Yeah, Kasper, I think the thing is that we don't have a vocabulary
anymore that crudely matches social reality, which the old descriptive
divisions of upper-class, middle-class and working-class did.
'Class-ness' does remain obvious here in one respect: speech. It shows
in current British poetry. I'm not talking about accent, but modes of
speech that restrict tonality, evade intimacy, muffle rhythm, unthing
the actual.
You see it in the supposed avant-garde poets here as well as the
'mainstream': people on the 'avant-garde' talk about 'innovative
poetries' and the 'British poetry revival of the 1970s' in a language
that is a deadened as that of the managers of our society just as the
'mainstream' talk about 'accessibility'. Anne-Marie Fyffe's 'New
Beats' is just as much a non-reality as the 'NewGen' poetry of the
90s.
There are old-style working-class manual industries and workers still
in existence, but they're mostly in China. There are still peasant
farmers too: in Latin America for instance.
One thing that really threw my mind a while back was hearing an
American economist use the phrase 'obsolete industries, like
agriculture'.
2008/5/26 kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]>:
> certainly people everywhere would like to be better off (than
> they/others are); it's a *preoccupation with making it a matter of
> category that seems strange to me -- especially since class-ness is
> not obvious at all here, the categorisation is subtle to the point of
> it feeling like a figment of my imagination. it might be. but there's
> something that cannot be denied, especially in context of bettering
> oneself intellectually, constantly learning about the world,
> discovering languages everywhere: it's all regulated, more & more, by
> money. get a good job, find the paycheck. "if you learn something on
> the way, good for you". no no. I'd rather be fully rounded,
> 'polytropos', first and THEN maybe look at cashing in.
>
> naïve. I'll see the error of my ways yet,, there must be a balance.
>
> KS
>
> 2008/5/26 judy prince <[log in to unmask]>:
>> Fascinating!
>>
>> Well, now, K, wanting to be "upper class" (again, wotever that means
>> precisely!) seems a universal desire! Folks generally want wotever those
>> who're "better off" have. Has that ever been different anywhere? I doubt
>> it.
>>
>> I'm still confused about the term "working class". The impression I'm
>> getting from mostly socialist analyses is that those who've not gone to a
>> university are considered "working class", whether they're making as much
>> money---or more---as/than the "middle class" (which I'd always figured was a
>> working class!).
>>
>> I'd like to get more of a feel for wot those in other countries than mine
>> (USAmerica) regard as their "working class"---and have the term denoted as
>> well as connoted, as you have done here.
>>
>> Judy
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> "I can't read my library card." Jeff Hecker, Norfolk, VA, USA
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "kasper salonen" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Sunday, May 25, 2008 6:04 PM
>> Subject: Re: New beats (???)
>>
>>
>> 2008/5/25 judy prince <[log in to unmask]>:
>>>
>>> Anybody out there willing to define, describe---specify---wot "working"
>>> class means to them, to any of us, to UK'ers, to USAmericans, to
>>> Australians, to Italians, to Finns?
>>
>> hm. to finns (to ME), it's the idealistic, honest, semi-socialist,
>> not-quite-actual remnant of tougher times, when it was real people who
>> put the 'work' in 'working class'. if struggling finances were enough
>> to designate people as working class, every student I know would be;
>> despite the 'high education' we're getting for free.
>>
>> the term working class (työväenluokka) is one of the most vividly
>> antiquated finnish words I can imagine. to use it negatively is a
>> massive faux pas, to use it positively is tongue-in-cheek.
>>
>> I get the feeling that most finns want to be upper class, & it
>> aggravates me no damn end.
>>
>> KS
>>
>
--
David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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