That which in England we call the middle class is in America virtually the nation. –Matthew Arnold
In many ways, Matthew Arnold`s 19th-Century aphorism is too, too true. In America, the ruling classes include descendants of shoe salesmen and saloonkeepers, like the mere Reagans and Kennedys–the kind of people who would have Frank Sinatra to their house.
And many in the Truly Elite, like Gloria Vanderbilt, Post Toasties heiress Dina Merrill and book editor Jackie O., actually sweat away at jobs, despite dividend checks that could keep all of Ethiopia in bonbons.
But there is a class system in the United States, and it`s just as snobby as any other country`s. The difference is that you can move around in it with relative ease. In England, one is born to one`s class. In America, one climbs to it, marries into it, or–if one marries a wrongo–falls to it, but higher station is always readily obtainable. Let us never forget that Commodore Vanderbilt began as a Staten Island garbage scow skipper, and that the first Swift sold meat out of a pushcart on Cape Cod.
Don`t break the rules
However, whether one is reaching for higher station or just trying to maintain it, one must follow the rules. One must show one`s class. And the higher one goes, the trickier it gets.
As sociologist Paul Fussell noted in his indispensable snob`s primer,
”Class,” published three years ago: ”At the bottom, people tend to believe that class is defined by the amount of money you have. In the middle, people grant that money has something to do with it, but think education and the kind of work you do almost equally important. Nearer the top, people perceive that taste, values, ideas, style and behavior are indispensable criteria of class, regardless of money or occupation or education.”
Thus are glitzy California millionaires like Joan Rivers and the Aaron Spellings considered, well, hardly top drawer, and quite modestly wealthy people like Barbara Bush or the simply salaried like Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker considered steeped in class. Thus can swank M magazine proclaim that Ford Chairman Donald Petersen has class while Chrysler Generalissimo Lee Iacocca does not. A gentleman, after all, doesn`t appear in TV commercials. Thus does M celebrate marvelous Monica Vitti as a class act and Elizabeth Taylor certainly not.
The following may give you a small idea as to what ”class” is all about.
— Ethnicity. Like it or not, one`s ethnic background still counts for a lot in the country`s class system, and the WASP still reigns supreme. Anything and anyone British remains much revered. The American aristocracy continues to pattern its lifestyle after the English gentry`s. In Washington, the most sought-after social invitations are those from the British Embassy.
Not being British need not stand in the way of status, however. The Rothschilds, Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni are hard to top. But it helps if one adopts a British style. Grace Kelly, the daughter of an Irish- American bricklayer-turned-millionaire, was about as British in her manner as an American girl can get. One columnist colleague has a favorite motto he got from an uncle: ”Dress British, think Yiddish.”
— Speech. As Fussell archly noted, nothing identifies one`s class more than one`s speech. Though she mostly whispers, Jackie O. was credited with much classier speech than her husband, President Kennedy, who said ”cahn`t” but also said ”Cuber.” American upper-class accents come in three varieties: the slightly British, typified most by Katharine Hepburn`s speech and heard even in Midwestern social enclaves like Lake Forest; the elegant drawl, as practiced by the likes of William F. Buckley; and the high-born Southern, which is not a drawl but a derivation of the Old English accents of colonist ancestors. One hears this especially in Tidewater Virginia and Charleston, S.C. Texas accents have no class.
Though they used to affect terms like ”ain`t” back in the 1920s, the speech of the upper classes is educated and grammatical. But, except for professional performers like Buckley, the upper classes tend to avoid the cumbersome polysyllabic words used by middle-class strivers (and writers in the New York Review of Books) to impress people. They also speak matter-of-factly, calling another person ”rich” instead of ”wealthy.” They have
”drinks” and not ”cocktails.” They live in ”houses,” not ”homes.”
— Schools. Fussell may discount education as not supremely meaningful among those with class, and, indeed, a cultivated mind can mean a lot more than a college degree. The witty Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, who talks like a Brooklyn cab driver; Nelson Rockefeller, who was dyslexic and could read only with great difficulty; and writer John Cheever, who didn`t attend college at all, are names associated with much class.
But education–meaning the right school background–remains a pillar of the American class system. There are class public schools–New Trier in Illinois, Langley in northern Virginia, Fox Lane in New York`s Westchester County–but class education mostly means going to the right private preparatory school to get into the right college. Some parents even make a point of sending their tots to the right nursery school to better their chances.
