Sarah was not a snob, but it was a time when the middle classes thought of the peasants as of another world from themselves, like dogs or cats or horses.
Hugh Walpole - Rogue Herries (1930)
Snobbery is an ancient aspect of social reality, but it is worth reminding ourselves that the establishment still looks down on ordinary folk. It is also inclined to view us in the main as somewhat deplorable.
It was a familiar enough attitude in the days of servants, silk hats and the local squire, but the outlook is still with us. Hillary Clinton gave the game away with her basket of deplorables comment, but it is an extremely old status game. The aristocracy and upper middle classes have always looked down on the peasants.
Yet Brexit plus the election of Donald Trump seem to have made the dislike and distrust between establishment and deplorables much sharper. So much so that it must be worth asking ourselves if woke political games are an attempt to counter what is seen as deplorable culture.
The establishment just doesn’t like us we might say. From what I see, this simple viewpoint has cropped up in a number places recently and it does seem to explain recent political insanities.
They don’t like us, they look down on the way we live and are entirely comfortable with policies which undermine everything from healthcare to education, from housing to transport, from the energy market to holiday destinations, from diets to hobbies.
It’s a long list, yet it is easy enough to see what may be going on. Take a walk around a shopping centre as the dire consumer frenzy we call Christmas looms large. Listen to the crappy music, do some cynical people-watching then imagine yourself wafted into a higher sphere where money and taste abound.
It was a familiar enough attitude in the days of servants, silk hats and the local squire, but the outlook is still with us. Hillary Clinton gave the game away with her basket of deplorables comment, but it is an extremely old status game. The aristocracy and upper middle classes have always looked down on the peasants.
Yet Brexit plus the election of Donald Trump seem to have made the dislike and distrust between establishment and deplorables much sharper. So much so that it must be worth asking ourselves if woke political games are an attempt to counter what is seen as deplorable culture.
The establishment just doesn’t like us we might say. From what I see, this simple viewpoint has cropped up in a number places recently and it does seem to explain recent political insanities.
They don’t like us, they look down on the way we live and are entirely comfortable with policies which undermine everything from healthcare to education, from housing to transport, from the energy market to holiday destinations, from diets to hobbies.
It’s a long list, yet it is easy enough to see what may be going on. Take a walk around a shopping centre as the dire consumer frenzy we call Christmas looms large. Listen to the crappy music, do some cynical people-watching then imagine yourself wafted into a higher sphere where money and taste abound.
This is not to say that political and social trends are rooted in snobbery and little else, but the contempt one social class may feel for another is not difficult to understand from either situation. I don’t occupy a higher sphere where money and taste abound, but it is easy enough to imagine the view.
6 comments:
Proud to have "deplorable" in my profile.
We all imagine ourselves better than others. This othering thing has taken off lately, how many 'others' are there, all new to us? All to be sneered at, rightly or wrongly.
People-watching is an enjoyable pastime. Airports, shopping malls, pubs, everywhere people gather and show their true selves. Once, with my neighbour, we spent four hours waiting for a connection flight in Bogota airport. We played 'spot the drug mule'. Wandering around the waiting areas we kept noticing the same man, clutching a briefcase close to us chest, sweating profusely. We concluded that he was carrying financial documents of some sort. Flirting silently with Latino women was a nice sideline.
"So much so that it must be worth asking ourselves if woke political games are an attempt to counter what is seen as deplorable culture."
Absolutely. Wokism is a way for the elites, and those who want to be in the elites, to justify their positions of power, influence and wealth. 'I'm a 'good' person, because I 'care' about climate change and institutional racism, and am in favour of allowing mass immigration etc etc, while all those nasty plebs over there are 'bad' people because of their evil views on immigrants, mass consumption and nationalism etc etc. Thus I can ignore the fact I make more money in a few months than many will see in a lifetime, own houses on every continent and fly everywhere in a private jet.'
Wokism is in effect the way elites (and in that I include the middle classes in the West, who are in the global elite) can ignore their elite economic status and demand that people far poorer than them be either made poorer still, or to remain in poverty for ever. Its a way to take economics off the table and make everything about morality, as defined by the elites of course.
Lots of folk want to be better off than those around them. Maybe this is because there is an extra layer of enjoyment in thinking that one is smarter or harder working than the common herd. And maybe even this is hard-wired in the sense that evolution would favour those who have more than an average share of whatever is available. But this only works if the poor stay poor, or the average stay average.
All this is harmless enough, in that it's easy to ignore the posturing of the rich and famous if one has enough and can reflect upon the obvious disadvantages of being rich and famous. It all turns nastier, though, when people want to have more power or influence than others. They measure their success in terms of how they can interfere in our lives, how they can ban things and control what we do. The snobbery of power seems to be the worst of all. Boris seems to have it in huge amounts, without any redeeming virtues of common sense or morality.
Everyone shall have prizes! So prizes lose their attraction.
Everyone shall have status! Everyone shall be Elite! Everyone shall be a professional! Everyone shall be equal! Nope, still not working.
Whether you interpret social status as Aristocrats versus the Agricultural workers, professionals versus trade, the elite versus the deplorables, it is only human to want to safeguard your social position. The Elite practice their ways of making the deplorables 'know their place', and the Socialists enable this by ignoring human instincts and dreaming of an impractical Utopia where all shall equal. And no they won't.
James - so am I.
Andy - you are right, the othering thing has taken off lately. It's now easier and more fragmented of course.
Sobers - "Its a way to take economics off the table and make everything about morality, as defined by the elites of course." Well put, it certainly does define what is on the table and what is not.
Sam - yes, as you say there is a snobbery of power and although it isn't new, it's one of those realities which doesn't have enough emphasis in the public arena. There is a great deal of this kind of petty power snobbery in the public sector.
DJ - "The Elite practice their ways of making the deplorables 'know their place', and the Socialists enable this by ignoring human instincts and dreaming of an impractical Utopia where all shall equal." Yes, for many decades socialism has been the main political tool for bearing down on the aspirations of the masses via the debilitating use of welfare and egalitarian smoke and mirrors.
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