I'M AN OKOP, HE'S AN OKOP, WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO BE AN OKOP TOO? (UPDATED)

Hugo has written a very funny, but also substantive, post about social snobbery.   When he and his brother were teenagers they mocked the class consciousness in their family by labeling certain people and behaviors NOKOP ("Not Our Kind of People") and OKOP ("Our Kind of People").  For example, wearing a cap that says "Porn Star" is NOKOP, whereas belonging to certain clubs is OKOP.   

I have been mulling this over all weekend, trying to figure out what role the often trivial markers of social class really play in American society.  I didn't grow up in a WASP-y or rich family but my relatives and I have been rubbing shoulders with, attending the same schools, and belonging to the same groups as OKOPs for three generations.  By the time I hit early adolescence, I had developed a finely tuned class radar whereby I could detect precisely what a person's class background was, even if it wasn't obvious to the casual observer. 

I pretty much knew what the OKOP rules were and I could tell immediately when they had been violated.  Some of these rules are substantive and even admirable -- don't brag, don't display an unbecoming interest in money and material things, be gracious and polite to the people around you.  Some of the rules, however, were either wholly stylistic or just arbitrary.  Wearing the wrong kinds of clothes could make you NOKOP, using pretentious language or bad grammar, or any of a million picayune little indicators. Many years ago, British author Nancy Mitford famously created her own mocking version of OKOP versus NOKOP, except that she called it "U" (upper class) and "non-U" (non upper class).  From her writing, you get a sense of the triviality of these little class indicators, like the rule that it's better to say "rich" instead of "wealthy" or that it's better to have your family photographs in free standing frames on the table rather than in a frame hanging on a wall. 

These things can have a visceral, emotional impact on people, though, even today.  I will admit that when I first got married, I would feel embarrassed if my husband made a flagrant grammatical error ("he should have went earlier") or an etiquette faux pas ("Thank you for dinner" instead of just "Thank you" or "Thank you for a lovely evening.") I had somehow internalized the notion that these were things that really matter and that reflected negatively on my husband and on me.  My husband's working class family members, on the other hand, have an instinctive dislike for anyone who is from a shi-shi background and they seem to worry a lot about snobbery.  (I hear frequent comments from them like, "He comes from money, who would have thought he would be so nice.")

The good news is that I don't think this trivial crap really matters as much as it may have once.  High society WASPS no longer have an absolute stranglehold on big business, or big law, or anything truly substantive from which they can exclude those who don't fit in.  High society WASPS are also blending more with everyone else, and class markers are becoming more and more blurred in this country. 

Still, I think there are places and situations where having a high comfort level with the OKOP world affords a person instant credibility.  And while corporate manners might not be as rarefied as they once were, there is a certain buttoned down, toned down sensibility that may be tough on people from working class backgrounds or non-white or non-WASP ethnicities.  Imagine having to change your accent, or the way you dress, or your choice of words in order to meet a set of arbitrary requirements that you don't understand or that don't come naturally -- daunting, huh?  For example, my husband knows perfectly well that the correct grammatical construction is "should have gone" not "should have went."  But, since he grew up from earliest childhood hearing and saying "should have went," he can't seem to shake it.  I don't doubt that that kind of error could cost him a job in a lot of law firms, even though it has nothing to do with his ability as a lawyer.   

What do you all think? Am I off base? Does this stuff still matter in any way that really counts? Is it purely social snobbery or does it have an impact in the workplace?  How does the U.S. differ from other places? (My observation when I lived in the UK was that people were much more open about class consciousness than in the US.  People seemed to talk a lot about the class significance of accents and even first names.)   

UPDATED:  When I wrote this post, I was thinking about the issue of social snobbery in terms of whether it still has a broad effect on society as a whole.  In that respect, snobbery may be trivial in the big scheme of things these days (or perhaps not).  On a personal level, I don't think it's trivial at all.  Social snobbery has the potential to cause other people pain and a feeling of inherent inferiority for no good reason.  In that respect, it's not trivial at all and it is absolutely vile.  For that reason, I have categorized all snobs as NKMP (pronounced nokump  -- Not My Kind of People).

Comments

[BEG]

I think this is very interesting and I think it still holds today, perhaps even more than one might think. It's retreated, it's retrenched, but I think it's still very much present at a less conscious level, which makes it almost worse, perhaps, than it was before. People may be making unconscious connections or judgement without quite realizing the extent of OKOPosity going on.

My situtation is almost identical to yours, down to my background vs my OH's and its been a learning process, that's for sure.

[.]

In Chile there is definitely a severe class consciousness. Your address is who you are in some ways. Your skin color and which of the malls you prefer, where you vacation, the schools your relatives attend, not only the words you use but also the way you pronounce them (Chile vs. Shile), which form of the 2nd person you use (ud. vs. tú vs. voh) ... not to mention the hierarchy of surnames. Though I was aware of class as a child in the US, my own understanding of class prejudice in the US has been formed by the much more explicit prejudice in Santiago.

