Re: Notes from the river bottom

I think Scottie's definition of "class" should be attended to a bit
more. "Class" here is associated with long-time social/economic
standing -- "class" refers to a group of people, a "class" of people,
with a certain social standing, a leftover of the aristocracy and landed
nobility. Members of this class identify one another by paying close
attention to specific verbal and eating habits, clothing styles, and
body language. This is the primary definition of "class." It has
nothing to do with personal character. A person can be a member of this
class and be a sub-human piece of crap so far as character goes, but
will always be a member of this class.

If you think long enough, you'll see this type of thinking reflected in
quite a bit of fiction in English. A truly worthy villain can't be from
the lower classes. He has to be intelligent, educated, articulate.
Even Lord Voldemort went to the same school as Harry Potter.

As time went on those verbal and eating habits, clothing styles, and
body language became identified with social etiquette (the middle class
aping the habits of people with real money) and, by extension, with
specific character traits. Having "class" now has to do with
consideration, respect, or at the least a certain amount of style. This
is the American defnition of class -- being painfully democratic and not
wanting to acknowledge social and economic distinctions between people,
we now imagine "class" to be something internal rather than inherited by
birth.

Of course the old definition of class is still alive and well in US
society. People with class just know better than to flout it.

Jim

Yocum Daniel GS 21 CES/CEOE wrote:

> John O., Class is nothing more than treating people with respect but
> it can be taken to far to mean station in life the difference just
> amounting to material possessions and how one earns his bread. Many
> of those who think they have class try to parlay it into social
> leverage while those they think have no class usually are those who
> are intimate with the labors that result in the sweat of the brow.
> Those who think they have class usually just have ornamentation. Now
> Vonnegut can be quite the ass which as far as I know is the opposite
> to class but hey who says that the popular notion of class really
> matters John O. the defender?
> Daniel
>
> And Daniel, who feels qualified to announce that Vonnegut has no class
> (which should convince anyone who had doubts that Vonnegut is as
> classy and responsible a writer as they come), also writes:
>
> "Class is like chalking your hands for a better grip but unchalked
> hands aren't that much less tacky just maybe more sweaty."
>
> And once again I feel compelled to point out that I have no idea what
> this means, but I suspect it is simply incoherent.
>
>
> --John
>

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Received on Wed Jul 9 10:23:25 2003