately, a lot of people in this country fell for the delusion that the best and most complete escape from the class-bound dregs-of-empire Britain of the 1950s was in the US. If only Elvis and Buddy Holly and Little Richard had been Swedish ... or if *something* had come from Scandinavia which had captivated so many!

Re: today's word:

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

The promise is that anybody can be socially mobile in America, not that everybody will be.

Re: today's word:

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Class in America means whether or not you read books or vote Democrat (elitist snob) vs. being a salt of the earth man of the people who doesn't read books and votes Republican (working class). Bonus points for eating organic food vs. McDonald's. Annual income and where you went to school and family background are completely irrelevant.

This led to hilarious spectacles like the Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, aristocrat, calling Barack Obama, of a mixed-race poor family, an "elitist" during the 2008 election season. A rothschild. No joke. That was when I knew the dialogue of class in America was incomprehensibly twisted.

Re: today's word:

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

But see, I don't think this particular distinction carries any weight outside of the political arena. When people are out stumping for their guy in an election year, you'll see them drawing these lines. In actuality, this is only a GOP thing. Democratic agents aren't sitting in rooms thinking of ways to denigrate Republicans for being "working class." So I think this only goes as far as Republicans trying to claim "working class" for themselves in political terms, and demonize their opposition as "elitist snobs." This doesn't really carry over to non-election stuff, though.

Annual income, the rest of the time, is the defining feature of social class in America. Look, for example, at how the democrats were able to cut right through the GOP claims that Obama was elitist, by simply mentioning that, while Obama owned one home in Chicago and a modest family vehicle, McCain owned something like 8 or 10 homes and a slew of luxury automobiles. They tried to turn Obama into an "elitist snob," and of course that was always going to work for the hardcore GOP members, but I think it actually ended up backfiring terribly. So I think that speaks even more to the fact that class in America is tied to demonstrable wealth. With Kerry, the "elitist" tag stuck, because he really was a terribly, ridiculously rich guy, going up against a less terribly, ridiculously rich sitting president. But there was no demonstrable way they could do the same with Obama, since McCain is married to a beer distribution heiress.

Re: today's word:

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

I'd posit the 'doesn't know how many houses he owns' thing hit McCain pretty hard because it painted him as OLD, forgetful and out of touch in addition to being hugely wealthy, so it was a multi-pronged attack that worked beautifully.

I think you're right though. Now, there's co-ops and clubs here in NYC that I couldn't possibly join regardless of how much money I had in the bank, I'm too gay and my partner's too Jewish, but it's increasingly difficult to maintain that kind of thing in today's world. It's just less and less relevant, so eventually you get a painstakingly exclusive little club or co-op where everybody ages and dies in it and no new people come in, as their own offspring end up going elsewhere to have fun. I give you modern WASP culture in general.

Re: today's word:

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Some of the mannerisms of the uber-wealthy came over to America from Europe, but they were always fairly marginal and on the decline. Those types of exclusive, high society things are largely viewed with contempt in the US. One of the promises of America is that it doesn't matter if you're Jewish or black or whatever else, when it comes to being able to obtain wealth. There were fabulously wealthy Jewish moguls who couldn't gain access to stuffy old country clubs in old Hollywood. I wonder how many of those clubs still exist today, and if their memberships are thriving.