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I hear Italy is an enlightened political paradise with ample job creation and flawless social structures. No wonder you are so enlightened to make these entirel

I hear Italy is an enlightened political paradise with ample job creation and flawless social structures. No wonder you are so enlightened to make these entirely rational remarks Can you list what interaction you've had with the "class system" in the UK? Is the media in your home country any different? What about the media is "corrupt"?

toyg 6y ago
I have kids and live in an area where the class divisions are pretty stark. Italy has many problems, but at least they don’t enforce classism (and religious separation, which inevitably becomes ethnic division too) from primary-school age. As for media, UK tabloids are beyond the pale. Nowhere on the continent I’ve ever seen a situation where most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate. The British upper classes make a joke of it (the “daily heil” etc), because they think it doesn’t really affect them - which is only true until it isn’t, and eventually you get a “brexit moment” when chickens come home to roost. In Italy, newspapers can be partisan or influenced by industrial interests like anywhere else, but tabloid-like hate-speech can only be found in a well-defined small minority of titles. You don’t have a Murdoch-like figure - Berlusconi had his moment and was dealt with like any other political figure. The revolving door between journalism and politics is much worse in the UK, because most people employed in both fields come effectively from the same few classes. You have journalist wives writing excuses for their politician husbands, and nobody bats an eyelid. Somebody like Boris Johnson is free to write lies for decades until he gets where he wants to get. UK tv is better, I’ll give you that, and the BBC is excellent at being the last bastion of decency in a depressing landscape.
- easytiger 6y ago
  > I have kids and live in an area where the class divisions are pretty stark How do you mean? I was asking for an illustration of the "class system" that you find oppressing to your person. > most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate. Well that's not true is it. > The British upper classes make a joke of it What might be considered Victorian upper class constitutes practically no one. If you don't like the media don't consume it. Honestly I do not understand this unhealthy fixation on class that you have and frankly reject your assertions regarding it. At a guess you are using it as a simplification to understand a landscape you can't fully understand without it.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    Class is still a big thing in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-p...
    - easytiger 6y ago
      I don't think you understand what class is. I'm familiar with the above story and it is beyond nonsense. A communal facility maintained and paid for by some people doesn't necessarily have to be made available to anyone else. If your back garden was in sight of someone living in social housing ought they be able to make use of your property?
      - rich_sasha 6y ago
        Something like 60% of people going to Oxbridge went to private schools, despite 93% attending state schools, and this is after decades of campaigns, outreach, and adjusting entry criteria by school type. And this is new, the fraction from state schools used to be more like 10-20% if that in living memory. That’s just one example of class.
      - DanBC 6y ago
        Most UK doctors and barristers went to fee-paying schools: https://www.businessinsider.com/most-uk-journalists-doctors-barristers-private-schools-2017-7?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/most-uk-journalists-doctors-...
  - toyg 6y ago
    Lol, if your best rebuttal is “no it isn’t, you idiot”, you risk making my point for me. The fact remains that UK tabloids are pretty shocking for anyone who was not grown inside the bubble. When even forums like Reddit consider links to Uk tabloids as “very low quality sources”, the situation is clearly dire. Deny it as much as you want, it’s still there for everyone else to see. But I understand that this sort of thing is difficult to accept, if it’s been normalized since birth, in the same way NorthKorean citizens find it normal to have a communist king or most Americans were really convinced Saddam had WMDs. Propaganda is really difficult to shake off, when it reaches a certain volume. As for the landscape of classism in the UK, tbh, it is not that hard to elaborate. Of course we are not talking in Victorian terms, modern classism has its own conventions. The facts are, still, that most top jobs go to graduates from top universities, whose alumni are drafted overwhelmingly from certain (expensive) schools, whose pupils are put “on rails” at the tender age of 4 by parents with deep pockets. See for example this source, but the situation is very well-known: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/oxford-university-cambridge-state-school-socially-inclusive-ethnicity-sunday-times-guide-david-lammy-a8551036.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/oxford-unive... Note that i’m not talking in absolutes, this is actually something that affects me: I know my kids will struggle to ever reach any pinnacle, if they stay here, simply because I cannot afford to put them through the “right” schools. This system has its upsides (the upper classes are really well-educated, as our classicist PM demonstrates) but it is undeniably a drag on social mobility: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48103017i https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48103017i

