kitten

We should always be proud of who we are. Whether it is gay, deaf, British, etc. Having a separate culture (gay, deaf, French, etc.) can help us feel pride and give us an important sense of belonging. However, being deaf and being gay are very different. While being deaf isn't something to be ashamed of it is a disability. Being gay is not a disability - you can do anything straight people do, even have children. Any disadvantages to being gay are the caused by society. The disadavantages of being deaf (e.g. lack of music, can't hear when predators are stalking you, more limited communication, etc.) are built into the condition. Therefore I can understand why both gay people and deaf people would be proud. I can understand why people might prefer to be gay (I do). However, I can't understand why anyone would rather be deaf (disabled). And I totally condemn the deaf couple who were on TV here recently who wanted to use IVF to select an embryo which would provide them with a deaf child. Kit

Sometimes a little melancholy is fine (helps you appreciate sad music!) as long as it's not actually depression. If I want to cheer up I play with my monkey. He's so full of happiness and life. Also he tires me out playing chase-games etc, so I don't have time to think about sad things. Kit

This is getting scary-creepy... Almost every time I read a post by Graeme it seems he's saying exactly what I want to say. Is he reading my mind? Is he my antipodean alter-ego? Anyway, yet again I find myself able to add only... Me too! Kit

Hi Celia! Only 92 of the 745 members of the House of Lords are heriditary peers. So the heritary peers can't be said to have much power as a 'class' there. All the rest are life peers, political appointees whose peerage is not heriditary. Life peers are appointed from all walks of life - doctors, lawyers, former politicians, retired civil servants etc. Some of them may have had working class origins. So I don't know if that qualifies them as a 'class'. Also, the powers of the House of Lords are very restricted e.g. they can at best only temporarily delay any Bill that originated in the Commons. Regardless of their lack of power (or, in fact because of it!) I personally think we should have an elected upper house like most (all??) other democracies. (But that's totally OT for this thread!). As you say, however, 'class' is now a very fluid term. Is a multi-millionaire businessman born from working class parents still working class? If so then the working class has more power than the average aristocrat. Perhaps the working class millionaire will try to prove his credential by showing behaviours commonly associated with the working class, e.g. dipping his cookies in his tea! On the other hand, that association may be inaccurate because many working class may deliberately avoid such behaviour because they don't want to be seen as working class. Then, of course you've got the inverse-snobbery whereby the the working class, especially those who become rich and successful, are inordinately proud of their origins and take every opportunity to decry those they perceive as upper or middle class. As far as class matters, it seems to me nowadays that it is related more to occupation and wealth. A university professor is 'higher class' than a barman even if the professor's parents were unskilled workers and the barman's parents were senior civil servants. Class seems to be very fluid and mobilty is relatively easy. A hundred years or more ago it may have been that a poor aristocrat would have more prestige and power thana a rich businessman, but I think that now the most important stratification now in the UK is related to money. To relate this back to the original topic... The sort of education one can get is much more related to family wealth than anything else. To what extent that wealth is related to class is debatable. Kit

When discussing class-based society in the UK in the past I've often found that people have had distorted ideas or made wrong assumptions. Now, neither of the above quotes are factually wrong and of course I've no idea what assumptions lie behind them. However, there is much left unsaid in the quotes, so just in case anyone reading them makes the wrong assumptions, I'd like to address some points. Class distinctions are not confined to the UK and nowadays they are not much different in the UK from anywhere else in the capitalist world. Pretty well all human societies have class systems. Class distinctions have existed throughout the whole of human history. I'm sure that everyone knows about the caste system that has lasted in India for thousands of years. Even the ancient Greek 'inventors of democracy' had class distinctions. (Nobles, citizens, women, non-citizens). Human beings tend to produce stratified societies even when they deliberately set out to remove class distinctions. So, in the USA the stratification can be based on money. Poor, average, rich, very rich, etc. The top class being the 'old-rich' families (e.g. the Kennedys) in which money and power have been concentrated and passed down for generations. In Russia before the revolution the main class distinction was between aristocrat and peasant. After the revolution the distinction was between Communist Party members and non-members. Now it seems that a money-based class system similar to that in the USA is evolving. In England (before the UK existed) the distinction used to be be quite complex - different levels of aristocracy (duke, earl, baron, knight, etc.) and even different levels of peasantry. To make things even more complicated there was the church and its hierarchy which for a long time had a lot of political influence. Although the highest posts in the English church were usually reserved for aristocracy it was possible for commoners who were very intelligent to reach even the highest posts. For example over 800 years ago Thomas Becket, born into the middle classes, became Archbishop of Canterbury and even challenged the powers of the king. For a long time in the UK it was pretty much the case that only the aristocracy held land. Then the middle classes got richer and bought land. So an additional class (non-aristocratic landowners) was added to the mix. At one time only landowners could vote so this distinction was important. However, to give some context, even after non-landowners got the vote Catholics and women could not vote even if they owned land. Nowadays in the UK we have a class system similar to that in the USA. Aristocratic titles are still there, but although they may provide some prestige they have no political power and they generate more amusement than respect. A rich commoner will have much more power and influence than a poor aristocrat. As regards the specific point in this thread: for a long time (centuries) now it has been money, not aristocratic status that has controlled the type and quality of education. Is this not very much the same as the USA? This is not just the ability to pay for private schools but also the ability to provide financial support when student loans can't cover everything. Now, where state schools have cachment areas, well-off people can actually afford to move house to be within the cachment area of a school with a better reputation. So, with few exceptions, class, as defined by money, has a great effect on education. To summarise, therefore: The statements quoted above, that education is class-based and that there is a class system in the UK are not untrue. However, by omitting the fact that the current class system is mainly money-based and so not unlike the USA and most other countries, those statements may be misleading. Kit

