Perhaps the most quoted comment on the British class system is the line from George Bernard Shaw’s foreword to Pygmalion, adapted and made famous by the musical My Fair Lady: ‘It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without another Englishman. hate or despise him.’
But although these words first appeared over 100 years ago, in my long life I have never heard anyone seriously suggest that discrimination based on social class should be prohibited by law.
That was until this week, when the British Psychological Society proposed extending equality laws — which already protect people from prejudice based on age, gender, race and no fewer than six other characteristics — to include discrimination based on snobbery.
That’s the conclusion of a survey of society, which shows that children are at particular risk of being judged by teachers based on their accent, family background or parents’ income.
Working-class students are less likely to be encouraged to contribute to lessons, the researchers claim, and they tend to get lower grades. In addition, they say, doctors discriminate against patients from lower socioeconomic groups by blaming them for being overweight or suffering from asthma, while workers from poorer families miss out on promotion at work.
sneer
The report’s lead author, Bridgette Rickett, says: ‘In the UK, discrimination based on one’s social class or socioeconomic status is immune to direct challenge, and for too long the harmful effects of social class inequalities and discrimination have been ignored.’
The only thing I can advise Dr. Rickett and her team is that they should be very careful about what they wish for. This is because the Equality Act 2010, which they hope to amend, works both ways.
By this I mean that the law gives young people just as much right as older people to say that they have been unfairly discriminated against on the basis of their age.
Indeed, this was the point Shaw (pictured) made in his 1916 foreword to Pygmalion: Whatever class they were born into, snobs of every kind think they are better than people belonging to other socioeconomic groups.
In the same way, people of every race, creed, sex, and gender orientation — including white male heterosexuals like me — have just as much right as anyone to claim to be victims of any of the other various -isms prohibited by law. .
And of course snobbery works both ways.
First, there is the kind that Dr. Rickett is meant, where snobs from privileged backgrounds look down on people who are less fortunate than themselves. It’s a very unattractive trait, you’ll certainly agree.
But we’ve all come across the inverted kind, too, including some who were born into poor working-class families, thinking for that reason alone they can scoff at people born with silver spoons and prunes in their mouths. That’s not very nice either.
Indeed, this was the point Shaw made in his 1916 foreword to Pygmalion: Whatever class they were born into — aristocratic, mediocre, or proletarian — snobs of every sort think they are better than people belonging to other socioeconomic groups.
Now I am the first to agree with Dr Rickett that it is wrong to treat people unfairly for no better reason than the circumstances of their birth, where they went to school, how they pronounce their vowels or whether they have that controversial piece of the table. to call. – linen in the restaurant a napkin or a napkin.
But just as you’ll find at least a few Old Etonians who believe they’re superior beings because they don’t drop their aitch, and daddy has money in the bank, so you’ll find plenty of working-class people who think toffs and the comfortable middle class are contemptible because of their social class.
Speaking for myself, after a long career mixing with people from all walks of life, I can’t recall meeting anyone who thought better of me because of my middle-class accent or the fact that I have been comfortable for years.
On the other hand, I’ve met plenty who have called me a privileged bastard or a public school ponce from the moment I opened my mouth.
Even some of my sons seem to think there’s something infamous about the fact that I finally have money in the bank after a lifetime of work. I should pay for it, they say, by giving even more to the government—or, better yet, by giving them the occasional check.
privileged
Now I’m willing to accept that there may be respectable reasons for people to look down on me – my tobacco and alcohol weaknesses come to mind – but I don’t think my public school education and my hard-earned bank balance are. t among them.
My point is that if the BPS has its way, and social class becomes a protected feature under the law, those who think they have been treated unfairly for speaking in fancy accents will have just as much right to sue as others who do. think they’ve been overlooked for promotion because they sound working class.
In one fell swoop, this would reject the BBC’s policy of rejecting candidates who speak what we used to call Queen’s English in favor of others blessed with working-class regional accents. For the record, it would prohibit the outspoken goal of many universities to accept a greater proportion of working-class students, rather than better-qualified middle-class candidates.
Just as you will find at least a few Old Etonians who believe that they are superior creatures for not dropping their aitch, so you will find plenty of working class people who think that toffs are despicable because of their social class
Come to think of it, such a law would also cause huge problems for the trade union movement and the Corbynist wing of the Labor Party, whose raison d’être is to wage class war against the bourgeoisie and “defeat the rich” (by which they mean anyone who is more than the average industrial wage).
Of course, many readers will say that such an outcome would be highly desirable. I am thinking especially of those who, like my parents, have made huge sacrifices to send their children to paid schools.
They must find it downright irritating to see their youngsters rejected because of their ‘privileged’ education.
Under the BPS’s proposal, they would certainly have the right to sue. But I can’t help that this isn’t what Dr. Rickett and her team had in mind.
To be honest, I also don’t seriously believe it would be a good idea to add social class to the ever-growing list of characteristics protected by law.
Abuse
As much as I’d like to see the BBC, the universities and the Labor Left suffer under their stingy ruminations, I think we already have enough legally banned isms, phobias and hate crimes to occupy courts and labor courts the rest of the time.
Not to mention the extreme difficulty of defining social class in law.
In Britain, for example, today you will find many plutocrats on the Labor benches in the House of Lords who will proudly declare on his death day, after a lifetime of shuffling papers, that he is working class through and through. But is that really the way to describe an ermine-clad millionaire? You see the problem.
I would even go so far as to say that in this age of heightened victimization and success condemned, most of the contempt of one class for another stems from the class fighters of the left.
Listen to the abuse engulfing Rishi Sunak for no better reason than his parents sending him to one of the most expensive schools in the country, and he went on to make millions and get married.
Meanwhile, the reverse variety of snobbery is much more widespread than the alleged de haut en bas discrimination Dr. Rickett is convicted.
If you doubt me, check out the Conservative leadership contest and the way Liz Truss likes to boast that she went to community school, as if it were an essential qualification for a prime minister (while not mentioning that the school in question was one of the best and most middle class in the Leeds area).
Or listen to the abuse engulfing Rishi Sunak for no better reason than that his parents sent him to one of the most expensive schools in the country, and he went on to make millions and get married.
I can think of many good reasons to have reservations about either candidate. But like most of us, I want a prime minister who can restore the economy, rid the streets of crime and protect the country from foreign attacks.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t care if the winner calls it a napkin or a napkin.