Class in British writing

What a joy to listen to interviews with working-class writers – whether on the subject of climate change or inequality. And to read books not written by middle-class wankers with clipped accents! Class is one of the barriers I’ve referred to when I’ve argued that being an outsider helps one be a creative writer. If you’re in a middle-class bubble, you simply don’t see the world as it really is! Happily I was saved from such a fate by my membership of the Labour party in my teens and being a Labour councillor for 22 years. Having regular sessions with Clydeside Tenant Associations soon knocks any nonsense out of you!

I viewed 2 videos yesterday – both about books whose authors are proud to 

acknowledge their working class background. The first with Chris Shaw about 

his new book Liberalism and the challenge of climate change which has the 

additional attraction of being only 149 pages long! The very first words in the 

Preface give you a sense of what you are in for -

This book makes a quite obvious point; the language we use and the stories we tell reflect our particular social and historical circumstances. The stories we hear about the solutions to climate change reflect the social and historical experiences of the liberal middle classes of the global North. They are stories intended to reproduce the privilege of the storytellers. I am writing from a subaltern position within the global North, that of someone who grew up in a family who struggled financially and a family with no experience of higher education.

So, the middle-class world has always felt something of an ‘other’ to me. I am not of the middle-class world.

Not being of that world has provided me with an outsider’s perspective on middle-class ownership of climate change campaigning and communication. This book is the viewpoint of someone stood at the window, looking in. I believe Cormac McCarthy once said that people write in lieu of blowing up the world. That feels an apt description of the motivation for this book. I am not a happy voyeur. Whilst I might characterise the middle classes as complacent in the normal run of affairs, and vicious when their privilege is threatened, I must also own up the anger that motivates the writing of this book. That anger is, I suppose, in some part the resentment of someone who has been turned away from the party, who feels not wanted. Yet also, the anger reflects the feeling of being lied to. Lies are easy to justify, easy to live with when you are the one doing the lying. Lies are more difficult to swallow as the one being deceived.

Shaw works at the University of Sussex (he’s Head of Research of Climate 

Outreach) and has worked in the field of climate change communication for 

over 15 years. I have only started the book but it is already making 

me see the world differently. 

By comparison leftist Brett Christophers whose The Price is Wrong - capitalism 

won't save the planet comes across as rather technocratic in this video.  

The second video was with Darren McGarvey who published last year 

“The Social Distance Between Us – how remote politics wrecked Britain” 

whose writing process he describes in this LRB blog. And a podcast called 

Trigger-nometry has a good interview with him here (just have the patience to 

wait for one minute). Clicking the book’s title links to a rather sniffy Guardian 

review which suggests that -

the book’s key theme, which McGarvey wraps up in the term “proximity”, is the fact 

that even at a local level, power tends to operate far away from the people it kicks 

around and manipulates. When it comes to the central state, moreover, decision-making 

turns even more cold and cruel, largely because in Westminster and Whitehall, the 

domination of political and administrative matters by privileged cliques is at its worst. 

Whether the people concerned are “posh politicians who’ve never tasted desperation” 

or “thin-skinned idealists, too short in the tooth to understand the real world”, 

McGarvey insists that their actions are usually based on groundless assumptions and 

false beliefs. What we really need, therefore, is a return of the kind of rooted working

-class voices that might reorientate government towards everyday reality: an update 

of the spirit of Aneurin Bevan, rather than more George Osbornes, David Camerons 

and Boris Johnsons. But even starting such a turnaround will be a huge and onerous task. 

All of which brings us back to the question of CLASS – a subject which Brits 

are notoriously reluctant to talk about. But, as usual, outsiders can bring a fresh 

(and amusing) perspective - first a French woman Social Classes in Britain 

Isabelle Licari-Guillaume (2019) and then Hiroko Tomida with The history and 

development of the English class system (2009) which contains this recap of 

1960s David Frost skit

The following lines are worth quoting.

the tallest man: I look down on him (indicates the man in the middle) because I am upper class.

the man in the middle: I look up to him (the tallest man) because he is upper class; but I look down on him (the smallest man) because he is lower-class. I am middle class.

the shortest man: I know my place. I look up to them both. But I dont look up to him (the man in the middle) as much as I look up to him (the tallest man), because he has got innate breeding.

the tallest man: I have got innate breeding, but I have not got any money. So sometimes I look up to him (the man in the middle).

the man in the middle: I still look up to him (the tallest man) because although I have money, I am vulgar. But I am not as vulgar as him (the shortest man) so I still look down on him (the shortest man).

the shortest man: I know my place. I look up to them both; but while I am poor, I am honest, industrious and trustworthy. Had I the inclination, I could look down on them. But I dont.

the man in the middle: We all know our place, but what do we get out of it?

the tallest man: I get a feeling of superiority over them.

the man in the middle: I get a feeling of inferiority from him (the tallest man), but a feeling of superiority over him (the shortest man).

the shortest man: I get a pain in the back of my neck.

For more serious analyses of the situation I recommend
Class in Britain David Cannadine (2000)
Who Rules Britain? John Scott (1991)