You give a good summary of the system. However, in the story one character goes to a sixth form college to retake A levels. Of course you couldn't know that without reading the story. Basically, two characters go to the same secondary school from age 11 to 18. One gets good A levels and goes to uni. The other does badly but doesn't want to stay on at the secondary school to retake the A levels the following year. Instead he goes to a sixth form college. For the benefit of Gary:- Many students here leave school at 16 and the rest stay on until they are 18. They can stay on in the same school for the extra 2 years but they can do the extra years at a sixth form college which only takes students after they have left the secondaray school. So a sixth form college is different from an ordinary college in that most students there are 16-18 years old. Students can transfer to the sixth form college either because their secondary school does not have facilities for teaching to A level or because for some reason they think they will do better away from their old secondary school. In the story Frank does badly in his A level exams and hopes to do better by doing an extra year at the sixth form college and then retaking the A level exams. Hope that helps! Kit

My opinion All generalisations are dangerous, and in the case of 'hypocrisy' they are especially dangerous, so each case needs to be treated individually. My judgment and degree of understanding or forgiveness would depend on the message, who is giving the message and the degree of hypocrisy. For one extreme hypothetical example - a politician with power over others has been trying to enact laws to make homosexual acts criminal. Then he is found to have been paying for sex with men for many years. Do we forgive and understand that he is just a flawed and imperfect human? The other hypothetical extreme - a priest who took a celibate lifestyle partly because he doesn't like being with kids exhorts his parishioners to be loving and caring of their children. He himself is nice to kids but can't bring himself to enjoy being with them. The message is good but he can't live up to it. Do we forgive him? Another forgivable 'hypocrisy' (if it counts as hypocris at all) might be a friend who tries but fails to give up his dependency on illegal drugs begs me not to experiment with such drugs. Again, you raise good questions and again I feel each case needs to be decided on individual merits. Personally I feel that in most cases secrecy is not always the same as dishonesty and I would look less favourably on dishonesty than I would on secrecy. Also, as you say, fear can be a strong mitigating factor. For example - a teacher in a very conservative state is very supportive of his gay students but, out of fear of the consequences, he continually and vehemently denies his own homosexuality. Is he a hypocrite? And if he is indeed a hypocrite, should we not forgive him? Kit

First of all, apologies if I mess up the quoting - I'm relatively new to using the GA forums and I'm still workinout how to use all the things it can do. I certainly don't underestimate children! They learn many difficult tasks in a short time - to talk, to walk, to recognise emotions in others, to fit in with social structures, etc. They can do this much more easily than adults because their brains are wired to do so. Part of their skill in learning such complex tasks is copying a parents behaviour long before they understand the words 'good' and 'bad'. Copying parents is common to many higher animals, especially primates. For our human and pre-human ancestors it was of great survival value - for example, by copying what the parents eat they are more likely to avoid poisonous foods. This hard-wired ability and tendency to copy preceeds and often over rides verbal understanding and ability to think logically. As for parents who smoke... Simple google searches will provide lots of evidence to show two important things: 1) that children of smokers are more likely to smoke; 2) that people exposed to 'passive smoking' suffer bad health effects. Therefore, in my opinion (and yes, I admit that I'm a very opinionated person!) for both those reasons it is irresponsible and reprehensible for parents to smoke in the presence of their children. This is not the same as alcohol because a small amount of alcohol is not as dangerous as a small amount of smoking. There is no such thing as a 'safe' amount of smoking. Also, there is no such thing as 'passive drinking'. Here in England it is illegal to smoke in the workplace because of the danger of passive smoking to colleagues. Yet, illogically in my view, it is perfectly legal to expose young children to these dangers in one's own home. Adult workmates, who could at least complain, are given more protection than babies who are totally at the mercy of parents. As for what are parents to do if they can't quit? Simple - don't smoke when the kids can see them. After all, they do other things (eg have sex, empty their bowels, etc) in private and away from their kids, so why not show a little consideration to their children and smoke in private and away from kids? That way, even if the kids are exposed to a bad influence (i.e. they know their parents are smoking privately) it will minimise their exposure to passive smoking. Kit

While I agree up to point, I think the problem lies in the fact that if the person doesn't 'practise what they preach' then how does someone (especially a child) know that the message they are giving is 'good' and valid? If you already know the their message is worthy then you don't need the hypocrite to tell you that. If you don't already know it's valid then why should you trust them when they say that it is? As regards parents who smoke telling their kids not to do so... Children learn by example long before they can understand the verbal messages that their parents give. By the time the kids can understand the words 'smoking is an unhealthy, dangerous activity' then they have already been observing their parents for years and thereby learning from them that it is an apparently acceptable activity. Perhaps the 'do as I say not as I do' attitude is okay for adults dealing with other adults but I believe it is NOT okay for parents with young children. The brains of young children are wired to learn by example long before they can learn from verbal messages. Kit

Regardless of the danger... Six years in a totally foreign land with totally alien culture, away from friends & family... That waaaayyyy too long. Maybe one or two years, but SIX!!??!! No way! Kit