Democracy

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-90
Author(s):  
Charles Devellennes
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
The Political ◽  
French Society ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Political Body ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Peasant Revolt ◽  
Important Notion

This chapter deals with democracy and Rousseau's participative polity. The demands of positive freedom are also those of the political body, constituted of citizens, to organize itself. The chapter explores this ever-important notion. No freedom can be complete without a fully democratized state — and this includes the subjection of the economy to public rule. The national dimension of the movement is clearly established. Although it is largely working class, it has involved many other segments of society and can best be described as a movement of the small-middle stratum of citizens — either lower-middle class or upper-working class — what is described as 'the small-mean class'. It has been foreshadowed by police tactics against the banlieues; it has involved the most modest parts of French society directly, who have largely contributed to the movement, the middle classes, who have been commenting on it and trying to portray it as a jacquerie, or peasant revolt, and the upper classes, who have seen their iconic boulevards closed off and vandalized.

scholarly journals "So oft to the movies they've been": British fan writing and female audiences in the silent cinema

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Rose Stead
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Silent Cinema ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Silent Era

This article aims to address the ways in which working-class and lower-middle-class British women used silent-era fan magazines as a space for articulating their role within the development of a female film culture. The article focuses on letter pages that formed a key site for female contribution to British fan magazines across the silent era. In contributing to these pages, women found a space to debate and discuss the appeal and significance of particular female representations within film culture. Using detailed archival research tracing the content of a specific magazine, Picturegoer, across a 15-year period (1913–28), the article will show the dominance of particular types of female representation in both fan and "official" magazine discourses, analyzing the ways in which British women used these images to work through national tensions regarding modern femininity and traditional ideas of female propriety and restraint.

‘An intensive study of – feet!’ in two films by Lois Weber: Shoes and The Blot

2021 ◽  
pp. 38-48
Author(s):  
Pamela Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
Intensive Study ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Moral Compromise ◽  
The Relationship

In Shoes (1916), Lois Weber re-examines the relationship between shoes and social mobility. Far from guiding the working-class protagonist’s progress, a pair of worn boots trap her into a moral compromise, which destroys her hope of future advancement, either romantically or socially. Weber’s investigation into wage inequality, the rights of women and the influence of consumer culture via footwear continues in The Blot (1921), which revisits the same plot in a lower middle-class milieu and expands on the theme. Here, shoes are again a danger to women, but also an indicator of genteel distress and a cheap, impractical commodity, good only for profiteering rather than practicality.

Problems of Social Stratification and the Demarcation of National and Local Elites in British Ceylon

1974 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 549-577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Middle Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
Local Elite

Political developments in Ceylon during the 1950's drew attention to the forward thrust of a social formation in the Sinhala districts which has been described variously as “the rural middle classes,” “the lower middle-class traditionalists,” a “new village leadership” and so on. The political antecedents of this “group” were not traced beyond the 1930's, though several writers recognized that it was part of a social category which existed in British times. In recent articles it has been argued that the political activities of individuals drawn from this social category date back to the late nineteenth century. Be that as it may, it is obviously of value to clarify the lines of differentiation between this middle-level social category and the indigenous elite placed hierarchically above them. The former can be described as a “sub-elite,” a “subordinate elite,” an “intermediate elite,” or a “local elite.” The latter can be described as a “macro-elite,” a “central elite” or a “national elite.” Though convenience dictates the choice of one of these combinations, a reference to the alternatives is necessary because each captures a facet which the other labels do not convey.

Local accents in England and Wales

1970 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Standard English ◽  
Linguistic Variables ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Urban Forms ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Received Pronunciation ◽  
Urban Working

1. Dialectologists in England have concentrated on the speech of small and relatively isolated rural communities (see, for example, Orton and Dieth, 1962: Introduction, 14). Other linguists and phoneticians concerned with the English of England have almost without exception described Standard English and the form of pronunciation they call, using an established but less than happy term, ‘Received Pronunciation’ (Jones, 1967:xvii). Yet the English of most English (and English-speaking Welsh) people is neither RP Standard English nor a rural dialect. The vast mass of urban working-class and lower-middle-class speakers use a pronunciation nearer to RP, and lexical and grammatical forms much nearer to Standard English, than the archaic rural dialects recorded by the dialectologists. Yet their speech diverges in many ways from what is described as standard. The purpose of this article, which must be regarded as preliminary and tentative, is to sketch the principal phonetic variables among such local, mainly urban, forms of English.1 It is the task of anyone concerned with the description of these ‘accents’ of English to investigate whatever phonetic variables can be identified and to establish their correlation with the non-linguistic variables of age, social standing and education, and geographical provenance. (For discussion of some of the problems of urban dialectology, see particularly Wright, 1966.)

