Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sriram on April 07, 2016, 05:25:11 AM
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Hi everyone,
Here is a BBC article about the British class system and how it continues to survive.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160406-how-much-does-social-class-matter-in-britain-today
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The UK is famed for the rigid distinctions between the different strata of society – but what’s the truth in the myth? And how does it compare to other countries?
“Class distinctions do not die; they merely learn new ways of expressing themselves,” the British sociologist Richard Hoggart once wrote. “Each decade we shiftily declare we have buried class; each decade the coffin stays empty.” A quick perusal of the foreign media would certainly paint a picture of a rigid class system, especially compared to places like the USA where ambition, talent and elbow grease are thought to be the only limits.
But although the structure of the class system may have changed since Waugh’s day, there are still very clear strata in our society, each with different levels of social, cultural and economic capital. Considering factors like education, salary, professions, and household ownership, the BBC’s own Great British Class Survey discovered seven distinct classes in total, with an elite (representing roughly 6% of the population) residing above a wide spectrum of working and middle classes.
One fascinating case study comes from the Up series of documentaries by Michael Apted. Picking 14 children of various backgrounds, who were all aged seven in 1964, he filmed them on a trip to London Zoo before following their progress every seven years after.
A few of the children have managed to change their circumstances through hard work and discipline. One boy, Nick, who grew up on a farm, is now a successful physicist living and working in America; another, Lynn, grew up in the less salubrious areas of London’s East End, but has forged a successful career as a university librarian. In general, however, the series has lacked any truly astonishing rags-to-riches tales. As the New Yorker concluded in its review of the latest edition, 56 Up: “The British class system has its protections at every level, but also – at least to American eyes – a built-in inertia. None of Apted’s subjects have become alcoholic or drug-addicted, but the predictability of most of the individual fates – working-class kids rising slightly, rich kids staying rich – makes one impatient.”
there had been a steady average rise in the population after World War Two, with each child expecting to be slightly better off than their parents. Unfortunately, this trend now seems to be reversing. “More men and women are experiencing downward mobility and fewer of them experience upward mobility than before,” says Erzsebet Bukodi at the University of Oxford, who calls it “the dark side of the Golden Age of Mobility” – with more people at the top, more have the potential to fall.
In other words, social class may be even less elastic than we thought – even if one generation pulls away, the next may be tugged backwards thanks to the broader connections of their family at large. “If you want to predict someone’s outcome, you don’t just look at their parents – but also their uncles and aunts, their grandparents and great-grandparents,” says Gregory Clark at the University of California, Davis. “They are all predictive.”
In fact, he found long-term social mobility to be very slow indeed, calculating that it takes around 10 generations for someone at the highest or lowest levels of society to reach the middle classes.
If these results appear to confirm the “inertia” of the British class system, it’s worth considering Clark’s studies of other countries, examining attendance at the USA’s Ivy League colleges and the State Bar Associations listings of attorneys or the American Medical Association, for instance.Despite perceptions of greater social mobility, he found that the rate of change was roughly the same as in Britain. The same turned out to be true for Sweden; although the overall differences in wealth do tend to be smaller between the rich and poor, you still find the same families occupying the more prestigious jobs – such as doctors, lawyers, or university professors.
Perhaps some families are just carrying the DNA that helps them succeed, he says. Such genetic determinism tends to be an unpopular idea among many scientists.
If he’s right, the British obsession with class isn’t so archaic. Whether you live in London, Beijing, New York or Stockholm, it can be surprisingly difficult to break free from the ties of the past.
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I posted this because it is relevant to all of you here and may be of some interest. So...resist the temptation to start off about Indian caste system!
Cheers.
Sriram
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Wouldn't even think of doing that Sririam, the caste system is totally different.However, there is a class system in India.
The article is interesting but as it says we are far less class ridden here than we were. There is so much more mobility, and aspiration. Still, class differences do exist I suppose.
This is something I remember well, it is a classic. You may know it already, it's funny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c
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I posted this because it is relevant to all of you here and may be of some interest. So...resist the temptation to start off about Indian caste system!
Cheers.
Sriram
It is not relevant to me but it is somewhat interesting.
Now, about the Indian caste system............!
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Wouldn't even think of doing that Sririam, the caste system is totally different.However, there is a class system in India.
