[HPforGrownups] Re: Class, Was The wizarding world and empire (for Pip)

[Pen Robinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 50965


On Tuesday, Jan 28, 2003, at 18:52 Europe/London, GulPlum 
<hp at plum.cream.org> wrote:
>
> I'm not sure when in UK terminology, having a non working-class job
> defined one as middle class. I mean, who would actually consider our
> own esteemed Deputy PM John "Two Jags" Prescott" as Middle Class? :-)
>
> That Arthur Weasley has a determinedly middle-class job does not make
> him middle class.

Of course it does.  How else is 'middle class' defined?

Well.  Harumph.  Perhaps I'm being a bit simplistic there.  'Middle 
class' may also be defined by what you do, where you live, your 
aspirations etc.   (Jilly Cooper's book 'Class', though somewhat out of 
date, gives very clear pictures of class in England - the upper class, 
who do as they please and don't care what anyone thinks, the various 
divisions of the middle class [my favourite is Jen Teale, with her net 
curtains and serviettes], the working class.  I recommend it to anyone 
wanting an informal but witty insight into the matter of class.)

Actually, if anything I think the Weasleys may be upper class, but come 
down in the world a bit.  It makes more sense, to me, to think of 
Arthur as an aristocrat forced by circumstance to take a (middle class) 
job, than to think of him as 'working poor'.   His lack of wealth 
really doesn't define his class.

As for 'Two Jags' Preston, I'm afraid he is indeed middle class.   
Rather in the Jen Teale bracket, unlike the Blairs who are very much 
upper middles, but there nonetheless.   I used to work with a man who 
insisted loudly that he was working class - but who had been through 
public school and was currently employed in an administrative job 
(dignified with the title of manager, even).    He listened to jazz, 
read Dickens and Anthony Burgess for pleasure...  In fact, as far as I 
could discern, the only thing working class about him was his 
insistence that he belonged in that bracket.   [Hasty disclaimer: it's 
not that working class people cannot enjoy jazz or Anthony Burgess, but 
would such leisure pursuits be part of anyone's definition of 'working 
class'?]

<snippage<

Pen