A touch of class: Maggie Allder on a societal divide

‘Our entitlement will not go away because we refuse to consider it!’

A couple of items in the Friend recently caught my attention. They were addressing changes at Britain Yearly Meeting. Both were calmly and clearly expressed, in the manner of Quakers. One was concerned that ‘Friends don’t have a worker perspective’, while the other talked of ‘reflection, discernment, and dialogue with staff and sub-committees’.

I believe that this conversation speaks to a fundamental issue for Friends, and one which we seem deeply resistant to considering. That is the whole question of social class. We will talk about our white privilege, and recognise at least some of the challenges faced by LGBTQ Friends. We deeply regret the injuries inflicted on others by our imperial history, and we worry about poverty. But when we come to social class, we remain uninformed. English Quakers seem to be largely ineffective when it comes to attracting working class members; there are no courses for Friends on the topic, and I know of no books published by Quakers on the subject.

I am just completing the excellent Woodbrooke ‘Equipping for Ministry’ course. For my personal project I considered this issue. I came to the conclusion that social class is not a function of income. Someone can be poor but culturally middle class, or wealthy but culturally working class. At one of the Diversity and Inclusion conferences at Woodbrooke, one person said that we are all working class now because we all have to work for a living. But social class has almost nothing to do with whether or not we need employment to live well. A doctor and a warehouse worker both need their wages, but that hardly means that they are necessarily in the same social class!

It is only partly to do with education, too. We are not a very socially-mobile country. Many graduates find that their degrees do not provide them with the upward mobility they anticipated. Last year the Social Mobility Commission found that social mobility is actually declining in Britain, despite large numbers of young people attending universities.

My reading showed me that class has more to do with culture, in the sociological sense. It is associated with subtle differences in the use of language and of accepted modes of conversation. It is associated with speaking in abstract terms or concrete terms, with generalisations and specifics. The place of narrative versus generalised comments is important. Decision-making tends to follow different processes in different social groups. Even the number of words which tend to be used is different in different cultures. The middle class is inclined towards ideology; working class people are strong on practicalities. All this is before we consider the differences in clothing, food or entertainment preferences.

If we find ourselves reluctant to admit that social class exists – and I have encountered that reluctance among Quakers – perhaps we should consider why this is an issue we do not want to confront. Our entitlement will not go away because we refuse to consider it! We should examine our class prejudices as fearlessly as we try to examine our attitudes to race or sexual orientation.

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Comments

Our friend speaks my mind. This too is my experience, as someone who identifies as both ‘working class’ and middle class’ and so has a foot in both cultures.
The problem seems to start with the image chosen to illustrate the article - where are the mucky overalls; the dirt under the broken finger nails; the sweaty and grease-streaked brow?
But I contest that there is a deeper problem which is one of presumed merit - that a university academic education which leads to that ideological inclination is somehow better than an apprenticeship in a factory which leads to that practicality.
Here in my adopted home town of Sheffield, one of the most highly educated people I have ever known of died earlier this year. His name was Stan Shaw and he made penknifes. From 1941 until 2019 - from 14 until 91. He was highly ‘educated’ in his work; an ‘expert’ in his field; had a long and fulfilling ‘career’; and practised ‘life-long learning’. But how many of us use these words to describe such a ‘working-class’ person? A very different picture from the one above accompanies this tribute: https://www.assayoffice.co.uk/news/tributes-paid-to-sheffields-great-knife-designer-and-maker.
We do indeed need to fearlessly examine our class prejudices, and the meritocratic society that privileges the likes of us so much.

By GordonF on 21st June 2021 - 15:29

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Thank you very much for this, Maggie. I recognise so much of my experience.

By AnniqueS on 22nd June 2021 - 14:03

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