[Closed] "Cyclists, the middle classes and crackpots!"

Well the brexiteers are running out of enemies now all those pesky "forriners" have gone home... i shall put you on the list...

People who knock over statues
People who peacefully protest
People who are middle class
Megan and Harry

They have Redwalls to keep frothing dont you know.

I was working class and became middle class in my 30's so I hate myself already and the fact I am a cyclist just makes me hate myself even more, bloody middle class cyclists.

I always wondered if you could move between classes. I was born and bred working class, I now run my own successful businesses and live in an affluent area, does that make me middle class or am I always going to be working class?
My kids are middle class as is the wife....but I like to consider myself working class.
Anyway, sorry, off-topic was just thinking out loud.

LMC woodster, LMC

What's the salary/wage cut off between working and middle class?

Or is it just a state of mind, or how much humous is included in your weekly shop??

Odd for the Tories to attack the middle class, after all, with the lower classes all claiming benefits and the upper classes all taking bungs, backhanders and lucrative PPE contracts, aren't the middle classes the only ones actually funding the country? 😉

The middle class dont exist, if you have to work 5 days a week then you're no different to the vast majority of others in society. The three tier class system is just a way to drive consumerism and spending habits in the name of the economy, and sometimes to divide and conquer in the name of the media I.e turning half the country against the other half over none existent issues in order to sell more newspapers.

If you’ve been working from home on MS Teams for the last year, you’re probably middle class.

In the small town (20k) I lived in as a kid the majority of folk (who lived & worked in the town) went to work on a bike. 'Working class' (AKA blue collar) folk with cars on the whole only used them for going to work if they worked out of town.

It did help that the town we lived in was as flat as flat could be 🙂

Just looked at the stats, and car household ownership in 1970 was at 50%, whereas now it's nearer 80%. This does though hide how many +2 car households there are and when I was a kid in 1970 we were the only family in our street with two cars (my Dad was relatively senior in the automotive industry).

The world has changed vastly now and there are really only two types of folk; those who work for somebody and those who work for themselves - 'work' needs defining 🙂

Keeping it at a tangent and off topic (though I'll listen to the OP link in a bit), the class system has been out of date for years and years now but there's not really been anything to replace it.

Well we're all mostly middle class. Though alot of the usual narrative focusses on the gap between the very richest and the very poorest...i.e. the top 1% at either end, it ignores the fact that more and more people, in fact the majority of people now, have moved into that middle part of the distribution...most of the very richest have dropped down over time into the middle and most of the very poorest have moved up into that middle band. Not the narrative those who wish to spread doom and gloom and say everything is shit and getting shitter want to peddle, but the stats are there.

We're all middle class now.

If you’ve been working from home on MS Teams for the last year, you’re probably middle class.

I think there is something in this. 😂

This does though hide how many +2 car households there are

A big thing that has happened since the 70s to drive that is that there are more women in the workforce. If you have two careers in the household rather than one over time its unlikely as those careers advance that you'll both be able to find work close to your front door.

A 'job for life' was still a notion in the 70s too - large employers who who would nurture their workforce through their career - even supply their house (my partners family still live in the house that her dad was offered on his first day at work as a welder 55 years ago). You can't really expect to live in the shadow of the factory anymore.

If you’ve been working from home on MS Teams for the last year, you’re probably middle class.

It may not be manual labour, but it's still working. Just because you have a German saloon on the never never parked outside your Barratt home don't think you are middle class.

Ahh the beauty of ill-defined and constantly shifting elites.

Perfect for drumming up selfish resentments and manipulating people into voting for nasty policies.

Looked at objectively most of the idiots that go along with this stuff should end up hating themselves.

I find it amazing how people deny their middle class status. I grew up very working class mum was a florist biological dad a green grocer, now im firmly middle class.

But back to the OP if a planter in streets is you're biggest stress in the day you don't have it that bad.

@Mister-P

Just because you have a German saloon on the never never parked outside your Barratt home don’t think you are middle class.

No, no - it’s the university professor father, private schooling, two degrees, working from home on Teams, voting (new) Labour and a wife with a similar background that makes me suspicious.

The house is on a small development, each with a different design. No Barratt in sight (too LMC). There is a German saloon, but we bought it new 10 years ago and see no reason to change it - except maybe EV (when it dies).

