The dangers of stereotyping the posh

My witty, talented colleague Sathnam Sanghera has an arresting column in this morning's Times.

His theme is discrimination against people he calls "poshos". He thinks it perfectly justified:

In general, they are arrogant, insular, chinless, clueless, have a troubling predilection for green wellies and velvet hairbands, bray and honk, have silly hyphenated names, and big teeth that they don't part enough when speaking.

Sathnam's argument is that:

Not all prejudice is misplaced....To compare racial prejudice, the repression of women, discrimination against the disabled, homophobia and ageism against the elderly to posh-ism, fattism or youth-ism is like comparing Princess Bea to Princess Leia.

I am generally a big, big Sathnam fan, but here's why he's wrong.

It is wrong to treat individuals as if they were simply members of groups. There are two reasons for this.

The first is that while membership of a social group may make it more likely that an individual will behave in a certain way, and stereotypes often contain a large dollop of truth, it is extremely easy either to allocate someone to the wrong category (mistakenly believing them posh for instance) or to have misconceived views about the attributes of certain groups (for instance the idea that black people are less intelligent on average, a view that data does not uphold).

Sathnam's hate-filled characterisation of "poshos" is, I am afraid, repulsive. And inaccurate.

But even if he had done a bit better with his stereotype, it still wouldn't justify prejudice. Even if, say, members of a particular group are on average, for instance, more argumentative than non members that doesn't mean that every individual member of the group would, when encountered, prove more argumentative than a randomly selected non member.

Distributions have means but they also have variance. It is foolish, in fact I would say morally wrong, to treat individuals as if they were simply average group members. People should not be treated as less than human, as simply categories.

For that reason, prejudice against "poshos" is precisely the same as the other prejudices Sathnam mentions.

It is worth noting that the Hutus thought the Tutsis were, basically, privileged "poshos", with many of the characteristics Sathnam abhors in their British counterparts. Except they had long necks rather than no chins. And not too many of them wore wellies.

Comments

[Julian Cox]

Sathnam Sanghera ain't right. And I leave him to decide from my grammar whether I am wonderfully working class or just simply posh. Either which way, is The Times really the appropriate place for his thoroughly bourgeois observations?

[Michael]

Well, of course I'm a big fan of predjudice in the main, as it's a terrific time-saver, but in this case I wholeheartedly agree with you.

If we casually, flippantly demonise any group, as has latterly happened with the ginger haired, then we go some way to undoing the last 50 years of social progress.

And I'm all for social progress.

[Suzy Kang]

Sathnam is a curious fella. Even if you recognise a stereotype of a posho as being 'insular, chinless, clueless' in some people you have met or seen, you should be very wary and very cautious of subscribing to such crude denigration of a social group that could either hurt or totally misrepresent an individual. Sure, class prejudice against priveliged members of society is not as bad as racial prejudice, but how easily this impulse can slide boorishly into more insidious forms of bigotry. As someone who comes from a group in society who have faced discrimination, you might have imagined that Sathnam would understand how easily this crude type of stereotyping can slide into other tendencies. I shudder when I read or hear groups of people being generalised in this way, it has echoes of other more primal and evil hatreds in its rhetoric.

[Charlie]

The Fink is right: we are all part of one group or another. And we all know we are right and the other groups are wrong. But we all live close to each other (unless you are in Sunderland...) so we have to find a way of respecting each other. And Sathnam Sanghera needs to find a way of growing up.

[Andy]

Of course "chinless" could just as easily be replaced by other physical characteristics, or by these used, as they are, to imply character defects. Let's start with "greasy-haired", "thick-lipped" or "hook-nosed" and see where we wind up.

Basically, he lost any credibility once he started going on about the size of people's teeth; visions of dentists working for the commissars deciding who's going up against the wall maybe?

Danny's point about Rwanda is more thought-provoking - which is worse, contempt for a group on the basis of their perceived stereotypical inferiority, or murderous resentment based on perceived unfair advantages? To be honest, squalid as a lot of chav-baiting and similar prejudices are, Sathnam's article sounds a lot closer to the sort of thing that inspires Kristallnacht and the Rwandan genocide.

[Marbury]

I'm not sure it requires a lengthy post to take apart what is a very silly, clumsily-written column that most of us wouldn't otherwise have read (that clanking opening, complete with exclamation mark, warns you about what's ahead). The only interesting question is why Daniel describes its author as 'witty and talented'. I mean, I genuinely would like to know - can you direct us to better stuff than this by the same person?

[John]

Oh, do give me a break. It was hardly the rousing defence of the Rwandan genocide that you seem to imply. First you have to watch well-connected posh boys saunter effortlessly into jobs you've had to work for, and now you can't even make fun of them?

[Chris SE9]

I blame Stephen Fry. He has made poshos likeable - for now. But it will be brilliantly cruel and awful when it all goes pear shaped for them which it inevitably will.

[Deas]

Well, here in the States, a phone company has an ad where surcharges are personified by Sir Charge, an elderly Englishman.

He is charming and gracious - but since he's English, educated and refined, he's obviously bad. He ends up smashed with mallets in an arcade game.

I'm waiting for the machete version...

