Why is social class important?

Question

why is it not important? how are the people of each social class treated? why do we have social classes? how is it unfair?

Answer 1

I suggest you study history. Some things to look up:

Bhagavad Vita and the Hindu Caste System

Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations"

Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto

"Art of War" by Sun Tzu

and "radio hogan" on youtube has some interesting things to say about the middle class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YANqgrMik...

hope you find these more informative than distracting

Answer 2

it's as important as you make it or let it become. we have social classes because it's nature. look at wolf packs.. leader eats first, odd ball last

Answer 3

Social class affects our entire lives. Our attitude and outlook upon life (early and late socialization) are affected by our social class.  Lower social class is associated with poorer health, lower life expectancy, lower self-worth, etc. There is a great book called "The Hidden Injuries of Class" - written in the 1970s but still relevant today. Class is not as permeable as people in America like to think. If you were born into the lower-class, there is a good chance you will stay there. People who belong to one class often wear "blinders" - they are not as aware of their class biases as they are of their racial, religious, other biases. What is considered "normal" by one social class is positively comical or revolting to someone from another.

Class is unimportant, because in non-feudal societies, there are people who can rise (or more recently in the US, fall) in social class. We are all individuals, and we should not discriminate based on class. But we can't pretend it away either. We should fight for a world where social class is not a divider of humanity.

We have social classes because of war and theft. In tribal and pretribal societies, people fought over food. Others were better at it, and were able to use their physical power to dominate others. Karl Marx even went so far as to say that ALL societies have been class societies, and I would agree with him. Class has evolved over time. Feudal classes were designed to protect power and privileges for the royal class against the peasant class.

Class is unfair, because a person is treated differently and has different life chances based on their class. A person's class could be a barrier to getting a desired job - no white trash need apply in some places (or even middle class). It is the source of physical fighting. And many are condemned to die based on their social class, so that higher social classes may benefit.

America is largely unique in its belief in such things as a "classless society" (not Marx's classless society, but the idea that everyone in America is all the same social class - or that social class doesn't exist), and that anyone who works hard can move up the class ladder (some do, but most do not).

Just a few notes.

Answer 4

How you would define class as unimportant isn't something that someone can answer for you.  I find class important when speaking of problem related with them, that's what their function is in sociology.  However, in culture I find them rather unimportant, it's no more than possibly nature, but more so our culture that likes to rank people in sorts of orders of "importance" and it's our culture that likes to let those people flaunt whatever lets them be important.  Class just states what old money is and new money is, therefore whose invited to which parties, class gets to be why we pay paparazzi to follow around celebreties and record their "important" lives.  Class also gives us justification on why we can treat poor and rich people differently, class supports our mores and economy by giving people merritt to say they've "earned" things like their money (rather than acknowledging that maybe you're just successful because you you're a white male who grew up with two loving parents who both had six figure salaries) which gives merritt to whatever "being intelligent" might mean.

In sociology you have to be a little big pessimistic.  But class exists because we found out a long time ago that people need structure in order to function well.  But who makes up the structure?  Those who have the money, and so it's set up to make sure the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.  Giving those who are better off more benifits, it's a cultural think.  How many politicians work for free, and how many politicians wern't decently wealthy before they were politicians?  Not many, it costs alot to get there.  

Anyways, class only matters as a term for identification when dealing with issues.  Otherwise, classes don't really interact.  There's a large stratification with different levels of each, but it's basically an upper, middle, and lower division.  None of them really interact, except for maybe the new money upper class whose trying to make profits off the middle class, not usually the lower class, they don't have much spare money.  People within their class tend to go about life only seeing people within their class, and the outside classes arn't really noted unless they directly relate to something.  

How we treat different classes varies tremendously.  I'm middle class, and it's not like I spit on the poor, but it's not like I flip a quarter to everyone holding up an "I'm homeless" sign either. Some people can also do one or the other.  Most upper class are concerned with themselves, and if, say they're a politician, they don't deal to much with poverty because it's just not something they think about, usually they're busy thinking about their needs, and the needs of those with...money.  Besides, there's arguement againts helping the poor sometimes, because in our culture, we have this funny idea that the people without money earned that.

Anyways, if you're picking up on it, class and money relate alot, it's not just because I want to settle the message that money is so important.  It is to those who have it though, usually because those who really like it are those who earn alot.  If you want more unfair examples, ever wonder why when you submit an application to a school, they ask for extracurricular activities?  It's not because they're important, it's because a poor family isn't going to be able to afford putting 3 kids through three seasons of sports, band, drama, and every donation based leadership and fundraising club out there.  But a rich family is, and the schools want to know what you've done outside class simpily because they want an idea of how much money you have.  This is best shown with most top end medical schools.  In this country, if I ask you to picture a doctor in your head, it's probably going to be an old white guy.  We have that sterotype.  But around the start of the 90's, other countries were having rather intelligent medical students, places like Hong Kong, or India, and those who graduated from their country wanted to come study more in America.  Well, we found out that all the forign medical students were outpreforming our own by large amouts on examanation scores, and if we based somewhere like Harvard Medical School specifically off of grades and test score, caucasians and Americans would be a minority.  Therefore we based it off of test scores and extracurricular activities because we knew that not everyone in a second world country could afford to study and play sports, do community service, or be in various clubs.  And so the problem was solved therefore by only letting the richer forign students in.

There's also probably plenty of other impovrished drug dealers or gang member who never started with any money, went to a public school with no money until they dropped out, and couldn't progress anywhere and now that's why the do what they do who could speak for the dysfunction of the class system.  Simpily because the class system wouldn't allow progression.  The money in the higher classes stays there, and the absense of money in the lower classes stays as well.

To sum up though, social class is dysfunctional, and that's why it's important to recognize, and unimportant to believe in.

Answer 5

The concept of social class is apparent in every society, because it is something that happens when there is money, industry and capitalism.

Social class is a level of income and power one has, and people are born into social classes. There is chance for upward mobility(getting to the next higher up social class) but most people remain in the social class they are born into.

The higher social class, means more money and more power  so better opportunities and a different lifestyle than those who are in lower social class. Lower social classes do not have means or the power to make their lives similiar to higher classes.

Sociologically, our social class affects pretty much everything in our life. Our social skills, the ambitions we have, the way we deal with family, if we have children, etc.

It is not that it is important or unimportant, it is there. It affects you greatly.