Determining which social class people belong to

@ER- well said!

i'd like to agree w/ you and i act as if they dont exist. to be honest, they do. otherwise why would there be "at risk youth" etc? anyway... i think people should let it go. there are differences in people, but who cares? the only care i can see concerned w/ it is helping (ie- in the at risk youth area, etc) and not caring if the person is of which class, money, etc.

haha! now, Shanghai I know a little about, although I am still learning (you see, I recently changed jobs and am now in the Chinese sales region). China's classes are determined by a number of things. Money, location, job etc. Advertising campaigns in China really need to tailored to the "location". Consumers in large cities are driven by differing needs/desires as those in smaller cities and these are different again to the countryside. There is a strong difference in incomes and desire for status.

The chinese in big cities appear to enjoy displaying their wealth and status. Top chinese business men must have the top brands and newest mobile phones etc. With cars it is similar. Wealth must be displayed in the best car. There is even a snobbery about imported and locally produced cars. Loally produced cars must now carry a logo in chinese characters to try and build up the status of local brands. BMW-Brilliance cars are therefore differentiated by this logo from imported BMWs.

Shanghai is much more brand-oriented and has a much further developed "consumerism" than say Beijing and the people are more open to western style media and advertising...

I could go on but i would just be boring everyone (ok, so no change there)

I think you misspelt 'taylored' and 'differeing'.

i can't spell for toffee. I thought you knew that.

But you read "campaings" and thought there was nothing wrong there. If you are gonna be a smart arse, at least be thorough.

i think por speling, and erors in, gramarr, and, capitalisashun, and, punkshuashun, musst bee shure signs, of a lower clas upbringin, and two manny comas too,

i bearly caught differeing,

Doesn't class nowadays come down to the adage " Life is like a shit sandwich, the more bread you got the less shit you have to eat " ?

This thread is depressing me. It's like the renaissance never happend.

Okay, I'll believe that I don't have any bills to pay and then they'll disappear and I won't have to go to work anymore


Or a bit too much bleeding? I'm sorry, but the clever people come from the middle classes. They're the wannabes, the ones with the ambition to get somewhere. The ones who make a big fuss about whether you eat with your elbows on the table, whether you talk with food in your mouth, which fork you use first, etc. Come on, class is everywhere and it's manifested in loads of forms. No one can tell me that they are not class unconscious. It's programmed in us. Social conditioning is a lot more sublime than you think.

Its not really so much about money for me. Loads of toffs are actually completely broke, but still upper class - and loads of pikey little plasterers in the 80's got ridiculously rich, but will still wanna pour tomato ketcup on everything they eat.
Money is more about the sprawling middle class and people trying to differentiate themselves between lower middle class, upper middle class and god knows what in between.

Erm... Very middle class of me, I know, but don't you mean 'subliminal'?

I think you meant French Revolution. Why don't you ask the French what happened to their royalty. It goes to the ENA now. Much like America with their Ivy League and Britain with Oxbridge. A lot of people don't get in there on merit alone.

The difference is your bills are real.

If you let your perceived class stop you from doing something or make you feel inferior to someone then you're as bad as those who use class to their advantage.

@d r: as a born and bred 'somewhere-in-the-middle-classes middle classer', I'd have to say you hit the nail (thoroughly) on the head.

I have seldom read anything quite so ridiculous. Either you're on a troll (not for the first time) or you really do have absolutely no idea whatsoever what you are talking about.

No I didn't mean the French Revolution. Otherwise I would have written French Revolution. It doesn't matter. I am depressed. Thanks to this thread.

ahh but your talking about the far east so shouldnt that read "i cant spell for tofu"?


agree with mr rina there. i've found in life that its only the middle classes who seemed so fucking wound up about this shit. working and upper class just get on with things and are not worried about driving round in an old car, getting pissed and being embarrassing in public and what the jones at nr 37 are doing. you can always tell whos middle calss if you go to dinner and they cringe when you put the napkin in the wrong place.

biggest load of boolocks i've ever heard. you deserve a good smack for that comment. (insert smilie with a sledgehammer)

Full marks to ER

oh well done, aren't you the fucking clever one

edit - directed at pike not ER, in case there was any misunderstanding

And now I'm depressed. Well done indeed, Pike.

That's not what I'm talking about. Of course, I don't let it hold me back. I'm just saying that there are jackasses out there who think they are better than you because they have more money, went to a better school, have a better accent, blah, blah, blah. Usually, those people don't get anywhere because they rely on props their whole life and not themselves which brings me to the next post.


And not for the first time, when I say something that you don't agree with you call me a troll. This is a public forum where discussions take place. To have a discussion, people have differing viewpoints and generally disagree. Let me explain to you what I meant in my post. I meant that money and the lack of it is very often what drives people to achieve. How many spilt brats do you see that ever achieve? Look at sports. Look at the number of sportsmen that come from poor backgrounds as opposed to those who come from richer backgrounds. Sure, you get rich people who are clever, I admit that was a fauxpas on my side. But they lack motivation, and without motivation or the will to succeed and be something "better", all the talent in the world will come to nought.

