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Subject: Re: from jms: too damned much stuff
Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 23:48:38 +0000 (UTC)
From: jmsatb5@aol.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

Paul Harper wrote:
> On Sat, 14 May 2005 21:56:05 +0000 (UTC), jmsatb5@aol.com wrote:
>
> >
> >Ali Hopkins wrote:
> >>  wrote in message
> >> news:1116042082.156643.48310@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> >> You *had* a lot of fans over here. I suspect you may have just
> >alienated and
> >> lost a fair few, and I include myself in that.
> >>
> >Are you saying the class system/attitude doesn't exist?
>
> It exists far less here than there. I have been to New York and
> witnessed the appalling inequalities there first hand. It's a
> full-blown caste system that makes the Indian system pale to
> insignificance.
>

Peter, we have to be able to agree on language, or we can't have a
conversation.  You are crossing the lines on two different discussions:
racial prejudice and a class system, which tends to operate within a
homogeneous culture or ethnic group.  And the British system is riddled
with this kind of class-ist influence...from the schools attended, the
regions lived in, the grammar, the school tie....

I mean, c'mon...a culture where one's class can be defined instantly by
whether the person greeting you says "hello" "hullo" or "hallo" isn't
class oriented?

> >Or that it was rude of me to point it out?
>
> "You're not making sense. Even for a Brit" has bugger-all to do with
> any so-called class system and everything to do with prejudice.
>

Right, this is why the only place I've ever considered living in
outside the States is Great Britain.  I've been painfully up-front
about the American foibles and blindnesses and prejudices, so this
isn't anything of the kind.

> And yes, I would go so far as to say racial prejudice.
>
> >Because the former has been chronicled for decades by writers and
> >social scientists and commentators...many of them also British, by
the
> >by.
>
> There goes the Victorian imagery again. We have electricity these
> days, you know.
>
> Paul.
>
> --
> . A .sig is all well and good, but it's no substitute for a
personality
> . JMS: "SFX is a fairly useless publication on just about every
imaginable front.
>   Never have so many jumped-up fanboys done so little, with so much,
for so long."
> . EMail: Unless invited to, don't. Your message is likely to be
automatically deleted.