toyg 6y ago

I have kids and live in an area where the class divisions are pretty stark. Italy has many problems, but at least they don’t enforce classism (and religious separation, which inevitably becomes ethnic division too) from primary-school age. As for media, UK tabloids are beyond the pale. Nowhere on the continent I’ve ever seen a situation where most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate. The British upper classes make a joke of it (the “daily heil” etc), because they think it doesn’t really affect them - which is only true until it isn’t, and eventually you get a “brexit moment” when chickens come home to roost. In Italy, newspapers can be partisan or influenced by industrial interests like anywhere else, but tabloid-like hate-speech can only be found in a well-defined small minority of titles. You don’t have a Murdoch-like figure - Berlusconi had his moment and was dealt with like any other political figure. The revolving door between journalism and politics is much worse in the UK, because most people employed in both fields come effectively from the same few classes. You have journalist wives writing excuses for their politician husbands, and nobody bats an eyelid. Somebody like Boris Johnson is free to write lies for decades until he gets where he wants to get. UK tv is better, I’ll give you that, and the BBC is excellent at being the last bastion of decency in a depressing landscape.

easytiger 6y ago
> I have kids and live in an area where the class divisions are pretty stark How do you mean? I was asking for an illustration of the "class system" that you find oppressing to your person. > most of the population is bombarded every day by outright racism and hate. Well that's not true is it. > The British upper classes make a joke of it What might be considered Victorian upper class constitutes practically no one. If you don't like the media don't consume it. Honestly I do not understand this unhealthy fixation on class that you have and frankly reject your assertions regarding it. At a guess you are using it as a simplification to understand a landscape you can't fully understand without it.
- DanBC 6y ago
  Class is still a big thing in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-play-children-in-social-housing-blocked-from-communal-playground https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-p...
  - easytiger 6y ago
    I don't think you understand what class is. I'm familiar with the above story and it is beyond nonsense. A communal facility maintained and paid for by some people doesn't necessarily have to be made available to anyone else. If your back garden was in sight of someone living in social housing ought they be able to make use of your property?
    - rich_sasha 6y ago
      Something like 60% of people going to Oxbridge went to private schools, despite 93% attending state schools, and this is after decades of campaigns, outreach, and adjusting entry criteria by school type. And this is new, the fraction from state schools used to be more like 10-20% if that in living memory. That’s just one example of class.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Most UK doctors and barristers went to fee-paying schools: https://www.businessinsider.com/most-uk-journalists-doctors-barristers-private-schools-2017-7?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/most-uk-journalists-doctors-...
- toyg 6y ago
  Lol, if your best rebuttal is “no it isn’t, you idiot”, you risk making my point for me. The fact remains that UK tabloids are pretty shocking for anyone who was not grown inside the bubble. When even forums like Reddit consider links to Uk tabloids as “very low quality sources”, the situation is clearly dire. Deny it as much as you want, it’s still there for everyone else to see. But I understand that this sort of thing is difficult to accept, if it’s been normalized since birth, in the same way NorthKorean citizens find it normal to have a communist king or most Americans were really convinced Saddam had WMDs. Propaganda is really difficult to shake off, when it reaches a certain volume. As for the landscape of classism in the UK, tbh, it is not that hard to elaborate. Of course we are not talking in Victorian terms, modern classism has its own conventions. The facts are, still, that most top jobs go to graduates from top universities, whose alumni are drafted overwhelmingly from certain (expensive) schools, whose pupils are put “on rails” at the tender age of 4 by parents with deep pockets. See for example this source, but the situation is very well-known: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/oxford-university-cambridge-state-school-socially-inclusive-ethnicity-sunday-times-guide-david-lammy-a8551036.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/oxford-unive... Note that i’m not talking in absolutes, this is actually something that affects me: I know my kids will struggle to ever reach any pinnacle, if they stay here, simply because I cannot afford to put them through the “right” schools. This system has its upsides (the upper classes are really well-educated, as our classicist PM demonstrates) but it is undeniably a drag on social mobility: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48103017i https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48103017i