英国社会的七个阶级.docVIP

Multiplying the Old Divisions of Class in Britain 英国社会的七个阶级 LONDON — Class in Britain used to be a relatively simple matter, or at least it used to be treated that way. It came in three flavors — upper, middle and working — and people supposedly knew by some mysterious native sixth sense exactly where they stood. As the very tall John Cleese declared to the less-tall Ronnie Corbett in the famous 1966 HYPERLINK http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/collections/p00gs4vysatirical television sketch meant to illustrate class attitudes in Britain — or, possibly, attitudes toward class attitudes — “I look down on him, because I am upper class.” 伦敦——英国的阶级问题过去曾经是一个相对简单的事情，或者至少曾经被当做简单的事情对待。那时英国分为三个阶级，上层阶级、中产阶级以及工人阶级，人们仿佛具备某种神秘的、与生俱来的第六感，清楚地知道自己属于哪个阶级。就像个子很高的约翰·克里斯(John Cleese)在1966年一部非常著名的HYPERLINK http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/collections/p00gs4vy电视讽刺短剧中，向个子较矮的罗尼·科比特(Ronnie Corbett)公开表示的那样，“我看不起他，因为我是上层阶级。”这部短剧旨在展示英国的阶级态度，或者说是人们对阶级态度的态度。 It is not as easy as all that, obviously. The 2010 election was enlivened at one point by a perfectly serious discussion of whether David Cameron, now the prime minister, counted as upper upper-middle class, or lower upper-middle class. But on Wednesday, along came the BBC, muddying the waters with a whole new set of definitions. 很明显，事情并没有那么简单。2010年的选举因为一场非常严肃的辩论而一度富有生气，辩论的主题是，应该将戴维·卡梅伦(David Cameron)，也就是现任首相，算作地位较高的中上阶层呢，还是地位较低的中上阶层。但在周四，BBC也投身其中，给出了一套全新的定义，让事情变得更复杂。 Having commissioned what it called HYPERLINK http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ukThe Great British Class Survey, an online questionnaire filled out by more than 161,000 people, the BBC concluded that in today’s complicated world, there are now seven different social classes. (“As if three weren’t annoying enough,” a woman named Laura Phelps said on Twitter.) These range from the “elite” at the top, distinguished by money, connections and rarefied cultural interests, to the “precariat” at the bottom, characterized by lack of money, lack of connections and unrarefied cultural inter