On the difficulties of correctly fine-tuning your signaling:
I once expressed mild surprise at the presence of a garden gnome in an upper-middle-class garden …. The owner of the garden explained that the gnome was “ironic”. I asked him, with apologies for my ignorance, how one could tell that his garden gnome was supposed to be an ironic statement, as opposed to, you know, just a gnome. He rather sniffily replied that I only had to look at the rest of the garden for it to be obvious that the gnome was a tounge-in-cheek joke.
But surely, I persisted, garden gnomes are always something of a joke, in any garden—I mean, no-one actually takes them seriously or regards them as works of art. His response was rather rambling and confused (not to mention somewhat huffy), but the gist seemed to be that while the lower classes saw gnomes as intrinsically amusing, his gnome was amusing only because of its incongruous appearance in a “smart” garden. In other words, council-house gnomes were a joke, but his gnome was a joke about council-house tastes, effectively a joke about class….
The man’s reaction to my questions clearly defined him as upper-middle, rather than upper class. In fact, his pointing out that the gnome I had noticed was “ironic” had already demoted him by half a class from my original assessment. A genuine member of the upper classes would either have admitted to a passion for garden gnomes … or said something like “Ah yes, my gnome. I’m very fond of my gnome.” and left me to draw my own conclusions.
Yes, many of those words and their role as class shibboleths are discussed in Fox’s book as well. IIRC, according to her in some cases there are three levels; either three different words for one thing used in lower, middle and upper classes, or (matching the counter-signaling in the gnome story) the same word being used in the lowermost and the uppermost classes.
Familiar—but a little bit of both. It’s a commonplace
that English/British society is classful in a way that
American society is not. That may well be true (I’m not
qualified to judge), but America definitely has its own
class distinctions. I would have trouble, though, putting
them on a “lower, middle, upper-middle, upper”-type scale.
On the other hand, I guess the story struck me mainly as an
example of someone
using irony as a personality
statement,
which can be done without reference to class. Just today
when I was at the store I was idly playing with the idea of
buying a
Hello
Kitty
iPhone cover. (I am a 38-year-old male.)
Edit: I can’t think of an American analog of the garden
gnome (we have them over here, but if they’re as fraught as
they are over the pond it’s gone over my head), but when I
try to think of a home-and-garden decoration that I would
only display for irony (or maybe if a dear friend gave it to
me), I think of a Thomas Kinkade
painting.
The degree of class issues isn’t as conscious in the US (although by many metrics there’s actually less class mobility in the US) but it still comes across as both funny and insightful.
For a historical perspective, take a look at John C. Calhoun’s statements on the need for racial hierarchy precisely to avoid the rise of class divisions among white Americans.
Maybe the story should be captioned “on the ease of fine-tuned signaling”? After all, the gnome-owner very effectively did communicate his class. On the other hand, deceiving people about your class is hard. But it’s hard partly because there are so many way for people to send credible signals, so an absence of signaling becomes evidence on its own.
Hmm, what I had in mind when I wrote the caption was something like this:
The man’s social model had three classes: lower class (owns gnomes non-ironically), middle class (would never own a gnome), upper class (can own a gnome “ironically” as a joke on low-class tastes), and he aimed for signalling upper-class status. He failed at fine-tuned signalling because he did not realize that his “upper class” behavior is actually upper-middle; true upper classes are allowed to own gnomes and genuinely like them, and don’t need to defensively plead irony because they have no lingering anxiety about being confused with lower classes.
But how do we know that he aimed at signalling upper-class membership?
The alternative I’m proposing is that middle-class people will not try to deceive others about their social position (because that would never work in the long run), but they are adopting lots of signalling about their true position, in order to not get mistakenly perceived as being lower than their true position during short encounters.
I think this is consistent with common folk-wisdom about classes. I have often heard claimed that the primary concern of the lower-middle class is to distinguish themselves from working class. I have never heard it claimed that their primary concern is to pass as middle-middle class.
On the difficulties of correctly fine-tuning your signaling:
Kate Fox, Watching the English (quoted here).
Perhaps he’s ultra-high-class, and is only defending the object-level irony of his garden gnome ironically.
Oh I am so getting my own gnome, just so that I can use that phrase on people.
And on the same theme, “Why Can’t Anyone Tell I’m Wearing This Business Suit Ironically?” from The Onion.
I upvoted this half because I laughed and half because I now want a gnome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English
Amusing illustration through a 1950s sociolinguistic study.
(Damn, I swear there was a far longer discussion on signaling and countersignaling around here, can’t find it.)
Yes, many of those words and their role as class shibboleths are discussed in Fox’s book as well. IIRC, according to her in some cases there are three levels; either three different words for one thing used in lower, middle and upper classes, or (matching the counter-signaling in the gnome story) the same word being used in the lowermost and the uppermost classes.
Out of interest, how does this read from a non-uk perspective?
I’m American and I thought it was quite funny.
Funny in abstract or funny as in hauntingly familiar? ;)
Familiar—but a little bit of both. It’s a commonplace that English/British society is classful in a way that American society is not. That may well be true (I’m not qualified to judge), but America definitely has its own class distinctions. I would have trouble, though, putting them on a “lower, middle, upper-middle, upper”-type scale.
On the other hand, I guess the story struck me mainly as an example of someone using irony as a personality statement, which can be done without reference to class. Just today when I was at the store I was idly playing with the idea of buying a Hello Kitty iPhone cover. (I am a 38-year-old male.)
Edit: I can’t think of an American analog of the garden gnome (we have them over here, but if they’re as fraught as they are over the pond it’s gone over my head), but when I try to think of a home-and-garden decoration that I would only display for irony (or maybe if a dear friend gave it to me), I think of a Thomas Kinkade painting.
The degree of class issues isn’t as conscious in the US (although by many metrics there’s actually less class mobility in the US) but it still comes across as both funny and insightful.
Someone, (whose identity I can’t recall, some commentator or comedian) said that the British have class in the same way Americans have race.
Not sure how true that is, but a middle class Indian person probably has more in common with a middle class white person in the UK.
For a historical perspective, take a look at John C. Calhoun’s statements on the need for racial hierarchy precisely to avoid the rise of class divisions among white Americans.
Maybe the story should be captioned “on the ease of fine-tuned signaling”? After all, the gnome-owner very effectively did communicate his class. On the other hand, deceiving people about your class is hard. But it’s hard partly because there are so many way for people to send credible signals, so an absence of signaling becomes evidence on its own.
Hmm, what I had in mind when I wrote the caption was something like this:
The man’s social model had three classes: lower class (owns gnomes non-ironically), middle class (would never own a gnome), upper class (can own a gnome “ironically” as a joke on low-class tastes), and he aimed for signalling upper-class status. He failed at fine-tuned signalling because he did not realize that his “upper class” behavior is actually upper-middle; true upper classes are allowed to own gnomes and genuinely like them, and don’t need to defensively plead irony because they have no lingering anxiety about being confused with lower classes.
But how do we know that he aimed at signalling upper-class membership?
The alternative I’m proposing is that middle-class people will not try to deceive others about their social position (because that would never work in the long run), but they are adopting lots of signalling about their true position, in order to not get mistakenly perceived as being lower than their true position during short encounters.
I think this is consistent with common folk-wisdom about classes. I have often heard claimed that the primary concern of the lower-middle class is to distinguish themselves from working class. I have never heard it claimed that their primary concern is to pass as middle-middle class.