😜

I find it amazing how people deny their middle class status.

This study is actually quite funny in places;
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0038038520982225

I don't think its very fair to lump in Crackpots with those other over entitled douchebags.

The middle class dont exist, if you have to work 5 days a week then you’re no different to the vast majority of others in society

Bobbins, there's a world of difference between a management role where you have to think on your feet, take responsibility for your performance, your teams performance and often things out of your control and the traditionally working class roles, trades, machine operator, warehouse work etc. where you are only responsible for your own performance. Something a lot of working class people will never get to experience or understand, partly because their mindset won't allow them to progress into these roles. Still, lot of rubbish management out there as well.

It is definitely a state of mind, not an income thing or though the two are often linked.

. I was born and bred working class, I now run my own successful businesses and live in an affluent area, does that make me middle class or am I always going to be working class?
My kids are middle class as is the wife….but I like to consider myself working class.

Unfortunately I can't currently find the link but I'll keep searching. Essentially there's a large swathe of the population that is firmly middle class background but likes to think/claim/pretend that they are from a working class background. This allows them to feel like they started from nothing and hence built up what they have through only their own hard graft. It makes them feel more deserving and allows them to look down on both the born middle classes and the working class who didn't put the necessary effort in to better themselves.
Sound familiar?

What’s the salary/wage cut off between working and middle class?

Yes, exactly spot on. 😉

If you’ve been working from home on MS Teams for the last year, you’re probably middle class.

Did anyone else read that as

M&S Teams for the last year, you’re probably middle class.

If so, then that's a dead giveaway 🤣

This was a London piece, yes? There are millions of people in London who can’t afford to own/run a car but still suffer from the air quality and congestion forced on them by those that use their car every day.

Funny, I remember cyclists being reviled because it was working class transport and a “badge of failure”

This is worth underlining; in the UK nearly one in four people in middle-class jobs from middle-class backgrounds – approximately 3.5 million people – see themselves as working class

from that paper...

stumpyjon

Bobbins, there’s a world of difference between a management role where you have to think on your feet, take responsibility for your performance, your teams performance and often things out of your control and the traditionally working class roles, trades, machine operator, warehouse work etc. where you are only responsible for your own performance. Something a lot of working class people will never get to experience or understand, partly because their mindset won’t allow them to progress into these roles. Still, lot of rubbish management out there as well.

My word!!!!

Hmmm....I'm from working class back ground, free school meals, Dad in an manual job contracting when he was working. But, I'm the first one in our family to get a degree, I'm not in management, but a good/secure job for local authority and my wife has a degrees and works as a team leader.

I know I'm not working class (anymore), but I'm also very definitely not what I think of as middle class either by lots of attitudes and standards. But I do ride a bike 🤔

My wife says I have a right chip on my shoulder about it all 🤣

Something a lot of working class people will never get to experience or understand, partly because their mindset won’t allow them to progress into these roles.

I accept you may not have meant it that way, but that comes across as patronising. It reads as if you think they are too thick to know any better. I don't thick you do BTW, I sort of know what you mean, but maybe it could have been worded better?

It's not "mindset" holding people back, it's the hand of cards they are dealt when they are born. Affluence and education or the lack thereof particularly. And by "education", I mean that provided by a stable, supportive and loving home life as much as formal academic education. Though both are equally important.

Something that really grates with me is when people think others in low skilled, low paid jobs lack intelligence or ambition when what they really lack is opportunity and a level playing field when they are young.

It's funny how perceptions have changed and probably how ability to earn has. In my industry (print) managers were usually in the role as they were too useless to hold down a job "on the tools". We'd earn far more than the managers through overtime being paid at a good rate. Now I think management is still the same level of mediocrity but they twigged how to earn more by shafting everyone else.

Anyway, just watched that BBC piece. Thoroughly depressing. The human race is screwed.

the class system has been out of date for years and years now but there’s not really been anything to replace it.

Provides a convenient division for The Party to use. Currently, Oceania The Middle Class is the enemy.

How weird, reading the thread, I thought the OP's post was going to be about how cyclists are lumped in as middle class.. then I watched the bbc video and.. it's about Low Traffic Neighbourhoods! Nothing been mentioned about that at all! You are a bunch of middle class freaks, you really are.