What are the right colleges? U.S. News & World Report once did a survey to determine which American colleges and universities had the most alumni listed in both Who`s Who and the Social Register. The top three schools in both categories were, in order, Harvard, Yale and Princeton (Paul Volcker went to both Harvard and Princeton).
Sticking a decal from some lesser institution on your car`s rear window, whether M.I.T. or Ronald Reagan`s Eureka College, doesn`t really assure much status. In fact, people with class don`t stick decals or anything else on their cars. If you have to advertise that you went to Harvard, Yale or Princeton, you must be very insecure, indeed.
— Cars. If you`re content to be considered merely middle class and get a thrill out of wowing truck drivers, cab drivers and fellow commuters, by all means go out and get yourself a flashy, expensive car like a Mercedes, BMW, Volvo or Porsche. If you`re lower class, but rich, get a Cadillac or a Lincoln Town Car. But if you`re upper class, you will consider this vulgar. Even at $50,000, cars are too cheap to mean much. Though pricey Jaguars and Range Rovers are tolerated (British, you know), the upper classes tend to eschew ostentation with American cars like Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs, Mercurys and Jeeps, the latter testament to a place in the country, if not a horse farm.
— Residence. In terms of class, you are where you live. Older Northern cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia and even Chicago have lots of class. Sun Belt arrivistes like Los Angeles and Dallas do not.
Class does not mean living in the most opulent and expensive suburb or high-rise. Upper-class people tend to cluster among their own kind and move infrequently, which helps reduce the opportunities for the other kind to invade. Thus, in Chicago, the old apartment buildings at 1500 Lake Shore Drive and along East Lake Shore Drive have much more class status than glitzy new ones like One Magnificent Mile.
Jackie O.`s discreetly fashionable building at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York will always outshine the much splashier Trump Tower to the south. Greenwich, Conn., Bedford Village, N.Y., and Lake Forest and Kenilworth, Ill., will always have more cachet than Beverly Hills, Malibu and Highland Park, Tex., even if the latter can boast a tacky Rolls-Royce in every tasteless five-car garage.
— Sports. Though the upper classes do play golf and tennis, their principal sports are sailing and horses. They do not bowl, but play croquet. They do not watch NFL football games because they seldom watch television.
— Manners. Behavior is another key mark of class distinction. True, there was at least one prominent Chicago society lady, who has since been dropped from the Social Register, who used to blow her nose with her napkin and wipe her mouth on the tablecloth, and one member of the Kennedy family was dropped from an exclusive club for her refusal to bathe regularly, but generally speaking, people with class know which fork to use (check the color spread in this week`s Style if you don`t). They are disciplined not to offend and are usually as polite to waiters and shopkeepers as they are to relatives and friends. The grande dame who arrogantly sweeps into a gathering, cutting people right and left and demanding instant attention, may well have started out as a taxi dancer from Beloit.
— Dress. The upper classes do dress expensively, but usually conservatively and often carelessly. Safe bets are clothes of dark, natural fabrics from stores like Brooks Brothers and sportswear from L.L. Bean. Burberrys togs are also fine (British, you know), but not those bearing the trademark Burberrys plaid (mere showing off). Flashy cufflinks are not acceptable, but frayed cuffs and collars are. Some might think you can`t afford a new shirt, but you know you can.
Even if members of the upper classes are mistaken for the lower classes, as occasionally happens–both tend to be equally unpretentious–they know who they are. This kind of self-assurance is definitely a sign of class. —
DO YOU GOT CLASS? TAKE THIS TEST AND FIND OUT
1)–Which shows more class?
a) Having a skybox on the 50-yard line at the Super Bowl.
b) Owning a $900 hand-crafted bowling ball.
c) Listening to shortwave radio coverage of the America`s Cup race while recaulking your 27-foot O`Day sailboat.
2) Which pair of cars would you expect to find in an upper-class person`s garage?
a) A Cadillac Seville and a Lincoln Town Car.
b) A Mercedes-Benz and a Volvo.
c) A 1983 Oldsmobile and a Jeep Cherokee.
3) When dining at someone`s house, which is the most important?
a) Complimenting the hostess on the meal.
b) Bringing a bottle of wine as a gift.
c) Using the right fork.
