Dulwich Park middle class?

[Zebedee Tring]

I bemoan all this stuff about class. However, I prefer the line taken by the Marxists (I think) who defined the "working class" as people who had to work for a living as opposed to the idle rich who were able to live off their unearned income.

[Penguin68]

If you have to work to live, then I'm sorry to say, you're working class

Lovely right-on view, but obviously and palpably untrue since at least the end of the first world war. What you are hypothesising is that the only qualification for being middle class is to be a rentier, living entirely on unearned income. That might, possibly, be a qualification for being upper class, and could have included some 'middle class' pre 1914, but the middle classes (actually since at least the 16th century, if not before) have included merchants, professionals, clerks and civil servants, all certainly not working class (if rising from working class roots), but all certainly working for a (pretty good in many instances) living.

The rentier class has itself almost died out - where people do live on dividends and rents now, they do so having worked to buy those capital assets - as a pensioner would you argue that now I do not have to work to live I have miraculously become middle class, having, all my (professional) working life, been working class until my retirement? It may be politically fashionable to seek to pretend to a working class persona, but it is clearly arrant nonsense for many and ignores what is really a quite interesting issue of classification. It also seeks to remove personal validity from those who really are, have been and are proud of being, truly working class by sidling in amongst them, stealing their clothes and, in fact, their credibility, and pride in their being.

I am middle class, have come from a middle class family, and have middle class children. I make no right-on pretence to anything else.

[Zebedee Tring]

I stopped being guilty about being middle class when I was about 21 (over 40 years ago). However, I quite like the Marxist definition because it makes people like Penguin68 get on their high horse and give us a nice little lecture about the history of the middle classes.

BTW I take the piss out of "right on" people as much as anyone else.

[Penguin68]

by the Marxists (I think) who defined the "working class" as people who had to work for a living as opposed to the idle rich who were able to live off their unearned income

...but then, as Bolsheviks, managed to organise the slaughter of the 'rich peasant' Kulacks - who certainly worked, if they also employed and did make some income from renting. This is the propoganda of envy - most people see themselves as working (rents don't collect themsleves, nor do landed estates not need management, nor does day-trading now equal 'doing nothing') so saying 'if you work you are good, if you don't you're a parasite' is a way of rousing a rabble. The numbers who truly don't work to live (outside our children or pensioners, or all those on benefits) are very small nowadays, and often include those who have worked to earn enough not to have to continue to work.

[Penguin68]

get on their high horse

Yup, I do, when I see people using warm right-on statements to make themselves feel good. The issues of class and class envy and class anger and class hatred isn't helped by wooly statements. Granted it's not covered by legislation, but try substituting the words 'black' or 'Jewish' or 'Christian' or 'Moslem' or 'female' or 'disabled' or 'young' or 'old' for some of the comments made about the desirability or not for a particular class to be, or not to be, in ED. To treat people (any people) as an 'unworthy' group because you prefer your group is an unhealthy attitude.

[AcedOut]

I earn a six figure salary. And so does my partner. We both own more than 50% of our properties at current mark-to-market (the rest being mortgaged). We are both in our 30's.

I am working class, although most people would call me middle class.

I have a friend who owns and grew up in a manor house just outside of London. He considers himself middle class, but most people would call him upper class. He doesn't NEED to work, but he does. We know the Marquess of a large city - he would be considered Upper Class. He doesn't work.

But does any of this really matter!?

I like a greasy spoon and I also like a Michelin stared restaurant. I like a cheap boozer, but also enjoy a good cocktail at a good hotel bar for example. But I'll never buy the Range Sport or any other wannabe Chelsea Tractor.

I can't stand people trying to fit themselves and others into boxes. Just enjoy life!

[PokerTime]

'I can't stand people trying to fit themselves and others into boxes. Just enjoy life!'

Exactly! Energy spent on despising others is energy wasted.

[charlesfare]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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> get on their high horse

>

> Yup, I do, when I see people using warm right-on

> statements to make themselves feel good. The

> issues of class and class envy and class anger and

> class hatred isn't helped by wooly statements.

> Granted it's not covered by legislation, but try

> substituting the words 'black' or 'Jewish' or

> 'Christian' or 'Moslem' or 'female' or 'disabled'

> or 'young' or 'old' for some of the comments made

> about the desirability or not for a particular

> class to be, or not to be, in ED. To treat people

> (any people) as an 'unworthy' group because you

> prefer your group is an unhealthy attitude.

False equivalence

[????]

do the middle class fish in the boating lake still bite? Oh yes......

[PokerTime]

I'll eat any kind of fish, whatever class it is!

When did we become a polarised society? We still rely on people from all walks of life for all sorts of things.

I always think wealth is relative anyway. The very wealthy aside, most people (whatever they earn) are living just within their means.