Illuminating to see that being middle class is now officially becoming the new elite and something to be reviled by some. Effectively the middle class being “othered”.

You've obviously never studied political philosophy or sociology with a bunch of middle-class kids sitting around with a middle-class professor with trendy facial hair denouncing the false consciousness of the bourgeoisie and expounding on their working class consciousness. It doesn't matter that they never did a day's actual work in their lives, they count themselves as working class because they understand the struggle of the masses to throw off the shackles of opression.

**** I got drunk pretty much continuously at university, it was the only way to shut out the annoying ****ers who kept on talking utter bollocks.

Bobbins, there’s a world of difference between a management role where you have to think on your feet, take responsibility for your performance, your teams performance and often things out of your control and the traditionally working class roles, trades, machine operator, warehouse work etc. where you are only responsible for your own performance. Something a lot of working class people will never get to experience or understand, partly because their mindset won’t allow them to progress into these roles.

Drum role, and the winner of tory ****er post of the week is

Duz u evan artisan bruv?

This was a London piece, yes? There are millions of people in London who can’t afford to own/run a car but still suffer from the air quality and congestion forced on them by those that use their car every day.

Yeh, one of the bits in the video is from Dulwich Village an area not far from me I would call upper middle class.

Bobbins, there’s a world of difference between a management role where you have to think on your feet, take responsibility for your performance, your teams performance and often things out of your control and the traditionally working class roles, trades, machine operator, warehouse work etc. where you are only responsible for your own performance. Something a lot of working class people will never get to experience or understand, partly because their mindset won’t allow them to progress into these roles. Still, lot of rubbish management out there as well.

It is definitely a state of mind, not an income thing or though the two are often linked.

I mean... just wow where do you even start with that. I guess just laugh at the ignorance.

Are we talking MTBers or roadies? Asking for a friend...

I read somewhere that the working/middle/upper class designation for the UK was set down in I think the 18th century, and given how much we've moved on the concept of working and middle class really doesn't make a lot of sense any more. I realised how complex this was when trying to explain to my American wife what 'middle class' means and why it's such a loaded term. In the US they are just income bands, nothing more.

the class system has been out of date for years and years now but there’s not really been anything to replace it.

Of course there is, there's a whole subject devoted to it now called sociology. They are called stuff like A1, B3 and such nowadays:

https://www.ukgeographics.co.uk/blog/social-grade-a-b-c1-c2-d-e
https://www.businessballs.com/glossaries-and-terminology/demographics-classifications/

It’s not “mindset” holding people back, it’s the hand of cards they are dealt when they are born.

The two are closely linked. Which is part of the problem with social mobility.

The country has been designed around driving everywhere since the 50's. Thats 70 years of people being used to just getting in the car when they want to go somewhere.

When it changes people get angry.

then I watched the bbc video and.. it’s about Low Traffic Neighbourhoods!

Yes although it was a rather badly edited and produced piece with no real coherent message and explanation of the issues.
The implementation of those Low Traffic Neighbourhoods does seem somewhat haphazard so it would be useful to see some good analysis of them.
If the actual traffic issue isnt being addressed then all it will do is give an even more unpleasant experience elsewhere.

The two are closely linked. Which is part of the problem with social mobility

Totally agree, if by "mindset" we mean a belief that progression, aspiration, social mobility are not available to a person by virtue of their upbringing, education, class etc.

Another way to read "mindset" in the context quoted is contentment with doing menial work, lack of get up and go, ****lessness even.

It was the second possible interpretation I was questioning.

Totally agree, if by “mindset” we mean a belief that progression, aspiration, social mobility are not available to a person by virtue of their upbringing, education, class etc.

I think it's more about self-identity.

I grew up with two teachers. So all I got to hear about at the dinner table was stuff to do with teaching and school management. So when it came time for me to get a job I was just expecting to get a steady job, bring in a salary then retire, because that's all I'd ever known anyone do. I knew about business and such, but that was something that 'other people' did and it just wasn't part of my world.

If I'd been born to say, investors, or business people, I'd have been hearing about starting businesses and pursuing ideas, so I'd have had a completely different set of expectations about what the world held for me. We tend to identify with what we see around us, which is what leads to people saying things like 'I can't see myself doing that' as a justification for not doing something. And it's why role models and gender and race representation are so hugely important.

