Is Class The Last Acceptable Form Of Discrimination?
The UK has a long history of dividing the population into class categories and then assuming generic attributes and behaviour consistent with the applied label. Is this discrimination?
How Do We Define Class?
Sifting through the numerous debates and reviewing personal experience it seems in my view that we define class by a number of attributes. Some of the key indicators appear to be:
- Financial Status: above all else our level of affluence determines our rank in society.
- Education: detailed knowledge of domains beyond those taught in basic education such as those around art and literature for example implies a higher class rating.
- Communication: The manner in which we present ourselves to others is a strong indicator of class and usually the first we assess when meeting someone new.
- Behaviour: Our ethics, morals and general behaviour in life.
- Race, Creed, Colour: despite our best efforts there are still major biases around these attributes.
No doubt we can add many other subjective attributes such as “outlook”, “style” and “taste” but let’s stick with this list and look at some of these attributes in more detail.
Financial Status
Financial affluence appears to be the main driving factor when assessing status in the western world due to our obsession with material possessions as a measure of our personal success and therefore social class. If you live in a detached house on a gated private estate you are of a higher social class than those living in a rented flat.
The UK National Lottery has put a dent in this measure as the winner can jump from working class council house estate resident living on benefits to being a multi-millionaire in the time it takes seven plastic balls to drop out of a rotating drum. Have they instantly become a new class of person? The old adage “money cannot buy class” probably applies here.
Thus is seems the most important measure to many is a false indicator.
Education
Our educational background is an essential measure of class. Where did we receive our basic education? Have we achieved a tertiary qualification from a redbrick University? The current volatile debate in the UK about whether to re-introduce grammar schools has brought this aspect of social status to the foreground.
Having a high quality education is not necessarily an indicator that the person will do well in society. I’ve personally worked with a number of intellectually well qualified people in the IT industry but who had no engineering or business common sense. They were tied up in abstract theory and could not translate this into concrete and practical reality especially in an environment with limits on resources.
For myself I came from a poor working class background with little help at home with my education. I did manage to obtain a 1st class honours degree in Computer Science and am proud of the “delta” between my origin and my achievements. Does it make me a better class of person though? Not really; it means I know a little something about modern technology.
There are a lot of successful people who had a relatively low level of achievement within the educational system. Hence this seems to be another flawed measure of social class.
Communication
How we present ourselves to other people is vitally important to our social status. As the saying goes “first impressions are important”. We rapidly evaluate new contacts based upon the way that they introduce themselves and establish a rapport with us. These skills are not explicitly taught in most schools and are normally passed on through parental guidance. Trial and error is often involved as we develop from child to adult.
The manner of presentation and speaking is taken as a clear indicator of social class. We tend to assume well-spoken people will also exhibit other positive attributes such as compassion, honesty and integrity. Perhaps the well-spoken investment bankers have dented this assumption though! The stereotypical council estate lad such as Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses speaks in a way that immediately makes us think “dodgy geezer” whilst we check our wallet is secure.
I have to admit this is my most prominent flaw as an individual. I grew up with little parental attention and did not learn these key communication skills. As an introvert I find it very difficult to open up a dialogue with new people and to make small talk for example. As a result I’m often immediately categorised as of a lower standard and perhaps therefore my professional skills are weak too.
We have all met the person who has great personal presentation skills but then singularly fails to live up to the sales-pitch. The assessment of social class based on communication skills can be misleading. Psychopaths are particularly adept at appearing to be full of grace and charm whilst simultaneously plotting your demise!
Behaviour
Our behaviour towards others based on our personal set of ethical and moral standards is another defining attribute used to assess social class. The working class lads are expected to get drunk down the local pub and then beat each other up at the football match on a Saturday whilst the top strata are eating cucumber sandwiches and drinking afternoon tea at the Ritz.
We’ve seen examples of where ethics and morals are notable by their absence in those that are deemed to be in a higher social class. The recent scandal concerning Sir Phillip Green and the demise of BHS comes immediately to mind. The “Sir” moniker immediately implies a higher class and that the person should thus behave with a correspondingly superior set of ethics and morals.
Conversely some of the most selfless and charitable people have come from lower class backgrounds.
Clearly we can have wide variety of ethical and moral standards of behaviour in any class strata and hence here we have another meaningless measure.
Class Discrimination
Categorisation by social class is the last remaining bias that is accepted in open expression on a daily basis. This is perhaps because, as we’ve just seen above, it is an abstract concept that is difficult to apply a quantitative measure to.
Saying “you expect that behaviour from an x-colour person” is now taboo whereas “you expect that behaviour from a working class lad” is acceptable.
There are barriers to entry in many professions that are based on the social status of the applicants and the recent reports on social mobility attest to this form of bias and discrimination. Upper level business management positions and Government posts are still the domain of the higher class strata in the UK for example.
Class bias is perhaps the most endemic and entrenched form of discrimination practiced openly in the UK. We nearly all unconsciously make such judgements on a daily basis and they occur in all directions across the social class hierarchy.
How we change this attitude is perhaps one of the keys questions that needs answering in the 21st century as we continue to strive towards a more progressive and inclusive society that does not place boundaries on people based on artificial labels.
Personal Experiences
I rose from a poor working-class background into a (fragile) promotion to the middle classes by virtue of working hard to get a university degree. I was fortunate to have the intellectual capacity and opportunity to succeed in this endeavour. I never really had any great ambitions to climb the social ladder, rather just to survive, put a roof over my head and food into my belly.
I have a better financial situation than my parents and grandparents. I have a better education than they had. I own a house. Does that mean I’m now a different “class” of person than I started out as? Comparing myself to the metrics listed above them almost certainly yes. I do however retain many of the characteristics from my early upbringing experiences including some rough edges around social interactions! Does that mean I am still working class at heart or have I climbed this abstract ladder?
I don’t have an answer for you.
I can say that I have experienced class discrimination in my life. Despite the fact that I have worked hard to better myself I find some people still use my roots to assess my value and suitability. A manager at an investment bank in London that I worked for said to me in private “people from your background should not be in the banking industry”. The meaning was clear and despite the positive contribution I made to the business I was not going to rise up the career ladder. I left for a new opportunity shortly after this event since there was no other recourse.
Conclusions
Class is an abstract concept designed to make one group feel they are different and possibly superior to others using a set of arbitrary and loosely defined measures which they choose to make the comparison against. It has no concrete definition.
A dictionary definition of discrimination is: “Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit”.
Social class is a method used to discriminate against people, an outmoded concept in the 21st century, and should be discarded.
We should be looking at individual merits and achievements of people rather than making assumptions based on their perceived class attributes.
Follow Gary on Twitter here: @flyk6cr
Footnote: Perhaps we are all a mixture of “pigs, dogs and sheep” as Pink Floyd described on their “Animals” album rather than belonging to a specific class. I’m a sheep-pig-man hybrid IMHO.
