Emily:
"........talk about the middle classes sneeringly but surely we are middle-class? - educated, professional(!), home-owners, somewhat cultured etc etc? this puzzles me......"
"I await your explanation of the british class system with anticipation...."
M'dear,
As I have just been listening to "The Moral Maze" and am thus feeling in such a combative mood I could easily be Clare Fox from the Institute of Ideas, I feel compelled to reply immediately to the gauntlet you throw down regarding the class system before I have thought my argument through.
I don't think there exists a social framework consistent enough to support an overall class system in this country today, yet I believe the idea of class is as strongly hard wired as ever. I shall explain. The coinage of a class system is "respect", that strange hierarchical concern for our perceived standing relative to those with whom we make comparison. The origin of this hierarchical view of our groups is (I think, at least) evolutionary and stems from the need to keep some sort of order within the groups of nasty, bad tempered little primates that we have so far failed to evolve from. Groups that had some way of not killing each other on whim tended to survive. (Obviously). Now, I believe that this hierarchical imperative is as strong in our "modern" brains as it ever was (being part of our highly conserved fundamental morality**) but as our systems of incentive and methods of interaction have become more subtle and complex, so have changed the criteria we use to judge our hierarchies and our means of expressing our place within them.
Our basic incentives are still procreation and sustenance but where size and strength once demonstrated virility, soon it was what could be won with size and strength, in terms of land and influence; the alpha male with the fists and the teeth became the chieftain with the money and the sword. Eventually ways of achieving land and influence were found which had nothing to do with size and strength, but we still associated these rewards with "success" and thus on some level with "virility". Similarly our dopamine mediated systems for desire, acquisition and reward no longer cover merely the best food and water, but now also drive us to collect televisions and trainers.
What I'm trying to say here is that there is an underlying pattern to our behaviour, one of developing more complicated (and less relevant) ways to gratify the biochemical reward systems that governed our primate needs. Rather like the exaggerated false feeding and preening behaviours that make up avian mating displays, a lot of what we consider important within our society is essentially displaced behaviour, a ridiculous dance to the music of the brain chemistry that developed randomly as one way to stop monkeys killing each other.
Until recently all the (displaced, bizarre, irrelevant) criteria with which we had replaced primate strength and virility tended to be gathered within the same groups. The same people who held land, money and influence were also the ones who tended to have knowledge, culture and health, they were the ones who owned much more stuff that they didn't actually need like art and drawing rooms. Hence it was easy to differentiate the "upper" from the "lower" in society. Over the last few hundred years however, more of the "stuff" that has become associated with success and the perception of being higher in the perceived pecking order has become available across the board. First these new interlopers who suddenly owned the trappings that had become markers of power and influence (but who didn't actually wield any power and influence) appeared as the "middle class", but this was a temporary state of affairs, a mere transitory stage. Now, more and more, everyone has televisions and teeth, in the developed (and through the 20th and 21st century more and more, the developing) world at least, everyone can potentially have health and access to knowledge and culture. Further, in recent years these value markers have been turned on their heads: soccer players are multi-millionaires while the traditional aristocracy are penniless; children zap around the world comfortable with knowledge and technology their parents and grandparents scarcely even know exists let alone understand. In primate terms using the criteria we've developed, we're all silverbacks now. Or whatever other primates have.
Our brain chemistry however remains the same. In every interaction we are still looking for our place in the primate hierarchy and still looking to improve it. The difference now, I believe, is that we are learning to pick and choose our criteria, tailoring their perceived importance to our immediate situation to satisfy our hierarchical brain chemistry and manipulate our sense of self worth. So what if the Duke of Zibbety-zab here owns half of Kent, he's an imbecile/has no dress sense/is uglier/less famous than me and I can see he also knows this and values these criteria and thus our temporary "class hierarchy contract" is established. Until I find out he is much better at football/drinking/making balloon animals (or even fighting to bring things full circle) than me in which case an unspoken renegotiation must take place.
All this is very male. A new and interesting set of variables of course is the recent rise in prominence and power of the female point of view. I don't think we really even know yet how the evolutionary incentives and fundamental brain chemistry of women is going to affect the social interaction of humankind (of course it might already be obvious, just invisible to my male value system). I think though it's only as the hierarchical influence on society of the testicle and the fist slowly mumbles away into intellectual confusion that we'll see how the primate displacement behaviour patterns of women manifest and impose themselves. I hope to fuck it's an improvement.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, smartarse,
Footnote:
**it could be argued that this itself is hard wired on a cellular level as it is most likely a function of the mirror neural system that allows a projection of one's consciousness to allow the imagining of the thoughts and feelings of another and thus develop a theory of mind.
As I have just been listening to "The Moral Maze" and am thus feeling in such a combative mood I could easily be Clare Fox from the Institute of Ideas, I feel compelled to reply immediately to the gauntlet you throw down regarding the class system before I have thought my argument through.
