Allan´s Weblog

I was brought up in the working class. Blue collar.
In my home, you should demand your right from society only if you had done your duty. You were, of course, member of the union where you worked. In all my parents did, they emphasized the importance of giving better social opportunities to their children than they had themselves. This was, in their view, all about money. Own your home, dress nicely, get a nice car, eat well - and most important of all, work hard enough to not only take care of yourself, but also provide for those in society with worse opportunities than yourself.

When I went to high-school, I met people with different ideals in life. These where upper-class folks. White collar.
I had this girlfriend, Anne, whos father was a chief physician at the University Hospital here in Aarhus. When I was first introduced to her family, I was invited to dine with them. And already before dinner actually started, I made a fatal blunder. I thought it would be appropriate to say something nice - and I did as I could best. I looked at the saucers made from Royal Danish China and said: "Oh, such beautiful things - they must have been expensive". There was a short silence - long enough to make me feel real uncomfortable, though - and then everybody talked about other things. What I learned was, that in homes where there´s always been enough money around, money is somehow taboo - at least in conversations.

Today social classes are not about money anymore - neither in the low classes, nor in the upper classes. Even though almost everybody has stopped talking about social classes in Denmark today, I will insist on using the terms. I think classes still exist - they´re just not about money.
It may be that the class-theory originally formulated by Karl Marx has disappeared from our self-understanding. That just doesn´t mean that it´s stopped being relevant for the way we live our lives. It´s time to re-evaluate the term and think of it as being depended of capital of knowledge. When talking about politics, the people of the upper-classes agree that politics are all about the good arguments. You need to know a lot about what you´re talking about. The upper-classes define themselves as naturally political active. It´s a common understanding - everybody agrees with that.
In the lower classes, however, it´s a common feeling that politics is hard to relate to. There are basic skills involved that most feel they do not possess. But they all agree, that there´s nothing class-related to it. They just think - each for himself - that they are not interested. Simple as that! In my experience this attitude results in a sort of self-exclusion from the public life. In that way, many blue collar workers agree with our right wing government when it states, that this is not a society of classes - this is a society of individuals.

But there are facts which are hard to avoid. I would like to point out that Denmark is one of the countries in Europe with the lowest rate of social mobility. But the fact that we talk about social mobility suggests that there are classes to move around in. But mobility is about education - and that´s considered independent of personal finances. Everybody in Denmark can afford to take a higher education. But my point is, that the money is beside the point. Therefore I think that we need to stop looking at social classes as something related to economics. The French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu talks about what he calls cultural capital. The amount of cultural capital is probably way more important for your possibilities to move upwards socially than the money-issue.

This is also about the millieu in which you´ve grown up. And about the fact that we´re not used to look at which sociological mechanisms are important for the social mobility. Basically there are equal possibilities for education in Denmark - but what´s more important when you actually choose your way of life, is that some kids in primary school don´t have the ressources others have. Not every one will be able to go home and receive help doing their homework. In some homes reading is simply not a common activity. The "new" classes are self-excluding. We live in ghettoes. Risskov, where I live, is just as much a ghetto as any immigrant neighborhood in other parts of the city. Risskov is just a middle class ghetto - but that doesn´t make things better, does it?

If we start looking at the political life in Denmark today, we´ll find strange paradoxes. The "classic" socialist left-wing is actually in my understanding on the wrong side in the clash of classes. The left wing in Denmark are mostly higher educated people. And the political ideals are based on reason, knowledge and analysis - ressources that many people from the lower classes do not possess.

I think that it shouldn´t be an implication in the educational system that everybody comes from homes filled with books. In higher education you might benefit socially from moving away from the classic, excluding academic tradition and instead try new methods, inviting "outsiders" to participate on alternative terms. That way all social classes can be taken seriously. As things are right now, the less skilled are somebody you´re expected to take care of when the damage is done. No profylactic thinking here!

The question is, whether you should talk about some people unsuited for the educational system, or you should talk about an educational system unsuited for some people.