[Louisa]

Oddly on topic, fish do tend to fall into class categories too. How often do you find halibut on the menu at a fish and chip shop? (Well maybe the seacow I wouldn't know?). It's the ultimate posh fish, upper class in fact. Salmon is a funny one, once the staple middle class fish, it has somewhat gone downmarket since the 70s and alongside king prawns is kind of a aspirational working class fish these days. A true middle class fish would of course be skate or Dover sole, never available to buy from a standard supermarket- other than maybe M&S I know they sell lemon sole that's for sure.

Louisa.

[Otta]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> can we get exact definitons of these strata please

> louisa?

I can confirm that you were a blow in. So was SJ.

[fitch]

Thanks, Rod! The middle classes are backbone of old Blighty>

[PokerTime]

The price of fish is linked to availability and cost to gather and distribute Louisa, and not much else. Salmon has dropped in price because it can be easily farm produced. Fish that can only be caught at sea will always cost more. If you live in a coastal fishing town, you'll find all kinds of fish within easy reach. Transportation to large cities for sale on supermarket shelves is something entirely different. Supermarkets will always go with a range they know they can buy and sell in bulk. I've often bought lemon sole from supermarkets btw. But the fact is that the supply of some types of fish can not be guaranteed on a daily basis in the numbers that supermarkets need. Small fishmongers have always been a better place for variety.

[El Pibe]

I have no issue with the blow in bit, i aimlessly wandered in to a chunk of london I'd never really heard of (i thought I was still in brixton), 14 years later I left.

It's the aspirational ersatz clapham that riles.

[AcedOut]

Dunno about everyone else, but I'm gonna Skate.

[Otta]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> I have no issue with the blow in bit, i aimlessly

> wandered in to a chunk of london I'd never really

> heard of (i thought I was still in brixton), 14

> years later I left.

>

> It's the aspirational ersatz clapham that riles.

Didn't you come to ED from Balham? ;-)

[Zebedee Tring]

Penguin 68, please calm down, as the late Michael Winner would have said. For the avoidance of doubt, as the lawyers would put it, I wish to make the following points:

1. I am middle class and always have been, because my father was a doctor, I was a solicitor and I went to public school- what's more I talk proper.

2. I take the piss out of right-on people and I don't class myself as one, although I do vote Labour (heaven forfend), which may make me a bit too left wing for your taste.

3. I do not regard middle class people as "unworthy", since I am middle class and if I DID regard middle class people as unworthy, that would clearly be an example of self hatred on my part.

4. Similarly I do not regard working class people as "unworthy".

5. Frankly I find the obsession with class on EDF a bit of a joke. Once again I would repeat my version of Godwin's Law, which I call the EDF Class Law, namely "As an online discussion on EDF grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the middle classes and the working classes approaches 1"

[Otta]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Middle Class / Working Class mean nothing in today's London. Far too big a spectrum for two groups.

[Louisa]

Sometimes I think this forum is obsessed with class.

Louisa.

[Zebedee Tring]

You're so right, Louisa. See my EDF Class Law, quoted on my previous post.

[Louisa]

The topic does not need to be dragged into every thread. I think the EDF Class Law tends to apply to the longer threads such as this, although this particular thread does contain class in its title which is red rag to a bull on this forum.

Louisa.

[MrBen]

Louisa Wrote:

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> I think that Woodwarde road, although lovely,

> is a bit borderline and it still retains the se22

> postcode. It's sort of almost the village but not

> quite, so it's not offensive to describe the road

> as a haven for the 'nearly but not quite' brigade.

Ah. Betwixt the Dulwiches. The no mans land of Beauval, Woodwarde,Dovercourt and Eynella. The ?1M+ houses on these streets are lovely. Big 90 ft gardens, solid Edwardian build quality, side entrances and leafy front gardens. It's a weird place. Lots of left-leaning middle class moved here in the 70's or 80's when it was cheap and stayed and they're now 60+, asset rich, cash poor. The peaceful tranquility is a blue rinsers dream. Lots of pastels, golf jumpers and one of the highest violin/clematis ownership rates in the country. It's discrete... hence Micky Flanners, Jo Brand and one Hollywood B lister. I think the houses are undervalued. They should all be at least ?1.8M.

[MissKing]

Who is the b list s'leb!?

[MrBen]

I fear it would be a breach of their birch and cello buffeted privacy to share Miss King. Does it matter? They are never here as they spend most of their time in Los Angeles at their main home in Beverly Hills "doing the circuit". The terrace they own in the streets off the park is just the London bolt hole. To the best of my knowledge they've never been in Sainsbury's.

I like Dulwich Park and see all types in there most weeks Phil Daniels style. That's how it should be.