I have just taken two very long train journeys, one to Devon and one to Edinburgh, and it has given me an unprecedented chance to listen in to middle class conversations with their children.
It has convinced me that I was right in my book Broke: Who Killed the Middle Classes? I suggested that – far from the heady days of Mr Curry and Hyacinth Bucket, and the curtain-twitching disapproval of suburban life – the middle classes have been the driving force behind the unprecedented tolerance of UK society.
I know this isn’t a popular point of view, but as I listen to a crash just up the aisle from me, and an obviously middle class father saying: “Oh really, darling; you are not being helpful” – when she was being quite the opposite of helpful – I realise it is in fact the case.
No more are they the disapproving snobs of English life. The middle classes have actually presided over a period of unprecedented tolerance in society, embracing a community that – despite the difficulties – is more and more diverse and multiracial, more and more tolerant of the peculiar way that people live, if they are not harming anyone else.
And if this wasn’t led by the middle classes, who was it led by?
That is one major reason why we need the middle classes. More of this in my book.
But I have also wondered whether things have gone too far, especially among what you might call the public sector middle classes.
My youngest comes home from school these days, informing me in a very serious and concerned voice that “Jason didn’t make the right choices today”. Clearly, behaviour is now described in terms of ‘choices’ these days. I’m not sure it means much.
And when I hear another mother on the train to Scotland telling her children off because they are “behaving inappropriately”, I must admit I cringe at the new mind-control which appears to be descending on the middle classes at the same time as this tolerance.
I’m not sure that 'appropriateness' is a concept that will foster tolerance at all. It seems more like the old curtain-twitching conformity to me.
I may be defending the middle classes these days, but I am still enough of a bohemian to want to behave ‘inappropriately’ if I possibly can.
Who wants to have on their tombstone – ‘He behaved appropriately’? Not me.
It has convinced me that I was right in my book Broke: Who Killed the Middle Classes? I suggested that – far from the heady days of Mr Curry and Hyacinth Bucket, and the curtain-twitching disapproval of suburban life – the middle classes have been the driving force behind the unprecedented tolerance of UK society.
I know this isn’t a popular point of view, but as I listen to a crash just up the aisle from me, and an obviously middle class father saying: “Oh really, darling; you are not being helpful” – when she was being quite the opposite of helpful – I realise it is in fact the case.
No more are they the disapproving snobs of English life. The middle classes have actually presided over a period of unprecedented tolerance in society, embracing a community that – despite the difficulties – is more and more diverse and multiracial, more and more tolerant of the peculiar way that people live, if they are not harming anyone else.
And if this wasn’t led by the middle classes, who was it led by?
That is one major reason why we need the middle classes. More of this in my book.
But I have also wondered whether things have gone too far, especially among what you might call the public sector middle classes.
My youngest comes home from school these days, informing me in a very serious and concerned voice that “Jason didn’t make the right choices today”. Clearly, behaviour is now described in terms of ‘choices’ these days. I’m not sure it means much.
And when I hear another mother on the train to Scotland telling her children off because they are “behaving inappropriately”, I must admit I cringe at the new mind-control which appears to be descending on the middle classes at the same time as this tolerance.
I’m not sure that 'appropriateness' is a concept that will foster tolerance at all. It seems more like the old curtain-twitching conformity to me.
I may be defending the middle classes these days, but I am still enough of a bohemian to want to behave ‘inappropriately’ if I possibly can.
Who wants to have on their tombstone – ‘He behaved appropriately’? Not me.