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March 28, 2024, 05:52:48 PM

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Outrageously middle-class journalism

Started by Sebastian Dangerfield, July 26, 2007, 12:07:05 AM

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Ciarán

QuoteLast night I didn't see the tornado when I went to sleep... I've got used to friends calling me Dorothy - a reference to the Wizard Of Oz....

No, they're trying to tell you that they're friends of Dorothy! They're trying to come out!

Ciarán

These days people define class according to consumption, which as a Socialist activist I have to disagree with and argue against BECAUSE... you can buy brie in a supermarket and people think that having a taste for funny foreign cheese makes a person middle class. No, Marx's formulation is still most appropriate I think, class should be to do wioth people's relationship to the means of production. So people imagine their neighbours to be enemies because of the foodstuffs they prefer or the fact that they'll drink in a wine bar rather than a pub and so on, whereas in fact these people may have common interests, similar incomes, similar working hours and work-related obsatcle such as time spent commuting, problems finding childcare paying mortgage and so on. But the media likes to foster this idea of class being to do with the paper you read, whether you watch BBC4 or E4, that type of thing. It's just a snob thing usually.

I enjoyed reading that article as it was (unintentionally of course) very funny, and not loathsome. But apart from that minor difference of opinion I thought that was a great opening post, Sebastian Dangerfield. Like something you'd see in Private Eye, like Pseud's Corner.

My favourite magazine is Vogue, which is brilliant for this stuff. there was an article on literature about two months ago. It said things like "Nothing is more fashionable than being well-read, so keep your dinner party chat lofty and carry a book in your back pocket..." It was written in all seriousness as far as I could tell. No irony whatsoever. Hilarious.

Analrapist

Liz Jones' husband was talking some sexist bollocks about something or other on This Week a while ago. Before I knew it was him he struck me as one of the slimiest people I'd ever seen, and then once I realised who he was married to I had to laugh. So this was the amazing man that she'd spent years writing cooing and obsessive articles about? Fucking hell. You've got to pity the woman, really.

The cunt got a book deal just because he happened to be married to Liz Jones, didn't he? Gah.

drberbatov

The nature of working class is ludicrous in the first place, its no more relevant then someone being labelled 'punk'. Its especially redundant now when British society is measured more on wealth then status.

The Widow of Brid

Quote from: Ciarán on July 26, 2007, 11:08:07 AM
about Marx's formulation

This might be the Kylie avatar talking, but I love you Ciarán, and I think you should know that.

The Mumbler

There's terrible 'working-class' journalism as well. I'm currently subbing a book that's dripping with it, shoddy research and pitiful writing included. But delivered with the sort of empty hyperbole that the foolhardy insist on misinterpreting as 'exuberance'. That's as bad as the Liz Joneses of this world. Banning 95% of 'first-person' journalism might be a start.

terminallyrelaxed

QuoteThen we heard that a fiftysomething man had suffered serious head injuries. With rising foreboding, we went from official to official, from Mothodist Church Hall to the British Legion centre, to find out if it was our friend Chris Barker. It wasn't, but rather some frightful poor person from the council estate on the other side of the High Road, so thats OK. We celebrated with some chilled Chablis until Trevor MacDonald came onto M&S News to announce there'd been an earthquake in Mumbai. The next two hours were filled with frantic calls to the Indian Ministry of the Interior to find out if Margaret Jones, an HR executive from No.52 who has a lot of books on India was at all affected, but she wasn't, just a lot of filthy darkies. Of course, there is some concern about the impact on local industry, notably the Saffron harvest and the effect on the price of Pashminas.

Fielding

I hear about upper-middle class, but not lower-middle class or middle-middle class. Is there a middle-middle class or only upper-middle classes and lower-middle classes? And is there an upper-working class and lower-working class? Is working class not subdivided like middle class? What about upper class, is there upper-upper class and lower-upper class? What about middle-working class and middle-upper class? What if a middle-middle class wanted to be reclassified upper-middle-middle class because they thought they were above middle-middle class but not quite as high as upper-middle class?

Sod that. Why don't we just introduce the Hindu caste system over here; make it easier wouldn't it? Try to get put down as a Brahmin though, if you get assessed as a pariah, appeal! </HH>