Is the Culture War actually just about Status?
Growing up in a middle-class English family and then electing to work in a distinctly working class trade (construction), I became very familiar with the differences between these quintessential British groups. Actually, it was the relationship between these two classes that I found particularly intriguing.
What I saw was that the main thing about being middle-class was not the accent, the aesthetics, the area of town one lived in, or reading The Times or Guardian. The principle thing about being middle-class was that you weren’t working class! It really was as simple as that. The most important aspect of being middle-class was regularly signalling your status, demonstrating attitudes that were different from those who were working class. The clothing you wore, the kind of house you had, your accent, the daily paper you read, where you sent your kids to school - all of these things were simply means to signal your status as being above working class, as being middle-class.
Income and intelligence were important too. And many people who were interested in the British class system spent much time focussing on these. But they did not look at status-signalling. This whole area seemed to me to be have been overlooked.
The situation where I recall seeing it most obviously, in my life during the 80s and 90s, was around racism. The UK, having once had a huge empire, had opened itself to migrants from its former colonies, especially during the 1960s and 70s. Many who arrived were from India, Pakistan or the Caribbean and they settled extensively in the southeast and north of England. Not having much money, they lived in the poorer neighbourhoods, those where working class Brits also lived. They also took on jobs at the lower fringes of the income scale, those also usually done by members of the working class.
This situation led to competition between locals and the newly-arrived. And this, coupled with the differences in culture and skin colour, led to overt racism in many places. Without in any way diminishing the horror of some of the brutality between different race groups at this time, I also witnessed a lot of natural camaraderie between whites and immigrants, simply because all groups saw themselves as sharing the experience of being at the “bottom of the heap” demographically.
Witnessing the overt racism of some working class white Brits, on television and in their newspapers, the middle-classes soon began to find ways to signal that they were “not like this” - that they were not racist. Of course, the overwhelming majority of middle-class Brits did not actually know any immigrants. They did not live in their part of town and they didn’t do the same types of job. But I think instinctively the middle-classes saw a new way that they could signal their separation from a lower status group, the working classes.
I mention all of this because I do believe that the role of status, and of signalling behaviours intended to assert it, is still hugely underestimated as a force which shapes human culture, no matter where on earth we might look.
For some half billion years of our evolutionary history, status has been incredibly important. For example, males needed to demonstrate certain traits in order to be attractive to females. The great algorithm of natural selection has enforced this upon us, and is unconcerned by the vast social changes that have taken place over the last few thousand years. We are hard-wired to be very busy with status, consciously or otherwise.
Yet, with the arrival of the middle-classes, so an intriguing aspect of this status thing has also rocked up. Let’s take a look.
Seeking to demonstrate status, as a working class male, I might perhaps wear clothing by a brand that obviously costs money and I might get myself a racy-looking car. Demonstrating my higher status in this manner, over the average male, I could expect to attract a higher status girlfriend from the same class.
But what about the middle-classes?
If overt displays of status - Gucci tracksuits or Series 1 BMWs - are associated with the working classes, then such behaviours are obviously precluded from being middle-class. As a middle-class male, I really can’t do any of these kinds of things, or I will actually lower my status.
This dynamic creates a situation where even talking about status is associated with being of lower status! And I think this is why academics who study class just don’t do it much. In order to preserve our self-image as being higher status we actually need to overlook status.
So the ways that middle-class people find to signal their status are usually undertaken unconsciously and in simple opposition to the perceived behaviours of the lower classes.
If right-wing populism, for example, is seen as a low-status stance, then I need to champion left-wing views. If patriarchal structures are looked up to by the working classes, then I need to speak up for more feminine structures. If traditional gender rigidity is a lower class attitude, I need to get behind gender fluidity and transgenderism. If working class people like to use energy, to burn it, as a way to show to their peers that they have cash, then my stance must be to preserve energy and to signal that I believe in stopping global warming.
In seeking to understand the sudden prevalence in our culture of woke politics, transgenderism, inclusion, climate activism and similar phenomena, many people, myself included, visibly struggle. We don’t know why our world seems suddenly to revolve so deeply around these phenomena, how they have acquired the importance they apparently have. In trying to understand, we may become attracted to theories of single-agent causation and imagine one bad actor behind the scenes pulling strings. Davos, the WEF, globalisation, Bill Gates and many other actors or forces are regularly placed in this negative driving seat.
For all I know, there may be a single bad actor pulling strings. I have certainly taken up that belief myself many times in trying to understand the world. But I don’t like to jump to conclusions if I can manage to stop myself. And what I suspect here is that there may be a way simpler, and much more human, explanation. Our deeply embedded, often unconscious need to demonstrate status is, I think, an excellent place to look.
Giving Respect: Richard Hanania has done some great writing and podcasting on this topic. See especially here and here.
I love just free forming comment on your page - it brings up such memories for me , for some reason . When I was 13 , my grandmother booked a trip first class on the QE2 to London and back , ( New York Port ) and she invited my mother's sister , the privilegdged one , who got her daughter , my age mate included , thinking they could squeeze three in a room . NO , so then another room was procured , and since there would be an extra berth , I was invited one week before departure . Looking back , I see how really confusing and unfair that was , as I was 13 , and needed a captains table dress , clothing for a trip through Scotland etc . But , I panicked , packed , and off I went . The Ship thing is all class , no reality . and by the end of the voyage , not only were my cousin and I dancing with the handsome dressed up to look like Navy guys , but also down in the lowest part of the ship , where the rooms had no portholes and everyone was sitting in the hall playing guitars , the workers . We sat on the deck and were offered bullion or cakes , while the steward wrapped our feet in lap rugs , ( he must have enjoyed that ) and at night , beds turned down and pj s were laid out . What I realized is that when you live on an island , be it NYC , Great Britain , or Kauai , that stratification actually allows people to co exist without conflict , like in an apartment building . Everybody has their thing and they stay in it . Thus , you can have the upstairs downstairs reality , and nobody thinks that they are ants in an ant hill , even though they are ! Commonors take as much pride in their commonality , as the wealthy do . There is a wonderful version of My Fair Lady , Pygmalion , better than the Audry Hepburn one , that was done with Leslie Howard . But this is what I want to say . A Lady is someone who knows her class and keeps it , no matter what is happening . A great lady , brings others into her world , no matter what level they are at , and a queen , is someone who brings the world up to her level , and all the people in it . Right now , we are being put into a blender and turned into mush . "In all fairness " is the root of the British Islander , and of course , looking for that balance is not going to be color coded or genitalia based anymore , since that seems to be everyone's business these days . I think that deep inside everyone has a comfort zone where they feel happiest , and that is something that should be safe to be expressed and should be respected . Let the layers sort themselves out , as they are wont to do .
Yes, but then the middle classes force the working class into having the same values, and then when the working classes adopt the "current thing", the middle classes become even more extreme in order to distinguish themselves again, and then force this new norm on to the working class. Thus it is a feedback loop of ever more extreme morality. For example, the newest frontier seems to be the normalizing of pedophilia.