“The Whirl of Life” The Social Structure

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Robert Reed
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
The Social

This chapter explores the intricacies of the first discernible class structure that conformed to normative standards of socioeconomic status in Chicago's history. Black Chicago developed a very small but distinguishable upper class, large segments within the broad middle classes, enormous laboring classes including industrial and service sector workers, and an underclass. The members of the upper class owned and managed businesses, chose housing commensurate with their status, consumed their disposable income with conspicuous delight, engaged in civic activities, and socially acted as a group apart from other segments of their racial cohort to which they traditionally held their primary social allegiance. The middle class focused on occupation, wealth production, educational attainment, cultural interests, and character. The working-class, however, formed the bulk of black Chicago's citizenry.

New measures may not appease violent protests in Chile

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Economic Model ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Business Elite ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government

Subject Continuing violent protests. Significance The wave of demonstrations and violence that has rocked Santiago and most other Chilean cities over the past few days, shocking Chileans themselves, is essentially a protest against the “1%”, in other words the political and business elite. However, this does not mean, at least for now, that Chileans want a radical change in the predominantly neoliberal economic model, but rather a fairer share of its proceeds and opportunities. Impacts Repair of some sections of the Metro could take months, to the detriment of mostly lower-middle-class neighbourhoods of Santiago. The disruption of activity will pull down growth this year, which was already expected to drop to around 2.5% from 4.0% in 2018. Growing reports of police and army brutality and violations of the law are further polarising the situation. For the rest of its term the government will be at the mercy of events and will have to negotiate agreements with the opposition.

The Unspeakable Events at the Glasgow Music Halls, 1875

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (43) ◽  
pp. 225-229
Author(s):  
Dagmar Kift
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
History Of ◽  
German Edition ◽  
Music Hall ◽  
National Perspective

The history of the music hall has for the most part been written as the history of the London halls. In Dagmar Kift's book, The Victorian Music Hall and Working-Class Culture (the German edition of which was reviewed in NTQ 35, and which is due to appear in English from Cambridge University Press), she attempts to redress the balance by setting music-hall history within a national perspective. Arguing that between the 1840s and the 1890s the halls catered to a predominantly working-class and lower middle-class audience of both sexes and all ages, she views them as instrumental in giving these classes a strong and self-confident identity. The sustaining by the halls of such a distinct class-awareness was one of their greatest strengths – but was also at the root of many of the controversies which surrounded them. The music-hall image of the working class – with its sexual and alcohol-oriented hedonism, its ridicule of marriage, and its acceptance of women and young people as partners in work as in leisure – was in marked contrast to most so-called Victorian values. The following case study from Glasgow documents the shift of music-hall opposition in the 1870s away from teetotallers of all classes attacking alcohol consumption towards middle-class social reformers objecting to the entertainment itself. Dagmar Kift, who earlier published an essay on the composition of music-hall audiences in Music Hall: the Business of Pleasure (Open University Press), is curator of the Westphalian Industrial Museum in Dortmund.

scholarly journals Middle Class Rebellion through the Main Characters in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 214
Author(s):  
Ali Muhammad ◽  
Andhika Pratiwi ◽  
Ria Herwandar
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Middle Classes ◽  
Chuck Palahniuk ◽  
Fight Club

<p><em>Abstract - </em><strong>This research entitled “Middle Class Rebellion through the Main Characters in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club” analyses the portrayal of the Middle Classes which is depicted through the main characters. These characters are undertaking a Rebellion towards the system of Capitalism that is depicted in the novel Fight Club. The theory used in this research is the theory of the intrinsic element of Characterization by M.H. Abrams and the theory Capitalism by Karl Marx which includes the theory of Alienation and the Struggle of Social Classes. This research focuses on the portrayal of how Middle Classes undertake their Rebellion which is depicted through the main characters in the novel Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. This research has found that the two main characters are a depiction of the Middle Class and the Working Class. They rebel against Capitalism by doing small acts of vandalism which escalates into blackmail. The findings are that the real characteristics of modern society of the middle class can be seen  such as consumerism, restless life towards insomnia and workers who identify themselves as not workers.</strong></p><p><strong><em>Keywords - </em></strong><em>Middle Class, Rebellion, Social Class, Marxism, Capitalism</em></p>

Furniture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Scott
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Consumer Credit ◽  
Consumer Durables ◽  
Advertising Campaign ◽  
Lower Middle Class ◽  
National Advertising ◽  
Early Success ◽  
Consumer Durable ◽  
Middle Class Families

New furniture was the first consumer durable to be successfully diffused to a mass (middle- and working-class) market in Britain. This chapter charts how a small number of furniture retailers pioneered many of the techniques used to create British mass markets for consumer durables. The key innovator was Benjamin Drage, who devised a successful formula to sell suites of new furniture, and the consumer credit used to purchase them, to ‘Mr Everyman’, using a revolutionary national advertising campaign. Drage’s spectacular early success is shown to have inspired emulation and adaption not just by furniture retailers, but by suppliers of other consumer durables. This chapter shows how furniture retailers managed to convince millions of working-and lower-middle-class families that buying their furniture new and furnishing out of income was not only practicable but constituted the cornerstone of modern aspirational lifestyles.

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