I don't think there exists a social framework consistent enough to support an overall class system in this country today, yet I believe the idea of class is as strongly hard wired as ever. I shall explain. The coinage of a class system is "respect", that strange hierarchical concern for our perceived standing relative to those with whom we make comparison. The origin of this hierarchical view of our groups is (I think, at least) evolutionary and stems from the need to keep some sort of order within the groups of nasty, bad tempered little primates that we have so far failed to evolve from. Groups that had some way of not killing each other on whim tended to survive. (Obviously). Now, I believe that this hierarchical imperative is as strong in our "modern" brains as it ever was (being part of our highly conserved fundamental morality**) but as our systems of incentive and methods of interaction have become more subtle and complex, so have changed the criteria we use to judge our hierarchies and our means of expressing our place within them.
Our basic incentives are still procreation and sustenance but where size and strength once demonstrated virility, soon it was what could be won with size and strength, in terms of land and influence; the alpha male with the fists and the teeth became the chieftain with the money and the sword. Eventually ways of achieving land and influence were found which had nothing to do with size and strength, but we still associated these rewards with "success" and thus on some level with "virility". Similarly our dopamine mediated systems for desire, acquisition and reward no longer cover merely the best food and water, but now also drive us to collect televisions and trainers.
What I'm trying to say here is that there is an underlying pattern to our behaviour, one of developing more complicated (and less relevant) ways to gratify the biochemical reward systems that governed our primate needs. Rather like the exaggerated false feeding and preening behaviours that make up avian mating displays, a lot of what we consider important within our society is essentially displaced behaviour, a ridiculous dance to the music of the brain chemistry that developed randomly as one way to stop monkeys killing each other.
Until recently all the (displaced, bizarre, irrelevant) criteria with which we had replaced primate strength and virility tended to be gathered within the same groups. The same people who held land, money and influence were also the ones who tended to have knowledge, culture and health, they were the ones who owned much more stuff that they didn't actually need like art and drawing rooms. Hence it was easy to differentiate the "upper" from the "lower" in society. Over the last few hundred years however, more of the "stuff" that has become associated with success and the perception of being higher in the perceived pecking order has become available across the board. First these new interlopers who suddenly owned the trappings that had become markers of power and influence (but who didn't actually wield any power and influence) appeared as the "middle class", but this was a temporary state of affairs, a mere transitory stage. Now, more and more, everyone has televisions and teeth, in the developed (and through the 20th and 21st century more and more, the developing) world at least, everyone can potentially have health and access to knowledge and culture. Further, in recent years these value markers have been turned on their heads: soccer players are multi-millionaires while the traditional aristocracy are penniless; children zap around the world comfortable with knowledge and technology their parents and grandparents scarcely even know exists let alone understand. In primate terms using the criteria we've developed, we're all silverbacks now. Or whatever other primates have.
Our brain chemistry however remains the same. In every interaction we are still looking for our place in the primate hierarchy and still looking to improve it. The difference now, I believe, is that we are learning to pick and choose our criteria, tailoring their perceived importance to our immediate situation to satisfy our hierarchical brain chemistry and manipulate our sense of self worth. So what if the Duke of Zibbety-zab here owns half of Kent, he's an imbecile/has no dress sense/is uglier/less famous than me and I can see he also knows this and values these criteria and thus our temporary "class hierarchy contract" is established. Until I find out he is much better at football/drinking/making balloon animals (or even fighting to bring things full circle) than me in which case an unspoken renegotiation must take place.
All this is very male. A new and interesting set of variables of course is the recent rise in prominence and power of the female point of view. I don't think we really even know yet how the evolutionary incentives and fundamental brain chemistry of women is going to affect the social interaction of humankind (of course it might already be obvious, just invisible to my male value system). I think though it's only as the hierarchical influence on society of the testicle and the fist slowly mumbles away into intellectual confusion that we'll see how the primate displacement behaviour patterns of women manifest and impose themselves. I hope to fuck it's an improvement.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, smartarse,
Footnote:
**it could be argued that this itself is hard wired on a cellular level as it is most likely a function of the mirror neural system that allows a projection of one's consciousness to allow the imagining of the thoughts and feelings of another and thus develop a theory of mind.
P.S. You're right of course, the definition of middle class includes "industrialists, professionals and shopowners" according to the limited research I just did by looking at the top item on a Google search. As this seems to include nearly everybody these days I propose new definitions and a new class. To my mind you're not proper middle class if you will be starving and homeless within a month of losing your job. Similarly to my mind you're not proper working class if you don't stagger in at the finish of day clutching at the furniture for support and covered in some substance relevant to your job. Henceforth then I shall describe myself as "upper working" class.