4) Which is the classiest way to make known the fact that you went to Harvard (or wherever)?
a) Putting a Harvard pennant on a bedroom wall visible from the street.
b) Putting a Harvard decal on your car`s rear window.
c) Dropping names of famous fellow alumni like John Kenneth Galbraith or Cleveland Amory at cocktail parties.
d) Joining the Harvard (or whatever) Club.
5) Which is the most impressive in terms of a class residence?
a) A mansion in Winnetka.
b) A 12-room apartment in One Magnificent Mile or Water Tower Place.
c) A six-room apartment in the old building at 1500 Lake Shore Drive.
d) A summer house in New Buffalo–now known in fashionable circles as Nouvelle Bison–Michigan.
6) The classiest vacation place is:
a) The South of France.
b) The island of Mustique, where Princess Margaret goes.
c) The Wisconsin Dells.
d) Bermuda.
7) The classiest woman in American society is:
a) Bonnie Swearingen.
b) Jackie O.
c) Sugar Rautbord.
d) Susan Barrantes.
8) What is the classiest American television show?
a) ”Masterpiece Theater.”
b) A rerun of James Mason`s last film, ”The Shooting Party.”
c) ”L.A. Law.”
d) ”Dynasty.”
9) Which is the classiest American politician?
a) George Bush.
b) John D. Rockefeller IV.
c) Elliott Richardson.
d) Teddy Kennedy.
e) Ronald Reagan.
10) Which hotel has the most class?
a) The Waldorf Astoria.
b) The Sands in Las Vegas.
c) The Drake.
d) The Ritz-Carlton in Washington.
ANSWERS
1) It`s c). Bowling is a lower-class sport. Sailing is to the upper classes what bowling is to the L.C.`s. Except for the Harvard-Yale game, the upper classes know and care little about football because they don`t watch television.
2) It`s c) again. Upper classes are interested in the utility of automobiles, not the impression they make. Buying a Mercedes or a Cadillac just for show, whether on time or for cash, is considered vulgar.
3) It`s c) once more. One perforce presumes one will be served a good meal at a dinner party with class. Bringing a bottle of wine to dinner is a gauche, upper-middle-class practice, though making a present of one on some special occasion like a birthday–or no occasion at all–is A-OK. Upper-class people learn which fork to use by age four.
4) The answer is d). If you`re of the U.C., the only people to whom it should matter where you went to school are the ones you went there with.
5) It`s c), one of the oldest fashionable addresses in Chicago. What matters is not the cost of your digs but who your neighbors are. U.C.s, incidentally, say ”house,” not ”mansion.” Coming from the antithesis of Yuppiedom, people of class wouldn`t be caught dead in ”Nouvelle Bison.”
6) It`s d). Bermuda remains the appropriate getaway, especially in the spring or early fall. The South of France, though chic before World War II, has become hopelessly chi chi. The same thing is happening to Mustique, mostly because of Princess Margaret.
7) It`s d) again. Bonnie Swearingen and Sugar Rautbord, aside from not being in the Social Register, are publicity hounds, and it`s still a tradition among class people that one only has one`s name in the paper when one`s born, married or dead. Jackie O. strives mightily to avoid publicity, but gets docked for so flagrantly marrying a man for his money. Susan Barrantes, the wonderfully unpretentious queen of international polo, is the mother of Sarah Ferguson, wife of Prince Andrew.
8) It`s b). ”The Shooting Party” is about the British upper class before World War I and is about the only sort of viewing that would drag a U.C. to a television screen.
9) It`s c). George Bush, of Andover and Yale, comes close, but Richardson, of Harvard, is noted most for seeking political office out of noblesse oblige. And it helps that he lost. Rockefeller`s unseemly expenditure of millions of his own money to win his elections is considered one of the great vulgarities of the political era, surpassed only by Tom Hayden`s expenditure of Jane Fonda`s money to win office.
10) It`s c). Despite the inferior food lately in the Cape Cod Room, the Drake maintains its traditions and elegant amenities. The Waldorf is splendid, but seems always to be filled with conventioneers. The keepers of the Ritz-Carlton name recently took action against the one in Washington for lowering standards. No one with any class even mentions the words ”Las Vegas” in public, even if they know where it is.
Scoring: All 10 right, upper class of course. Seven to nine right, upper middle class and possibly nouveau. One to six right, definite middle, if not prole. None right, upper class of course. A truly upper-class person wouldn`t feel the need to read this stuff. —