[Poppycock]

The rich vs. wealthy thing is fascinating to me. I'm British, and grew up in a very working-class family: tenant farmer, neither parents went to school beyond 16 (15 for my father infact), and from an area with a strong rural accent. However, I somehow managed to grow up without the accent, and have been told many times that I have a very upper-class, snobby voice. This has undoubtedly made it easier for me to make friends and mix with those from "better" backgrounds. But I would have thought that "wealthy" was better than "rich", and likewise "preserve" more sophisticated than "jam". Luxury goods manufacturers also seem to be making this mistake, though "conserve" is seen more and more frequently now.

Regional accents have become a lot more acceptable in the UK in recent years - you almost never hear the received pronunciation "BBC voice" any more, and even BBC Radio 4, a supposed bastion of upper-class Britishness, is now awash with local colour. An example of the popularity of "common" accents is Jamie Oliver, a television chef. (I don't know if his shows are broadcast in the US?) He talks with this (dreadful, I think) "Mockney" accent. It is close to Cockney, which originates in the East End of London (as in "Pygmalion", or (very badly reproduced) in "My Fair Lady"), but it isn't true to the original, hence "mock".

There are other factors which distinguish working class from upper class though. For instance, one of my friends was dating a guy from a very wealthy (rich? :) ) family, and she was terrified of having dinner with his family. She was used to eating off a tray in front of the TV, they sat round a dinner table laden with different knives and forks. She was petrified of making a cutlery faux pas, never mind talking to the family! It is factors like that which are more significant in social situations I think - she probably seemed very nervous and lacking in confidence, which is not true of her real self at all.

Anyway, a few unsorted thoughts. In short - "classes" and class indicators still exist and can have an effect on ones prospects, since they may prevent people from being at ease and thus presenting themselves in the best possible light.

[Poppycock]

PS Surely "I'm an OKOP" is grammatically incorrect, Happy?! ;)

[The Happy Feminist]

When you're an OKOP, you can break the rules. Sniff. (I say "wealthy" too. I think the reason that it's on the "non-U" list is that it may have once sounded precious, as though one were trying to dance around the issue of whether someone had money. I think it's lost that connotation.)

Yes, we do indeed get Jamie Oliver here. I used to watch the Naked Chef faithfully -- I always thought his accent was part of his charm. Does "Mockney" mean he's faking it a little bit, or does it just refer to the region he's from?

[Poppycock]

Absolutely! Cockneys are supposed to be working class, and in days gone by, of course, people tried to make their accent sound more upper class if they wanted to get on in life. In contrast, pop stars and the like try to play up (or just make up) their working class roots these days. An easy way of associating oneself with a group is to use its language etc., hence the rise of "Mockney", a portmanteau of "mock" and "cockney". The cockney identity was originally regional, see the Wikipedia entry, but these days is at least as much about class. So someone not of the working class but trying to talk like they are a working class Londoner is "mockney". I'm sure you are right that Jamie's accent is supposed to be endearing, but I just find it irritating. It seems wholly dishonest to me to try and pretend disadvantages you have never suffered.

[The Happy Feminist]

I agree! I didn't realize he was faking. How disappointing.

Mick Jagger is supposed to be a faker too, isn't he?

[miller_schloss]

Mrs. Blythe, an Englishwoman, had a post recently about class distinctions that I thought was very interesting:
http://seekinghisglory.blogspot.com/2006/05/tea-time-and-what-it-means-to-english.html

[miller_schloss]

Heh. HTML. Right.

Mrs. Blythe's post

[Sydney]

You're probably correct in asserting that being "of a certain class" is less important than it used to be. And this is probably a good thing. One thing I worry about though, is the anti-intellectual trend I sometimes see. I've been made fun of by people because I used a "big" word or because I have gotten good grades or tried hard in school. I think this kind of reverse classism is counter-productive. It's not as though I go around shunning people with smaller vocabularies or those who don't have at least 3.0 GPA.

People will automatically hate the people who went to Harvard because we assume they think they're better than us, and have never had to work hard. It's as though we regular people feel threatened by others who may be more affluent or smarter, and do our best to disguise our affluence or intelligence so that other people will not be threatened by us and like us.

Look at the way our beloved president expresses himself in order to avoid apprearing hoity-toity, so he can appeal the "common" man! It makes me want to barf.

As a side point, WASP stands for White Anglo Saxon Protestant. I'm sad to report that the W does not stand for "wealthy" and S does not stand for "snob" or the A for "ass." If ONLY W stood for "wealthy." Geeze. In fact most of the glitterati aren't WASPs at all anymore. But that doesn't make their OKOP thing any less offensive.