Bobbins, there’s a world of difference between a management role where you have to think on your feet, take responsibility for your performance, your teams performance and often things out of your control and the traditionally working class roles, trades, machine operator, warehouse work etc. where you are only responsible for your own performance. Something a lot of working class people will never get to experience or understand, partly because their mindset won’t allow them to progress into these roles. Still, lot of rubbish management out there as well.

It is definitely a state of mind, not an income thing or though the two are often linked.

I really hope for your sake that that was supposed to be funny... You sound like one of the uppity supervisors that are paid an extra 20p PH to snitch on their co-workers whilst being told they're 'management' 🙂

@molgrips 100% agree. Which is why someone born into a dysfunctional, abusive home where education and career expectations are low or non existent is pretty much stuffed before they even start, whatever their innate intelligence etc.

It’s not “mindset” holding people back, it’s the hand of cards they are dealt when they are born.

There's some "mindset" going on as well, I have a friend who speaks with a pretty posh accent, she's highly intelligent - but she spent a couple of years sleeping on her grans couch when we were kids. To her, everyone who doesn't live on a council estate is middle class, despite having a 2:1 degree in English and good A-levels - she gets visibly agitated around other educated/middle class people. Instead of using her degree for something sensible, she's done lots of fairly dangerous working class jobs. She voted brexit because she thought it was in the interests of "her people", ie northern and working class.

I was able to get out of my dysfunctional town, she did for a bit but relapsed back into a certain way of thinking.

If I’d been born to say, investors, or business people, I’d have been hearing about starting businesses and pursuing ideas, so I’d have had a completely different set of expectations about what the world held for me. We tend to identify with what we see around us, which is what leads to people saying things like ‘I can’t see myself doing that’ as a justification for not doing something. And it’s why role models and gender and race representation are so hugely important.

+1

This is why my wife has been such a good influence on me, she opened my eyes to a different way of viewing the world and opportunities.

If the actual traffic issue isnt being addressed then all it will do is give an even more unpleasant experience elsewhere.

Especially at a time when use of public transport in London is being actively discouraged because of covid.

Class is indeed a very weird notion. I like to think of myself as classless seeing as my parents both graduated from Oxford uni but mostly didn't have two pennies to rub together 😬

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000s7hd/darren-mcgarveys-class-wars-series-1-1-identity-crisis

Apparently a lot of middle class people still refer to themselves as working class. So says this guy who's made a series about it> https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000s7hd/darren-mcgarveys-class-wars-series-1-1-identity-crisis <

The most useful definition of class I've seen went roughly as follows (sorry, I heard this long ago and have no idea where it came from, but it's not my original idea):

The upper-class have no need to plan for or worry about the future because everything is taken care of. They can do whatever they want without a care in the world.

The middle-class have to plan for and worry about the future, but they have enough resources to do this.

The working-class lack the resources to be able to plan for the future so they basically live in the present and let the future take care of itself.

Key to this is to expand "resources" beyond money. Education, skills, social connections, etc. are very important resources. Many working-class jobs pay good wages, but not all working-class people lift themselves out of the working-class because they don't know how to use the resources they have. Someone with a working-class job who has a mortgage and enough income to pay it off is heading for a middle-class life.

The working-class lack the resources to be able to plan for the future so they basically live in the present and let the future take care of itself.

Nope, that's Buddhists.

I thought working class showered after work and middle class showered before work.

@oakkeymuppet that is such a strange and perhaps modern affectation, my gt grandparents met in an orphanage at the in the late 19th century but my grandad got a good education and did well for himself, never once referred to his poorer roots, perhaps for him it was an embarrassment rather than something to be proud of.

blokeuptheroad
Which is why someone born into a dysfunctional, abusive home where education and career expectations are low or non existent is pretty much stuffed before they even start, whatever their innate intelligence etc.

Mmmm, you're probably right but thankfully there are plenty of exceptions to this.

It's all about Tomato Ketchup.

Keep it in the cupboard with the teabags?....You're working class.

Keep it in the fridge as per the instructions on the bottle?....You're middle class.

No idea where cook keeps the chutneys and preserves?.... You're upper class.

Which is why someone born into a dysfunctional, abusive home where education and career expectations are low or non existent is pretty much stuffed before they even start, whatever their innate intelligence etc.

