Discussion on CLASS -- Part 1

[Luvian]

Originally posted by Felix The Assassin: How about a two worder, one namer? Paris Hilton!

Total attention whore. She'd do anything for the spotlight. She has no class at all in my opinion.

[Szass-Tam]

Well, this is the way I see the class breakdown, or certainly in England.
Traditionally, the working class were people who lived off their manual labour (the majority of the country for most of its history).
The middle class were people who stilled lived off their labour, but not manual labour, in offices and so on, bank clerks etc.
The upper classes were people who did not live off their labour and inherited money or owned property that made its own money (always a minority.
These definitions however are mostly economical, and as Lansera said, these don't hold true. Therefore, people probably define themselves as the class they were born into and take pride in being of that class (particularly the working classes).
These definitions are probably a little dated, but I find it easier to define them historically rather than in the present.

[johnny]

Originally posted by Felix The Assassin: How about a two worder, one namer? Paris Hilton!

Yep, that's the perfect example, a high class biatch.

[Ilander]

*Browses CE for the first time in months*

Yeah...class is about how much you have to strain your back to prepare for retirement.

There are people who strain their back everyday, and still can't retire comfortably...

Then there are people who don't strain their back at work, but have to strain it occaisionally to perform tasks at home...and retire with a fair amount of comfort...

And then, there are people who only strain their backs when they want to, and they retire, and soon after, so do their children.

Yes, I'm from a proletariat family...and yes, I get preoccupied with a human-invented concept called "fairness," which makes me think to myself "wow...they don't have to lift heavy things to feed their family."

[Chewbacca]

Class- one of the many ways we divvy people up and put them in nice little buckets, excepts them buckets often have holes in the bottom.

So many rich people with little or no class and so many poor people who are classy like angels.

[Ziroc]

I don't believe it labels. Sorry. [img]smile.gif[/img] People are people. *Dep Mode song*

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Luvian: Total attention whore. She'd do anything for the spotlight. She has no class at all in my opinion.

Actually, she gets to define class, and is so upper class that she knows she doesn't have to care that she's not bright, nor what you think of her.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Ziroc: I don't believe it labels. Sorry. [img]smile.gif[/img] People are people. *Dep Mode song*

I think the whole issue of class, however goes a long way to answer the eternal question of why it should be that we sometimes get along so awfully.

[Azred]

Originally posted by Luvian: What kind of culture and manner does an host have if all he does is show off about his wealth and then get wasted? It seem to me he acted the same way a poor alchoolic does, but replace the fancy gadgets with the poor guy's car or wathever he like to show off about. That guy has social standing, he's rich. But he has no class. You know, your first and second posts are totally different. In the first you describe class as "cultural level, their manners, and/or their intelligence." In the second, it's based on money...

Quite right. Such a host has no class; he is, rather, simply a rich alcoholic who doesn't have to sleep in the street or a halfway house.

My first post is how I see class: a stratification/quantization of humanity based on their manners, cultural level (based on the culture in question), and intelligence (which, by the way, has nothing whatsoever to do with education level). The second post is the "generally accepted" view of "class" as they have come to be known over the years.

[Timber Loftis]

I posted the answer on Oasis, and I'll repeat it here for your convenience. Thanks for all your comments.
__________________________________________
THE ANSWER

Is the third choice.

Lower class folks tend to pick number one as the answer, it's all about money. This is true for them, because money is the most important thing to get them out of their immediate class....

.... because it can buy No. 2, which is education and experience. Lots of middle class professionals pick No. 2 as the key element. They know enough to know that there is more to it than money. They have met intelligent worldly middle class folks, and they may have been in an experience or two where they knew that the thing keeping them relegated to a lower class was education and knowledge, not money. Education and knowledge are also what those in the middle class can use to climb out of their class. The educated and professionals among us, of any class, are more likely to see the theatre, appreciate cultural events, visit a museum, etc.

But, those in the highest classes know that the real answer is all about culture, taste, style. The lower classes can't see it until they get there, but if you got 2 millionaire Yale graduates sitting next to each other, what separates them into respective classes? One takes in the theatre, reads philosophy, speaks eloquently, skis and windsurfs. Obviously, a higher class. And, he just pisses off the poor folk. The other one has a penache for drinking bourbon and beer (or used to), has a drawl, thinks theatre is a mispelling of the movie house, hacks up trees on his back 40, and has a 50% chance to mispronounciate any word of more than 3 syllables. The people think, "he's 'bout as dumb as me, he gets my vote!" (Note that this is a solely fictional scenario.)

Anyway, so that's the answer to the question that I originally posed, taken from the author of the book I am reading (or was, it's back on hold again). I think it's pretty true, but I certainly don't think anything you guys said lacks merit. I think the important point is that, while No. 3 may be the ultimate distinguishing feature you can always apply to determine someone's class, No. 1 is the main thing lower classes need to climb up, and No. 2 is the main thing middle classes need to climb up.

It's rare to see someone get culture and style without having money or education first, though exceptions certainly do exist. Paris Hilton is a fine example. Little education, and the money is really all daddy's. But, she's certainly got class and style, evidenced by the fact that she is a top model for both and actually her own trendsetter for both. It's actually funny to watch her, because she knows all too well what matters for her station and class. People make fun of her for being dumb, and she's like "whatever," because she knows that doesn't matter one bit, and therefore doesn't care. Disgusting, really, that she's allowed to continue breathing if you ask me, but there it is. Now, Daddy Hilton is a higher class than Paris, he's actually pretty much "Top Out of Sight" class.