Without Class

I was reading an article about a celebrity couple that got me thinking. It was about a mention from one of them that while they are wealthy now, they were both raised working class. And of course, the internet being filled with people who spend too much time on the internet, and the articles looking for some kind of juxtaposition to face people off against each other, there was outrage. Because while they agreed that one of them was from a working class background, the other was not. Now consider the question before reading on;

Are you working class?

The reason I ask is that we probably all have an idea of what working class means to us and can visualize the type, whether we consider ourselves from the group or not. But, perhaps we might want to review the definition.

Working class
/ˌwəːkɪŋ ˈklɑːs/
noun
the social group consisting primarily of people who are employed in unskilled or semi-skilled manual or industrial work.
"he came from the working class"

The situation that is key there is "unskilled or semi-skilled", but I suspect that not that many people fit into those categories now, or at least, what is considered "semi-skilled" might have changed. Working class didn't mean poor, it just meant mostly manual work. Most of us these days are likely not earning that much more, but we don't do the manual work that was common back "in the day" when our parents were working.

What dictates "working" now? Perhaps before the comparison was made between physical effort and knowledge work, like desk work, sitting in an office. There was some "sense" that those who did the physical work, the working class, earned less and perhaps pushed to influence the low, mid and upper classes. But knowledge work has become far more common now, but this doesn't mean that the salaries have increased, but it is implied that coming from a "working class background" means coming from a poorer family.

In most western countries at least, the education levels are so high that most people don't qualify as "unskilled" and the employment market is so tight, that there aren't many jobs for unskilled workers anyway. Sure, there are jobs for people in retail and hospitality that don't require a high amount of education, but being a plumber, electrician or even working on many manufacturing production lines, requires a relatively high degree of training.

By definition, I don't come from a working class family, because my father was an educated teacher. He worked hard his whole life from sixteen years of age until into his eighties, earned little and died broke, but not working class. However, I think making the judgement based on the job parents do, muddies the waters in what is actually meant by the term.

What is not working class?

Silver-spoon
/ˈsɪlvəspuːn/
adjective
having a wealthy or privileged background.
"she was a baronet's granddaughter and had a silver-spoon upbringing"

I definitely didn't have wealth or privilege growing up, so what does that mean? What kind of background did I have? It is funny, because people see coming from wealth as a negative, and coming from poverty as some kind of badge of honour, but is that the case? Can a personality or the current situation of a person be told by their childhood background? For a celebrity like an actor, is it relevant for the conversation at all?

At least in my experience over the last couple decades, it seems that the people who are the most financially well off, also tend to be the ones who are willing to study more, and do more work, than those who are not. The badge of honour of going without in childhood, should take a lower priority than the badge for going without in order to to be successful, regardless of childhood. A lot of the most successful people I know, have sacrificed a lot of their free time, their pleasure, their entertainment, and replaced it with work.

Are they the new working class?

Definitions change meanings over time, but recently there has been a pretty proactive changing of terms to the point that hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, are irrelevant. However, perhaps as culture and technology changes and we are more and more out of work, replaced by machines, we will have to change some of the terminology around working class, because it could be that the majority are coming from places where no one is working at all.

The unemployable class.

I wonder what the children with that kind of background will be like in the future, and how will they be seen by society and culture. Will they be celebrated for doing it tough in childhood? Will they be blamed for not making something of their lives? Will it be a badge of honour, or a mark against their name?

Silver spoons or power tools, perhaps neither will be within reach.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]