Social Class (We aint got no stinking class)

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I like the term, “social stratification,” which, in the context of geology, suggests hardened layers, possibly unchangeable ones. I cannot imagine a lecturer asking a large group in that cavernous auditorium to respond to questions, but he had hopes, anyway. His definition of the British upper class as the rural landowning wealthy descended from a long ago initial mercantile class was a sharp contrast to the American rural, often ridiculed as redneck, sometimes supported as our “Heartland”, and contaminated by the Populist movements over the last hundred or so years.
American class consciousness came and went rather quickly. Social Democrats like FDR took their momentum and energy to rebuild our “broken society” eighty years ago. What fascinates is that it remains an open question about what determines class in our country. As the British developed into a democracy, the vote was established as the right of property owners. The writers of the American Constitution apparently had similar ideas. But they favored allowing the government to be run by an intelligent, caring Elite, who would also be responsive to their constituents (hence, our two house system, very much different from British Parliament). The satirical film clip made a point, though: the Elite see themselves as having privilege but also responsibility. Our American Elite I think develops from the notion of how old a family is -- new wealth compared to old wealth, how long a family has lived in America, how many generations have continuously been included in the Elite. That is our status -- my group of emigrants has been here longer than yours. We rose up by our bootstraps, yours are wastrels, welfare queens, illegals, etc. (Note: My Irish forebears were the original wetbacks -- they jumped ship in New York or Boston and swam ashore, fearing rejection).
Fascinating, too: Those British rejects (not just criminals and orphans, but also the not-first born sons of the wealthy who stood to inherit no land and little or nothing else) became the conquerors who created “new” cultures by destroying the old ones they found in the new land. Both Thomas Harriot, in A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, and John Smith’s A Description of New England, were pitch pieces written in the early 17th century, trying to sell adventurous Brits to come to the new land, invest what money they had, and get rich quick. Lacking nobility, the lecture continues, we invented an Elite, based on gender, income, property ownership, and a definite sense of upper class privilege and responsibility to the less fortunate. That the general public insists on voting for people who are “just like us” indicates the Populist distrust and fear of that Elite. So, like it or not, we deserved George Bush and we will equally deserve Sarah Palin or Glen Beck next time around.