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We run into this ‘issue’ so often in a covert way we thought we would make it overt and write under the title of “Class” to try to help all of us distinguish between quirks, ways of being, personality…..and class. This will be a serial because we think too much of ‘class’ information can give us indigestion – a little at a time is better.
First let’s make a difference between ‘class’ and ‘elegance’. Elegance is an aesthetic and way of living that crosses all classes, races, ethnicities, financial standing, whether we are male or female, etc.
Class is a definite way of being because of our family, finances, history, country of origin and more AND has a very long history in this world.
Don’t take any of this personally. It is being laid out generally so we and our children can either read it and weep; read it and have a hilarious good time in the process; or take it seriously and self-evaluate – how do we make decisions about the concrete world around us and our way of being in it – spending money, making vocation choices, clothes choices, what we eat, where we go….based on choices other than class. It is no accident that there are crowded spots in the world where we all try to move in and exquisite spots that no one even thinks about visiting or living.
Bettina Network, inc. puts an emphasis on ‘elegance’ – class be damned! But we have had a few questions, comments and great breakfast conversations around this issue, so lets clarify all of this:
Estate Sales are a great place to observe and understand class. They are phenomenal educational tool. Want to understand class better? Go to as many estate sales as you can. Look around the houses. See how the family lives. Understand their taste in furnishings, etc. That tells all – as far as Class goes. You can look around a fairly poverty stricken home and understand quickly that poverty is first generation or long standing. Either the generation prior to the one that has fallen on hard times was from an upper class or the current generation is one of the fallen warriors.
Particularly, it becomes clear if the family is of substantial means. Class screams at you when you enter the front door. For starters lets look at what we will call Third Class English-style class. The house is full of new – expensive – and generally bad taste furnishings. Very little is ‘real’ – wood-like items are not really wood, glass-like is not really glass and on and on. All of the things that the current marketing and advertising people have been selling as “upper class” are present and shows a Wannabe Family or one that is what we used to call Nouveau – very Nouveau.
Many things will be missing – particularly items from the previous generation. This Nouveau/Wannabe generation has sold all of the furnishings, clothes, trappings from their family – as those family members died – and they generally looked down their noses at the items left to them by a generation or more of family. Just about everything in the house will be NEW – VERY EXPENSIVE – in fact, outrageously so – and any antiques will be reproductions, probably from Korea or China.
You won’t find pictures of past generations of family – those were thrown out. You won’t find files of papers with information about past generations, which cultural and other historians would love to get their hands on – those have also been tossed as worthless. The value in this house is on the artifacts and preferably from the top stores in pristine condition.
That is generally, a group of people who came from a lower class family and have lots of shame about their beginnings. Wipe the slate clean and maybe no one will notice or even talk or ask about their family, their childhood, their upbringing, their values. – all of which are copied and adopted from the marketing/advertising media as great style/design that you need to be that person in the pictures.
This group is trying hard to climb that ladder – or several ladders at the same time. Consequently, they have no time or patience for those on the bottom – who might, actually, in many cases be above them class-wise.
Those homes are generally filthy. They look pristine upon entering, but they are mostly the ones which support the huge industrial complex of products which make you sick over a long period of time because of the off-gases from the cleaning products used, and the chemical ingredients in the other products used.
We should add, that what we are describing is the English class system, not the French. That is a whole other story for another article. Let’s call this Third Class English as our discussion progresses on Class. And lets expand this class discussion from America to American plus the rest of the world.
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Tags: bed & breakfast, Bettina Homes, breakfast table talk, Class in America, estate sale, furniture
