Hm

[sciatrix]

So I asked Metafilter about class and socioeconomic status yesterday. Not theoretically, either: I was pretty direct about where I was coming from and openly curious about other people and their thoughts.

(I'm honestly kind of surprised the thread went up immediately without workshopping from mods; I'm not bothered by it either, just startled.)

And... predictably, people are really uncomfortable! I totally understand that--I'm uncomfortable having written it out, frankly--but I'm kind of impressed at the number of people who jump to "this thread is a doxxing honeypot" or "this thread is an exercise in making us all feel bad!" Not really surprised, but impressed.

I mean. I didn't bring that here. That's you, buddy. I'm trying to be careful to signal both "I come from an incredibly privileged class background that just got more so after I left" and "I am currently struggling in SES but I have a way forward not everyone does." I'm actually more vulnerable feeling about the first one, which is why I took care to bring it. Economic inequality and class privilege exist. It's not a personal insult to talk about where I stand and invite others to do the same.

(At the same time I totally understand why that makes people feel vulnerable and why people might feel uncomfortable both that they feel like they're being pressured to contribute--I tried not to do that but you know how that goes--and like the conversation itself is something of a threat.)

In some ways I think internalized classism is harder to deal with because it is so complicated, and you get the same privilege fragility as you get on any axis except it's coupled with more defensive "I'm not REALLY privileged because--" thought because it's complex and there aren't discrete categories that any given person obviously belongs to. And also everyone quietly hides their advantages.

I'm not really bothered by the defensiveness, but I'm thinking about it. I spend a fair bit of time sitting with my own class based discomfort, often because T has heard something fall out of my mouth and explained why it was a real real "wow your class background is obvious" moment; our backgrounds are really different and mine is a lot more divorced from many of our friends' realities.

So. I don't know. I'm sitting thoughtfully right now and putting my thoughts here rather than there. I'm not feeling much in the way of personal emotion, just intellectual interest. But I had thoughts, and I figured this was probably the place to have them without distorting the entire conversation around me.

Comments

[siderea]

... the idea that the Weasleys are a class Rorschach test is kinda brilliant.

[kore]

Heh, I only knew that type by being very familiar with that kind of British shabby-genteel character from other books. Including Pratchett, but Raymond Chandler also once wrote this hilarious bit about the more down-at-heel a British man was, the higher up the class strata he seemed to be. I think even Dickens gets into that, but I can't remember.