Further research into culture taste and class narratives.

I spent some more time today looking at Grayson Perry's Channel 4 Television productions "Who Are You" (2014, Channel 4; London) and his own observations that started with the working class.  Having previously made a mind map based on much of the comments raised in this television series, programme 1, I need not make further reference to that class sector here, but I will go on to make some observations on the 'Middle Class' and 'Upper Class'.

Continuing to make some simple mind maps to try and encapsulate some of the themes that Perry highlights, together with some of my own observations that I have combined from academic research, particularly in sociology, such as Andrew Melzoff's theories around Child Development and his "like me" framework (Melzoff, A (2009) -US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health), together with some studies I made of Victor Turner in human rituals of bonding and tribal rites of passage during my first year studies of "The Liminal".  (Turner, Victor. (1974). "Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology." vol. 60. no. 3, pp. 53-92. Rice University,

We choose our social 'tribe' based on our own constructed image, which is in fitting with our immersed surroundings as children.  In other words we are all shaped by the taste culture that we have grown up within.  The following mind map for the "Middle Class" has been generated through the references sourced above;

Moving on to the Upper Class, interestingly, I found this group of people are perhaps the most miss-understood, from the point of view of observers classified in the lower classes.  My own anecdotal evidence suggests that this [minority] 'upper class' are criticised for being "out of touch with reality"... A phrase that I think is a little unfair, because it all depends upon whose version of reality? In other words, they [the 'upper' class] must be living in an 'environment of their own' reality, so therefore may not necessarily understand (or need to understand) more generalist views of the [majority] lower classes, afterall, they are not affected by the day to day issues of the majority of society if they are [even artificially] one step removed from it...

 

These observations are only a bit of fun!!! - Based on some of the information from Grayson Perry's productions of "Who Are You" and "All in the best Possible Taste", Channel 4 Television, London (2014 and 2012 respectively).