Last entry on my musings about class, I promise. I wanted to add that being an American placed me on the periphery of the entire struggle. Part of it was that I was from an alien culture, so all bets of having common experiences went out the window. It was for the best that I was in an educational setting, as they tend to be more liberal in the mixing of the classes. People are more free to try things out; for instance, a young man whose family owned most of Devon became very keen on woodworking while up at uni.
It did help that I come from New England and that I did not take to yelling at people across the street. People were more assured that I was not some wild yahoo from New York or California. My accent was also less harsh and became more Anglicized the longer I was there. Added to that, I attended a conservative women’s college, so there were rumblings of pedigree in my background. Of course, if one scratched behind the surface, one would find out immediately that I am the daughter of an immigrant mother and working-class father. I tended to confuse a lot of people who bothered to ask anything more about me than what I was studying.
Do we have classes on this side of the pond? Of course we do. I maintain that it is only natural, although I think that given the complex nature of the American population, and the sheer size of the country, there are more categories. Certainly, there is old money and new money, but even within those groups are regional divides that even our internet age has not surmounted. How was the money earned? Real estate, hedge funds, Farmville? East coast money or West coast? The US’s population is about ten times as large as the UK’s and, I think, because of that we have more options for social groups. One thing that is the same in both countries is that the rich are increasing their wealth and the rest of us, well, it’s a bit bleak.
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