Is UK still obsessed with class?
There is a social mobility thing at play here. If you're working class originally, you don't get to become upper class no matter how much money you make. You can buy a massive estate with a mansion and a stables and a boating lake and you'll still never be allowed 'in the club'. That's just how it is here. There's old money and new money.
Equally though, working class people who've 'done good' often wear their working class origins as a point of pride, which is why the Beatles can claim it and whatever British athlete that person was talking about might still consider themselves working class. Working class people might want to become wealthy but many would be offended if you suggested they were upper class.
It's a bit like the rappers in the US who have millions of dollars but still 'keep it real' with their street background.
Yeah, money doesn't shake class discrimination. Everyone finds out where a person "came from", despite where they may have ended up.
Yes lineage is a big part of class in the UK. Ironically the ancestors of many high born families in the UK were barbarians. It wasn't just the vikings who raped and pillaged. Every group who crossed the shores of Britain did very much the same. Even the Celts.
But yes, you can be a "mongrel" with money but $$ doesn't erase your mongrel status.
NibiruMul
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Joined: 1 Dec 2023
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Oh hell yeah class is a big thing in the UK. The UK is among the most classist societies in the world - there's very little class mobility compared to the US. In the UK, upper-class means that your family has titles, lives on a large estate, votes for the Conservative Party, probably converted to Catholicism because they think Anglican is "too woke" (and act more stereotypically Catholic than people whose families have been Catholic for centuries), and gives their kids pretentious names like Sixtus, Caspian, Xanthippe, and Honeysuckle. (Actually, Brits tend to judge people by their first names in general, more so than Americans. They hate any name that is considered "chavvy", yet they'll praise the pompous names that rich people give their kids. A shining example would be that monstrous Katie Hopkins woman.) The irony is that I've met working-class Brits and many of them are actually way nicer and less judgmental than the rich ones.
Some upper-class British customs weird me out. For example, in many upper-class British families, little boys are not allowed to wear long pants until they are eight years old. That means they have to wear shorts even in the freezing cold winter. Look at Prince George - he wore only shorts until a few years ago, and his little brother Louis still wears only shorts. Apparently pants on a four-year-old boy is considered too "plebeian". Some of these little posh kids literally dress like they walked out of the Victorian era.
yes this happens in Australian private schools modelled on British elite schools where we boys had to wear shorts till 8th form when we were allowed to wear long pants.
There have always been private clubs such as model railway clubs which I describe as "Semi-private" in that all are welcome to join but only members who join will normally be attending the club days or evenings. Their outward reach into the public domain maybe with the yearly exhibition.
Other such clubs exist covering other hobbies and interests.
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Yes.
https://charltonhousewealthmanagement.h ... ers-clubs/
"Private members’ clubs are exclusive. You’ll know that everyone in there will be a member and will therefore respect the aims and ethos of the club"
Sounds like a rich man's game to me, though it's hard to know without seeing the prices and the "ethos." Not that I disapprove of private clubs. I don't see anything wrong in principle with some premises operating a policy of selective exclusion. Nobody has the right to gatecrash anything they feel like gatecrashing. There are times when a person doesn't want to mix with chavs. It's only a problem when it's the kind of place that's normally publically-accessible, like a hotel that won't let you stay there if you're gay.
NibiruMul
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Joined: 1 Dec 2023
Age: 32
Gender: Male
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Location: Long Island, New York
As for the Catholicism thing...it weirds me out how upper-class Brits are so fascinated with being Catholic, yet just a few generations ago they hated the Irish simply for being Catholic. I'm Catholic and my family has always been Catholic, and to be honest, this just doesn't feel right. You hated us and call us "papists" and "mackerel snappers", and now all of a sudden you want to be one of us? It's like if a Nazi all of a sudden wanted to convert to Judaism. Lots of these upper-class Catholic converts think they own Catholicism. They also often have like seven or eight kids when Catholics in my area generally only have two or three. In the US it's a totally different story. Here most Catholics are either middle-class or working-class, many of them are Latino, and many of them lean liberal when it comes to things like same-sex marriage. It seems like in the UK most Catholics are posh converts.
There have always been private clubs such as model railway clubs which I describe as "Semi-private" in that all are welcome to join but only members who join will normally be attending the club days or evenings. Their outward reach into the public domain maybe with the yearly exhibition.
Other such clubs exist covering other hobbies and interests.
Sorry I ,mean't "members only" clubs
Yes.
https://charltonhousewealthmanagement.h ... ers-clubs/
"Private members’ clubs are exclusive. You’ll know that everyone in there will be a member and will therefore respect the aims and ethos of the club"
Sounds like a rich man's game to me, though it's hard to know without seeing the prices and the "ethos." Not that I disapprove of private clubs. I don't see anything wrong in principle with some premises operating a policy of selective exclusion. Nobody has the right to gatecrash anything they feel like gatecrashing. There are times when a person doesn't want to mix with chavs. It's only a problem when it's the kind of place that's normally publically-accessible, like a hotel that won't let you stay there if you're gay.
Hmmm how are class based members only clubs different to country clubs? I think the latter is just $$ but the former requires an interview to screen applicants.
Kraichgauer
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Joined: 12 Apr 2010
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Posts: 47,798
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.
As Protestantism is virtually part of the English national identity, I have to wonder how middle and lower class English people respond to the wealthy's new dalliance with Catholicism?
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-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer
My late father was a member of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travellers_Club . I'm not sure whether he gave up being a member when he decided to stay in the USA, after his posting as Consul general to Atlanta ended.
My late father was a member of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travellers_Club . I'm not sure whether he gave up being a member when he decided to stay in the USA, after his posting as Consul general to Atlanta ended.
Cool! your father sounds like he was in the foreign service. I like the idea of a club with cocktails and cigars
Yes lineage is a big part of class in the UK. Ironically the ancestors of many high born families in the UK were barbarians. It wasn't just the vikings who raped and pillaged. Every group who crossed the shores of Britain did very much the same. Even the Celts.
But yes, you can be a "mongrel" with money but $$ doesn't erase your mongrel status.
Pretty much, yeah.