Posted by John Lambert on September 05, 2006 at 19:25:32 from 24.80.117.76 user John.
In Reply to: Re: Emma Holt (Was Matrix posted by Adam Quinan on September 05, 2006 at 12:32:53:
I, too, wonder why the upper classes tend to be disparaged in the U.K. these days. Isn't this reverse snobbery? Perhaps the reference is to rigid matters of inheritance where someone claims to belong to a particular class because his parents did. Still, to boo someone because of his class seems to be as reasonable as discriminating against someone because of his race or colour. In England my family would probably have been considered middle-middle class. A few years ago, however, my daughter wrote an essay on our family for a class in Sociology she was attending. She made a good claim for her family to be upper-middle class. This class shift may be inevitable as a result of higher education, but I think in North America it is because belonging to a particular class through inheritance is not as important as how much money you earn and how much education you have had. Speaking gramatically and knowing how to hold a knife and fork are important too, but wealth is probably the determining factor in Canadian society. Of course, drinking the right beer is vitally important too. As you may suppose, class shifts are much more common in Canada than I think they are in the U.K. But I still don't know why anyone would boo someone just because he belongs to the upper classes. Is it jealousy? Are the upper classes in the U.K. really that terrible? They can't all be upper-class twits. On the other hand, if you regard the Royal Family as the model of the upper class, then I can understand it. If not, what is the reason?