This isn't entirely true. Many people have enough innate intelligence to realise at a very young age that education and hard work are a viable escape route from that life. It's easy to overachieve if you are expected to fail based on circumstances rather than ability.

I agree, and this is why I have a problem with the romanticisation of good old fashioned manufacturing (as in the 1945 video posted on here earlier). It's essentially perpetuating attitudes that keep people down doing menial work. If we can replace those dead-end jobs with something that can encourage diverse flexible skills (beyond fitting bike tyres) then people have more agency in their lives.

However the corresponding risk is that people end up feeling pressured to stay relevant, and that they are always under-trained, which can be very stressful.

My dad was a coal miner, I was brought up in a council house in a pit village. I guess I was a working class kid. I went on to become a chartered civil engineer. That's not working class by any stretch of the imagination. I live in Cheshire (nearly!) and drive a German estate.

I'm also a cyclist, support the idea of low traffic neighbourhoods and I wear lycra.

Nope, that’s Buddhists.

Lol!

I guess I was a working class kid. I went on to become a chartered civil engineer.

And how many of your peers did that? How many of them were forced to go and do something else because the mines closed? My Dad was born in a mining town and everyone worked in the mines, including him. He had to retrain to get out, because he hated it, before the strikes and closures.

I cycled yesterday, plan to cycle today, and I just bought two new expensive lycra tops.

Have we derailed this thread enough yet?

This isn’t entirely true. Many people have enough innate intelligence to realise at a very young age that education and hard work are a viable escape route from that life.

I would be careful about the use of phrases such as "hard work" that suggest those who didn't "escape" didn't because they didn't "work hard." It falls into the same category of Boris Johnson getting over covid because of his "strength" and "courage" which also suggest if you don't get over covid its because you are weak and lack courage. Which we all know is rubbish.

I wear lycra.

When the revolution comes, where will you hide?

@oakkeymuppet that is such a strange and perhaps modern affectation, my gt grandparents met in an orphanage at the in the late 19th century but my grandad got a good education and did well for himself, never once referred to his poorer roots, perhaps for him it was an embarrassment rather than something to be proud of.

I think it's a sign of the times and Trumpism, but it's been bubbling away for a long time - in the country my wifes from people respect it if you get a good education and escape, in my hometown you become one of "them" liberal elites. It's been like that there for decades.

It’s all about Tomato Ketchup.

Keep it in the cupboard with the teabags?….You’re working class

What kind of maniac keeps the teabags in a cupboard? They should be right next to the kettle.

I would be careful about the use of phrases such as “hard work” that suggest those who didn’t “escape” didn’t because they didn’t “work hard.” It falls into the same category of Boris Johnson getting over covid because of his “strength” and “courage” which also suggest if you don’t get over covid its because you are weak and lack courage. Which we all know is rubbish.

Yes.

In the case of the intelligent ones that don't manage to get out, I think it's more like some kind of working/under class Stockholm syndrome.

"All the people around me are abusive uneducated morons but I'll stick with them because they're "my people"."

They should be right next to the kettle.

Underclass. You lack the inherent nobility of the working man which would compel you to strive for the honest dignity of a teabag and red sauce cupboard.

The middle class dont exist, if you have to work 5 days a week then you’re no different to the vast majority of others in society.

What if you don't have to work 5 days a week? or even work at all? Are they upper class?
What if you could actually stop working but choose to continue to work (for a better standard of living or just your own sanity).
What if you don't work because your partner earns enough that you can walk the dogs / lunch with friends all day?
What if you only work 2 days a week, or whenever it suits you?

Odd for the Tories to attack the middle class

Not at all. Divide and conquer has been their unwritten motto for as long as I remember, reflected in our many Tory tabloids. At least since Blair some two decades ago Labour (and LibDeM) have been increasingly identified as ‘middle class’, the ‘othering’ of whom has been successful/instrumental in the campaign for Brexit/Johnson. They just changed the labels. Identify the ‘enemy’

The piper plays the tune and the dance goes on.