The article is interesting but as it says we are far less class ridden here than we were. There is so much more mobility, and aspiration. Still, class differences do exist I suppose.
This is something I remember well, it is a classic. You may know it already, it's funny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c
Some people have this OCD and cannot resist making 'How about India then?!' arguments every time I say something about British social issues. ;)
That is why I usually add a clause to avoid the thread getting hijacked. :D
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I didn't even know you were Indian, Sririam, despite your name. Thought you might be British or at least live here. Anyway I know the caste system is different to class divisions. It may be a topic worth discussing but not here.
From your vaguely lower middle class fellow poster, Lyn
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I didn't even know you were Indian, Sririam, despite your name. Thought you might be British or at least live here. Anyway I know the caste system is different to class divisions. It may be a topic worth discussing but not here.
From your vaguely lower middle class fellow poster, Lyn
I am an Indian, a Hindu, living in South India.
I have visited the UK few times. Once in 1971 when I was a student and my dad was working with the UN. Later I visited again in the 1990's on work. I was working in a Military Aircraft company in India and visited British Aerospace Plc. (BAE Systems now) near Manchester and at Farnborough.
Later I shifted to the software industry.
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Oh right, Madras or nearby? I haven't been to India but have travelled widely in books and on TV :D. Love it.
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I posted this because it is relevant to all of you here and may be of some interest. So...resist the temptation to start off about Indian caste system!
Cheers.
Sriram
So what is your actual point?
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So what is your actual point?
He posts something, waits for someone to mention India then flaps all over the place pretending to be a flayed martyr. IMO.
::)
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Oh right, Madras or nearby? I haven't been to India but have travelled widely in books and on TV :D. Love it.
Yes...near Madras (now named Chennai)! :)
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So what is your actual point?
The point is that it is 'relevant to all of you here and may be of some interest'. Get it?!!
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Not really. What is relevant about it? It has really only poked it's head up here when arguing about whether "football" can be called "soccer" or not.
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Wouldn't even think of doing that Sririam, the caste system is totally different.However, there is a class system in India.
The article is interesting but as it says we are far less class ridden here than we were. There is so much more mobility, and aspiration. Still, class differences do exist I suppose.
This is something I remember well, it is a classic. You may know it already, it's funny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2k1iRD2f-c
Your quote....."The article is interesting but as it says we are far less class ridden here than we were. There is so much more mobility, and aspiration. Still, class differences do exist I suppose."
Yes.... maybe its less than it was, say 100 years ago.....but according to the article, the class system manages to permeate social mobility at most levels......directly or indirectly. Not as overt as it was in earlier centuries ....but more subtle.
Why...even in the US...there is significant difference in mobility between the people with rich backgrounds as compared to the poorer ones. This is besides the racial, gender and religious barriers, of course.
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Yes.... maybe its less than it was, say 100 years ago.....but according to the article, the class system manages to permeate social mobility at most levels......directly or indirectly. Not as overt as it was in earlier centuries ....but more subtle.
Why...even in the US...there is significant difference in mobility between the people with rich backgrounds as compared to the poorer ones. This is besides the racial, gender and religious barriers, of course.
I think the problems of social mobility, the gap between rich and poor, and discrimination (of various sorts) are much more important in the UK than class per se. The class 'system' seems to have become much more woolly for most people and totally irrelevant in my own experience. The article in the OP mentioned the seven different classes that have been identified; I remember reading about them but, without looking them up, I couldn't even name them, let alone tell you which one I thought I was in.
There is much to criticise about society and governance in the UK but class would be far from the top of my list.
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It seems to me that class is being replaced by celebrity status. I suppose there are some who attach great significance to the Queen's New Year honours list.
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Social mobility comes down to educational opportunities and attitudes to education. In the UK this is where the class system has its biggest impact - affecting the funding and structure of the educational system. Class based concerns end up by delivering a system that is sub-optimal.
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Social mobility comes down to educational opportunities and attitudes to education. In the UK this is where the class system has its biggest impact - affecting the funding and structure of the educational system. Class based concerns end up by delivering a system that is sub-optimal.
Interestingly, many of the so-called 'rich' schools actually provide opportunities for the less able to flourish.