What being clever has got to do with ambition I do not know. My IQ is positively stratospheric, but I certainly cannot be arsed with rat race shit.

hmm, now who was it seen wearing knee high white patent leather boots at almost exactly this time last year?

@ulysses - ok, I see what you mean now
I took it as an insult against the working class
not sure, but I think gideon might have also done so (see post #71)

in any event, I don't think you can generalise about people based on what your perception of their class is, and I don't see what is to gain from stereotyping people based on class, race or anything else

Comedy. Loads of great comedy based on stereotypes. The picture used in the first post of this thread was indeed the rons.

Boots, yes. Shoes no.

@don - OK, I'll give you that, the comedy sketch with the 2 Ronnies and John Cleese was classic satire on the English class system.

If someone can post a link to an online version, then at least something positive will have come from this thread

Is there a high IQ class? If so I shall whine and complain that with my 82 point IQ, you people won't let me into your little club.

I don't think I'm comprehending what is being defined by class? What are the distinctions between the classes? Does being better at something than someone else put you in a different class or is it something you are born into? Money seems to have an influence but as DR said what if you earned the money cleaning our garbage cans?

OW amd ,yself are not saying there is anything to gain. We are saying it exists!


DR is absolutely right. You're born into the upper class. You cannot get there with money alone. There're lots of porn millionaires who will never belong to the upper class because they weren't born into it. And there're a couple of aristocrats who are quite broke.

@ ulysses.. u can't make grandios statements like that, if youre refering to smthg like correlation of athletic success in relation to class or income, why? because certain sports cost alot of money, like hockey or polo, to play and others are practically free, such as soccer therefore your statement should be refined, cuz im sure if u actually looked into the matter the average athlete comes from a middle class background, and that success is based on individual drive not from some romantic story of the scrappy street kid that fights his way outta the slum with a ball and some talent

now you are generalising, doing exactly what you accuse Ulysses of doing.

The average motor sportsman comes from a wealthy background
The average professional footballer probably comes from working class background.
The average yachtsman probably lives by the sea.

The average sprinter comes from a poor background as they are used to running from the plod after they've tried to half-inch a purse or somesuch.

There's social class and economic class. They are often associated with each other but aren't necessarily the same thing.

I did some low status, poorly paid work in my youth. That made me economically working class. But socially I was always middle class due to my background.

It is possible to go from one social class to another in the UK but it's difficult. I have known people go from working class to upper-middle and vice versa.

Various countries claim to be classless but it's never entirely true IMO.

I have had the privilege (???) of working for some top lawyers in Munich and meeting their top class clients and friends. To tell the truth, with very few exceptions would I ever give any of them the time of day. They ooze their class complacency in attempts to smother anyone whom they consider lower class into respect and submission, but their shit stinks just as much as mine. They were mostly where they were due to money connected with family (and all the implications of more recent German history) while my brains put me in a position that the lawyers needed me to function professionally.
I may be a mistake in what started out as a teenage wedding (not shotgun), but I have more style in my ratty bathrobe on the morning after a binge than most of these guys in Armani suits at a cocktail reception at the Residenz.
Class should not determine your standing among friends nor your own self-esteem.

sarabyrd, that just smacks of inverted snobbery.

yep, but i put it down to coming from South Africa where the lowest white class is middle class!


is it possible to get nostalgic about "fuck-me-slingbacks" i wonder?


its not actually the two ronnies, but either "the frost report" or "that was the week that was". google is your friend topsy.


unless your a champion world record beating woman then you come from derby.

Smacks of personal experience. The question was how to recognize them in Munich, and I have.

umm, I didn't write that quote.

Gideon, ah but then she is by no means "average"

QUOTE

@OW i expected more from u.. what he said was that
ow can someone determine who has and who does not have motivation to succeed as and ENTIRE CLASS?!!! hello? My point simply that the probability that someone from the projects is that they will probably be picking up a basketball before getting onto their yacht and being a good sailor or on their horse. he makes statements that are meant to insinuate that upper class people have no drive or ambition, and therefore apparently will never be good athletes.. does that make sense to u?

Interestingly, studies have shown lower class people to have a higher saturated fat content than middle or upper classes. I reckon shit, on average, could potentially be quite different between classes.

you are right, surferinthecold did. dunno how your name appeared in the quote box.

OG true although she must be average cos nobody seems to want to sail with her.

For non-British people, if you want to know what class a British person is ask them. If they tell you, they're probably right. If they say 'I don't know' or 'I don't believe in that stuff' they are middle class. HTH.

Agreed. But I don't exactly have the time to go into exceptions like Tiger Woods, et al. I'm assuming you realise that every rule has an exception. The fact that rules have exceptions makes them such. Fact is, you get a lot of middle-class people who succeed. I would argue though that they usually belong to lower middle class, upper middle class usually being people who have loads of money already.

Another point. How much money can you make from hockey and polo? Don't you think if there were more money there, we might just see domination there by people from lower class backgrounds?

I counter your personal experience with mine. I work directly for the owner and managing director of my company, his father did so before him as well. He has had oodles of money and social standing throughout his life. You'd never know it by the way he dresses talks or acts, he goes out of his way not to live with the extravagences he can afford. If you met him you'd never know and he'd be what you refer to as high class.