Chad, I agree whole heartedly with much of your last post,

Our ape brain is geared to finding patterns and forming stereotypes and on an animal survival level this works perfectly well - it wouldn't have done for our ancestors to sit there thinking; "Hmmm big spotty cat thing - last one I saw eat my cousin but lets not prejudge the situation"

However in homo sapien's world this ability is piss poor as a guide for interpreting reality yet still retains its power over us - Chad talks of women as emotional illogical creatures even though a cursory comparison of posts by Mary and myself with those of some of the more - ummm volatile male contributors would give the lie to this assertion. But we are very reluctant to let the facts get in the way of a good story because that would mean having to work things out for ourselves.

Rather than have new positive stereotypes for men why not do away with stereotypes altogether, and instead of divvying up desirable characteristics on a gender basis why not have them as aspirations for all.

As for myself although I expect I have many prejudices, gender is generally not one of them. When I meet a man I don't automatically have him pegged as a knuckle- dragging sports-mad, boob-fixated clown - and guess what? I know some really decent intelligent men.

I'm usually wrong about the boobs thing, mind.

You have a very romantic view of the working classes Malcolm, your portrait of them all as honest sons of toil is just as inaccurate as the portrayal of them (which I didn't make) as gormless idiots.

I still think it is a working class tradition to sneer at anyone from their ranks who has an interest that is seen to be 'posh' - so liking pop music is OK liking opera - nah ah! Its a mirror image of upper class snobbery.

The money thing is again tied in with notions of 'not getting above yourself' - they seem to have no problems with middle clas fat cats in the city reaping obscene sums of money for not doing very much actually but when recently a story was leaked in the Daily Mail about road workers getting a good wage for what is an unpleasant and slightly dangerous job with unsocial hours the poor road workers were subjected to barrages of abuse from people on the street for their audacity to be on a decent whack instead of a pittance.

So much for respect for those who do practical and useful jobs of work.

And who is to say that poetry or philosophy cannot be of use to the working classes. If you are in a dead end factory job (as I have been incidentally) 'useless' stuff like that in your head can be a good way of staving off the dreadful monotony.

"So I'm a fucking idiot because I can't make a lamp?"

"No, you're a GENIUS because you can't make a lamp."

"Bender, did y'know without physics there'd be no engineering?"

"Without lamps there'd be no LIGHT."

I think. firstly we should make allowances for the differences between the UK and the US (where it has only just occured to me that you probably hail from) - Brits are generally a lot more negative, a lot less 'can-do' than our transatlantic cousins, Accordingly American blue collar workers probably have a lot less resentment and a lot more admiration for people who want to get on in the world.

No, of course the working class are not all idiots, I and about 90% of my closest friends are coming from working class backgrounds and we're  bright as all get out!

That is what so particularly annoys me about the working class attitude that education and the life of mind is somehow "not for the likes of us and our children", it is such a terrible waste.

I honestly believe that all knowledge is precious, whether it be a practical skill like plumbing, or a PhD in the most esoteric subject, you can think of . An interest in the world and the way it wags is what enriches our lives more than any other single thing, whether that interest is in subatomic physics or sausages

You will also note that throughout this discussion I have tried to speak of working class tradition attitude or culture rather than 'the working classes'- it is ridiculous - as well as patronising and presumptuous - to lump a load of individuals together and say they all are this way or that but you can validly talk about a prevailing culture.When I was a young 'un there was a strong working class culture of supporting football teams (as opposed to the middle class tradition of supporting rugby), and being working class most of the lads I knew followed the footie - most but not all.So I wouldn't say that all working class guys liked football but it was a strong tendency.

I think that fundamentally we are pretty much in agreement don't you?

I think working class entertainment, if it is on the brainless side, is only that way because the purveyors are going for the lowest common denominator. There is no reason why opera should not be to the ordinary persons taste just as much as pop music - (as the runaway success of the three tenors showed).It is just the media's preconceptions of what the people want which the masses are then persuaded to buy into -

which has really been the burden of my song throughout the thread

I'm not sure how far Jeeves and Wooster were ever rooted in reality - I don't move in such elevated circles - but part of the joke was of course that the lower class Jeeves was infinitely brighter and more educated than his social 'superior' 

Yes, anti-intellectualism is rife in the higher echelons too

Now I shall go away and brace myself against an onslaught of outraged hooray henry's

I say, this Harvatt filly seems rather a rum chapess, what?

Pip pip!

Hey thanks, Jay. That makes me seem better than I am. I'm probably too odd in my thinking and esoteric in my presentation, on "issues", but look for me to rip off plenty of Richard Stark and David Goodis and George Pelecanos, not to mention the movies I've seen, in order to create the semblance of something that makes sense and is "bad", meaning good when I was a kid.