The ironic-gnome rule

Kurt Goedel’s wife supposedly collected garden gnomes. That was quite a family.

“We’re very fond of each other”

Lee and Herring’s “The Ironic Review” was a pile of cack. Bet you weren’t expecting me to say that were you? Aaaaahh!

As the son of a life peer I think he would be pretty borderline and the ironic gnome thing probably tipped the balance.

Is it specifically British? Is there not a similar division in the US between the country-club set and thre _really_ wealthy? (Genuine question)

It’s more that, while we don’t really think the upper classes are worth an awful lot of our time, someone who isn’t one but who pretends to be is worth even less.

God damn snobs.

The ‘genuine’ upper class have no need to try to impress anybody,
they simply are. There’s honor in that.

The radical and reactionary anti-bourgeois have a lot in common, but a full third of the professoriate in the English speaking world spend their lives and careers pretending it ain’t so (and pretending they’re not predictably bourgeois) Say what you want about continental postmodernism, the people who invented it get the joke.

“And it isn’t about money”
That’s it.

Years ago, Doonesbury ran a story line where Zonker won a lottery and bought a peerage with the money. Trudeau, who still had it back then, got in some great jokes about class, both American and British, but I only remember this one:

Friend (reading from the exam prep book): “What distinguishes the true gentleman?”
Zonker: “His contempt for poor breeding?”
Friend: “Close; his love of dogs.”

No Andrew, the rich have the luxury of being able to take for granted that life is about more than money. They share this understanding with the lumpenproletariat, which is one of the reasons NY night life used to be such fun.

I remember a survey that showed how the upper and working classes shared a penchant for gaudy and/or expensive Christmas presents, while the upper-middle class preferred ‘meaningful’ ones.

Anyway, Castiglione’s sprezzatura may have a place here, at least to explain how the Duke of Devonshire gets away with wearing yellow socks.

Kate is the sister of Martha, who earns her money in trade on that ghastly interweb.
Her father’s Oxford college? New. Need I say more?

There’s no need to apologise to the Scottish and Welsh, btw, if anything old money from the Celtic fringe is even snobbier.

I’ll have to file this one away for future use, under “Gardening with Bourdieu.”

engels, you must be an American, since you obviously don’t understand the subtleties of class differentiation. I have two ironic gnomes in my own garden and totally understand what that guy is talking about although I _am_ very fond of my gnomes, especially the one with wheelbarrow, which, incidentally, I bought in Graefenroda, the birth place of the garden gnome.

By the way, the garden gnome’s physical stature was supposedly modeled on the gnarled and stunted shapes of the local miners in the Thueringer Wald. In that sense the garden gnome is really a symbol of the proud and defiant working class, displaying joy and happiness in the face of inhuman working conditions.

Oh, and since 1992 there’s an official (since it’s produced by the last member of the gnome-inventor’s family) “Gartenzwergin”, which caused a bit of an uproar in the gnome community.

So you see, engels, social class not only comes into play here, it’s a pivotal point.

engels, you must be an American

Do you want to take this outside?

I thought I had had some experience of the (stifling, tedious) subtleties of class differentiation we have in this country but I apologise for insulting you and your gnomes.

Hmm. I may be slightly in error on a small matter of fact. But my central point stands: the entire family are the most frightful nouves.
Krug anyone?

“It certainly did, although the designation I would have suggested would have been shorter and more demotic than “upper middle class”.”
Posted by dsquared

A five letter word, begining with ‘W’, and ending with ‘lsh’?

I’ll have to file this one away for future use, under “Gardening with Bourdieu.”

Quite so. Remember how John Major prickled a little when people poked fun at his father’s ‘lawn ornament’ business?

American lawn decoration is quite another thing entirely: plastic pink flamingos and fibreglass deer, anyone?

count des — my faith in our readership is restored. I’ll muse on what it means for me.

Ernest Shackleton famously said “A life peer is like a mule — no pride of ancestry, no hope of posterity.” For that matter, what American could claim to be upper class, since we constitutionally lack the apparatus of aristocracy?

I’m not personally accountably for any of my yard’s garden statuary, since half are gifts and the rest inheritances. The bench in the form of a cat seems to attract cats; some dogs freak out at the small figure of a bear, now green with moss.

Irony is an attitude unavailable with such abundance.

Harry: are you trying to give me a tip for our office sweepstakes on the New Year honours? Are you suggesting that a surprise elevation to the Lords for a dedicated public servant, Commissioner of London Schools etc etc might be on the cards? Rest assured that if it is I will bribe Kieran to change the template and you will be forever known as “Honners“. Good God there are hardly any references to the Peter Pook books on the internet. I thought some enthusiast would have had a go.

[Obviously, gross generalisations but …]

One difference is that the upper classes often know they’re privileged and that their position/wealth/status isn’t due to any particular hard work or talent on their part.

An unfortunate number of the middle classes, and I would count some of my closest friends within this number, have come to believe that their wealth and position–if they’re even aware of their relative wealth and position–is due to their innate talents or to the innate talents and hard work of their parents and leads them to make silly claims like “the class sytem doesn’t really exist anymore”…

If there is an american upper class distinct from the merely rich, I would imagine Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman would be members.

soru

If there is an american upper class distinct from the merely rich, I would imagine Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman would be members.

Yep, unfortunately soru, even on a comparatively non contentious topic you do not lose sight of your traditional mission of being competely wrong.

if americans defer to anyone, they defer to celebrities

Indeed. All those supermarket tabloids featuring intensely ugly close-ups of so-&-so’s latest “tragic plastic surgery mishap” are actually signs of love and devotion.

Soru – Being upper class is about at least two things.
(i) Never having to work
(ii) Inheriting your position from your parents. Neither apply to Cruise and Kidman.