This is an illuminating piece, taken as parcel with the comments below it:

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2018/01/16/we-dont-exist-to-them-do-we-why-working-class-people-voted-for-brexit/

stumpyjon

Bobbins, there’s a world of difference between a management role where you have to think on your feet, take responsibility for your performance, your teams performance and often things out of your control and the traditionally working class roles, trades, machine operator, warehouse work etc. where you are only responsible for your own performance. Something a lot of working class people will never get to experience or understand, partly because their mindset won’t allow them to progress into these roles. Still, lot of rubbish management out there as well.

I really hope that was being ironic. If not you’re an idiot. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve read on here for a long time. If you replaced working class in that paragraph with gay, women, or black you’d probably be facing a ban.

This needs relevant context.

Road/Crit racing = working class
Time Trial = working class
Track (outdoor) = working class
XC = working class
Track (indoor) = middle class
Sportive = middle class
Enduro = middle class
BMX = working class
Gravel = middle class
Audax = working class
Downhill = working class
Bikepacking = middle class
Touring = working class
Triathlon = middle class
Cyclocross = working class

And the forgotten MTB Trials riders?
...

Who says bobbins anyway, when there's words like bollocks readily available?

And how many of your peers did that?

Quite a few of my friends from junior school went onto grammar school then university, etc.

@2tyred

You forgot one:

Bicycle as primary transport/utility?

Crank class or virtue-signalling ‘woke’ upper-middle class?

(In truth - I hate this ****ing stupid British game!)

Road/Crit racing = working class
Time Trial = working class
Track (outdoor) = working class
XC = working class
Track (indoor) = middle class
Sportive = middle class
Enduro = middle class
BMX = working class
Gravel = middle class
Audax = working class
Downhill = working class
Bikepacking = middle class
Touring = working class
Triathlon = middle class
Cyclocross = working class

allowing some of your grounds to be used for a race once a year = upper class

It's a strange one. I grew up in a proper shit hole council estate, surrounded by drugs and crime. My parents divorced when I was 7, dad was a painter and decorator, then joiner, mum was on the dole. And I left school with no qualifications what so ever.

I now work (4 days a week) in civil Engineering, own 2 houses, 2 cars and (usually) have at least 2 foreign holidays a year one of which is skiing. 4 bikes though, priorities and all that!

I'm kind of embarrassed by now being middle class but also proud that I 'made it out of the ghetto'....so to speak. But I still have that feeling that I'll never amount to anything which holds me back no end. I just hope my kids have a better take on it all and go for it a bit more.

I know my place

Quite a few of my friends from junior school went onto grammar school then university, etc.

Ok so out of a school of however many hundred...? Clearly your friends are a self selecting group no?

You lack the inherent nobility of the working man

It me.

Effectively the middle class being “othered”.

You’ve obviously never studied political philosophy or sociology with a bunch of middle-class kids sitting around with a middle-class professor with trendy facial hair denouncing the false consciousness of the bourgeoisie and expounding on their working class consciousness. It doesn’t matter that they never did a day’s actual work in their lives

I grew up among ‘inverted-snob’ (still just snobbery) working class yet was quite affable around anyone I met regardless of their social standing (maybe I’m an ‘idiot class’) so have seen a few stereotypes in my time. If it was the ‘working class’ being ‘othered’ would you choose your worst and most cartoonish anecdote/experience with the ‘working class’ to ‘explain’ why they were being ‘othered’?

I hate threads like this because I have to put ‘quote marks’ all of the time.

I do personally dislike labelling people. It’s a bugbear since I can remember. I’ve noticed myself do it more since the internets.

Grew up around working class yet was quite affable around anyone I met regardless of their social standing (maybe I’m an ‘idiot class’)

This is how I feel. "Idiot Class" is how I'm going to self-identify now, cheers 🙂

Ok so out of a school of however many hundred…?

I'd estimate that out of the 700 odd kids at my high school, when I was there in the 80's, in a poverty stricken post industrial shitehole of a steel town that maybe 10% of the kids ended up dead or in jail, 20% ended up long term unemployed, 40% went on to have normal "working class" type jobs and 30% went on to University or into professional "middle class" type careers.

Keep it in the cupboard with the teabags?….You’re working class.

Keep it in the fridge as per the instructions on the bottle?….You’re middle class.

No idea where cook keeps the chutneys and preserves?…. You’re upper class.

**** off! I'm not working class.

You just don't think you are. The Tommy K doesn't lie.