Know Your Class

“It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman despise him.”

I have never really understood the English class system.

I’m English. Very English. I nodded to myself when Hugh Grant said we’re born one gin-and-tonic below par.

And we all swim in this sea of class consciousness, whatever we might like to say about it being a relic of the past. For all we ignore it and pretend otherwise, it makes a massive difference to almost everything experienced by anyone, like me, who comes from a very obvious long-standing English background. We all know, instinctively, that certain things suit certain sorts of people, and that things won’t go well if we try to go in for what doesn’t suit us.

It affects everything. It’s usually brushed under the carpet and called other things, but it’s class as much as it ever was.

I sense it as much as anyone, but have never known how I fit in.

The thing is, I grew up in a closed religious community, which made me an outsider while looking like everybody else. We opted out of everything, so I had no sense of the kind of people who are “my type”.

And when I left all that, as an adult, part of me felt, and still feels, a foreigner in my own country. I see how it works, I know how it works, but it isn’t quite mine. Especially class.

A girlfriend must have asked me at some point what class I thought I belonged to, because her laughter when I said I supposed I was middle class made a big impression on me. I thought it was about being comfortable, basically, and doing desk work while being able to afford things. She, I concluded, knew things I didn’t. And I’ve remained slightly sensitive on the subject ever since, unsettled, chameleon-like in my ability to blend in but never convinced I belong.

But fear not, I now have the answers.

After one niggle too many, I dove into research about what the differences are between the classes, with a particular focus on working class and middle class. (Being less interested in the upper class, who I don’t think puzzle about much.)

And over the years, there have been several markers used.

So, what do we notice about all this?

What became clear to me is that the differences are really all about control over our own lives. If we live subject to what others may decide for us, we’re clearly working class. What is important to control seems to change over time as we value different things and times change, but broadly to be working class is to have significant parts of our lives liable to being upturned at someone else’s whim – whether that’s a job, working hours, how much we earn, the home we live in or the places we go for fun and to be social.

To be middle class is to have escaped that to a large extent and in general to be able to decide a lot of that for ourselves. Or, perhaps more accurately, for those around us to assume we do.

One neat illustration is getting a passport application signed. Look down the official government list of who is qualified to do so, and get a sense of what the middle class is, and how they are permitted to make judgements about life.

The upper class, I am assuming from this, is made up of those born to decide things for others.

This does leave out a big complicating factor in modern life, which is that for many people class is about self-identification more than anything else. But I’ll come back to that, because I think it’s not a confounding factor.

Anyway, that feels quite satisfyingly tidy to me, and instinctively fits with what I see, so that’s nice. And finally I can say that at the time my girlfriend laughed at me I was working class and in middle age I am more fittingly middle class.

It’s good to know where I stand.

But wait, there is still something missing.

Being middle class isn’t really about being in control of our lives, is it?

Yes, we may have got free of the precarious sense that “the man” is going to spoil it all. But somehow, the condition for escaping is that we sign up for self-control, that we’re trusted to do what we’re expected to do. You can’t venture too far from the average and stay middle class, can you? It’s about being able to do what you like, but making sure you like to do the right things, so that what you’re able to do doesn’t make waves.

And this, I think, is why we’re all so sensitive, and why people loudly proclaim that they’re a certain class regardless of the markers everyone can see. And why officialdom refuses to acknowledge that class is in any way important.

To be middle class is to have a good life. But at the price of publicly admitting to conforming. It says “yes, the status quo works well for me”. And that’s embarrassing.

Better to claim that class is not a thing, or that against all appearances we’re still working class, and enjoy the better life we have, without any niggles, than those whose lives are defined by precariousness and lack of control. Better to focus on all sorts of conveniently visible diversity rather than admit even to ourselves that there is a “wrong sort of person” and it isn’t us.

Which also answers one more question for me …

People who are proud and insistent that they are working class have always irritated me. Sorry, yes, you do (statistically if more than one person reads this, there will be someone irritatingly working class).

And finally I’ve put my finger on why.

It says “none of this is my problem, I don’t make the rules.”

It’s an opt-out, an identification, deliberately, with the people who have things done to them rather than doing things, a shrug at control, responsibility and conformity, a statement that you aren’t the kind of person who makes a difference to any of it. Things may be bad, it says, but I’m not the kind of person who’s making it bad, I’m the kind affected by it.

Which is, of course, fine if you really are.

If you’re comfortable and in control of your life, it’s not a character trait I find endearing.

Right, I feel better now, and may be able to put this class thing behind me at last.