This article is rather ironic, since a typically 'posh' person from an upper class background would not use the word 'posh'. It's a rather naff word, 'grand' is more suitable. I would also like to mention that, when concerning a double barrelled surname the ones without the hiphens are smarter. You're social stereotype isn't so accurate as nowadays usually the raging feminists and people who consider themselves genteel are the ones who create hiphenated surnames for themselves.

[More, more!]

Stuff the Posh, and their collaborators. It's almost as if in the last few weeks a wind of change has swept through The Times' previously boss class-lickspittle pages . . .

[i.e.]

May we mock him for his cultural and physical attributes? I thought not. Meanwhile in the last two weeks I read of another child suicide - this one as a result of being 'ginger' (which may in fact constitute a racial group). Had this have been recognised no doubt the police et al would have been all over it. So we are not all equal after all.

[Meirav]

Those who mock people for being 'posh' forget that no one gets to choose which family they're born into.

And children growing up in that sort of background may have it all in material terms, but I wouldn't wish on any child the separation from parents at an early age just so that you would have what is supposed to be a better education. Nor all that pressure to conform to certain expectations.

Satnam has got it very wrong.

[J Clark Hills]

As a fat American who has been living in this country for ten years, I always find it amusing how Brits blithely profess their tolerance/acceptance at every opportunity, and yet when situations go pear-shaped they are quick to point the finger. Think of all the British social ills that are blamed on America -- to hear people gripe you'd think this country surrendered it's sovereignty years ago. The old proverb about people living in glass houses is one I try to remember from time to time when I feel a bout of sanctimoniousness coming on... Sathnam should try it.

[ed]

Perhaps one could extend this logic to argue against anti-Americanism?

[jadsett]

I am still trying to work out where he's coming from. The last resort of the bigot is stereotyping and whilst discrimination against "poshos" may not be illegal, it betrays an unhealthy tendency.
It is not clear to me if an upper class twit becomes unfit for government if he/she has attended Eton, or whether Fettes is equally unacceptable.
The premise that only working class folk (or was it those who have worked for a living - there is a difference) are able to understand the needs of the people is crass.
Perhaps the politics of envy dictate that class exists only in the minds of those that have none.

[Peter]

Why not simply mock people who use their connections to bypass the normal way of doing things when they slip up (as the probably will).

How do you identify "poshness" anyway? If as I fear, it's linked to being well spoken and maybe well educated, rather than knowing that they own three castles, then this kind of prejudice becomes even more unfair.

On a related note, did anyone else think the title of the article about William getting the order of the garter from the Queen "Another feather in his cap" absolutely ridiculous? Sure, he will be king so he gets it by default, but to make out that it's an "honour" and something that he has "achieved", and to implicitly compare him to Edmund Hilary is pathetic.

[IAN GIRVAN]

Sathnam Sanghera is wrong when he writes that not all prejudice is misplaced. All prejudice is by definition wrong because it means the holding of unreasonable opinions. That is the meaning of the word. If he had consulted a dictionary before composing his article he would not have helped to perpetuate its misuse.

[Roderick Campbell-Penworthy-Hamilton]

Envy masquerading as a social conscience has always been unattractive. Imagine the furore were these spiteful comments directed at any other social group.

[Peter]

But surely some discrimination is justtifiable? It is analytically correct that fat people will all belong to a class of fat people and that all of them will (e.g.) occupy more of the seat next to me in a plane (and, chances are, more of my seat) than a thin person would. It is not purely analytic that this is due to over-eating rather than genetics (though query the inexplicably small number of fat people during famines).
Sathnam's list is silly and mostly unobjectionable (if wearing wellies is the worst we come up with, who cares?), but Daniel's retort is wide of the mark, too.

[Meirav]

Yes, Peter, it is factually correct to say that someone who is fatter than you occupies more space than you.

The assumption that being fat is always a result of over-eating is not factual, as it can sometimes be the result of a medical condition.

The assumption that anyone who is fat is inevitably a lazy glutton is sadly very common prejudice. Those who think this have never, I'm sure, struggled with attempting to lose weight and keep it down.

[Greg]

Daniel,

That is one of the most poorly constructed arguments I have ever heard. My god man, why has the times dedicated so much column space to such unsophisticated rubbish?

"Distributions have means but they also have variance" - astounding.

Ta.

[Andy]

Meirav, there is a simple piece of maths you need to know:

Calories in > calories used = get fatter
Calories in < calories used = get thinner

While medical conditions can affect the metabolic rate, or more commonly the appetite, it is literally physically impossible to beat this rule.

[Sally Roberts]

Well done Daniel for this thoughtful rebuttal of a clearly hate-filled rant against "The Posh" whom I believe to be one of the last sectors of society "allowed" to be attacked by others - the other group being the Obese!
As someone else has already pointed out, substitute some other physical characteristics for the "braying", "honking" and "big teeth" and see how upset people might rightly become if for instance we had "flat nosed", "thick lipped", "Slitty eyed".....

[Meirav]

Andy, have you actually tried? Your post simply provides a classic example of the kind of comment I was talking about - people who clearly have no first-hand experience of the struggle to lose weight and keep it down.