Elitism in England

mindful webworker - bookishly

Commented on:

Sun 2016 Mar 6, 9:12am

Connections...

Clive Crook, Bloomberg View *
http://bv.ms/1QX9KC0

[quote]
…I'm a British immigrant, and grew up in a northern English working-class town. Taking my regional accent to Oxford University and then the British civil service, I learned a certain amount about my own class consciousness and other people's snobbery. But in London or Oxford from the 1970s onwards I never witnessed the naked disdain for the working class that much of America's metropolitan elite finds permissible in 2016.

…When my wife and I bought some land in West Virginia and built a house there, many friends in Washington asked why we would ever do that. Jokes about guns, banjo music, in-breeding, people without teeth and so forth often followed.…
[endquote]

Washington Irving's Sketch Book, "The Country Church"

[quote]
…There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity, that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble. … I was pleased to see the manner in which they would converse with the peasantry about those rural concerns … In these conversations there was neither haughtiness on the one part, nor servility on the other; and you were only reminded of the difference of rank by the habitual respect of the peasant.

In contrast to these was a family of a wealthy citizen, who had amassed a vast fortune. …They cast an excursive glance around, that passed coldly over the burly faces of the peasantry.…
[endquote]

The difference between class distinction and classlessness of the would-be classy. Never changes. 'Twas the same in Jesus' day.

__________
*Thanks and/or h/t's, for pointing me to and/or helping me re-locate the Clive Crook article, to:
-BlazingCatFur
http://www.blazingcatfur.ca/2016/03/03/139984/
-Rush Limbaugh
http://bit.ly/1R1a2yb
-OldDominionMom in AoS comments
http://bit.ly/1X4oK5V

Subjects:

class distinction