Class (group)

“ But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independent political movement."
The classification of the various groups of society, or the division of human society into classes, is as logical a process, that is, a result attained by the operations of reason, as the division of animals, plants, and minerals into various classes. A specific group of social beings, which bear the stamp of common characteristics, is put in a certain class by social science. ”

“ By these few examples taken from the religious and civil architecture of early civilization I have endeavored to show that class distinction tends to express itself through the use of different housing levels, the height of each group being directly proportional to the power of its social division, thus giving a concrete expression to the theoretical grades by which the human mind differentiates the social status of the people who comprise any given group. ”

“ Second are those which are not the exclusive stronghold of one class or set of classes, but are instead the channel for the functioning of all groupings of the population. The borders between the two types are of course indistinct, but they approximate closely to the borders between a society with class organization and one with classes broken down into freer and more changeable group interests. ”

“ When men ceased to crowd on each other, they were all willing to adopt ideas and institutions which made the competition of life easy and kindly.
46. The mores of subgroups. Each class or group in a society has its own mores. This is true of ranks, professions, industrial classes, religious and philosophical sects, and all other subdivisions of society. Individuals are in two or more of these groups at the same time, so that there is compromise and neutralization. Other mores are common to the whole society. Mores are also transmitted from one class to another. ”

“ These persons are united by community of interest into a group, or class, or interest, and, when interests come to be adjusted, the interests of this group will undoubtedly be limited by those of other groups. ”

“ That which constitutes a Party, or class, is always some community of Interest: in other words, some thing or things, to be obtained, secured, or augmented, by the common endeavours of the class, and operating as a cause of pleasure to all of them.
The People, that is, the Mass of the community, are sometimes called a class; but that is only to distinguish them, like the term Lower Orders, from the 228 Aristocratical class. In the proper meaning of the term class, it is not applicable to the People. No interest is in common to them, which is not in common to the rest of the community. ”

“ Better than any work, avowedly on history, it graphically traces the special features of the several systems of class-rule as they succeeded each other from epoch to epoch, together with the nature of the struggle between the contending classes. ”

“ And this comparison is by no means strained, as I believe it will be found, that each and every class is indeed numerically greater than all the classes higher in social rank—the idlers than the industrious—the workers than the employers—the children than the parents—the illiterate than the instructed—and so on. ”

“ Those trained to brain-work, have acquired a certain other community of character which makes them, as social units, more like each other than like those trained to manual occupations. And there arise class-integrations answering to these superinduced likenesses. Much more definite integrations take place among the much more definitely assimilated members of any class who are brought up to the same calling. ”

“ When I have asked Americans what the subtle barriers are that in American society separate class from class, they have replied more than once, “In America there are no classes! We have no differences of rank with us.” ”

“ But these ever-widening social groups and ends of ever-increasing scope are still in every case individual and concrete. The subordinate individuals or the particular aims which the wider embrace are still to be regarded as members or constituents of an articulate whole and not as instances of a general class, in which the content diminishes as the extent increases ”

“ As this class stood over against the legally privileged classes of the community, so it understood itself at that time, at the first moment, to be identified with the whole people, and its interests to be identical with the interests of the whole of humanity. ”

“ The French Socialist program begins with the assertion, "Socialism is a question of class." Class distinction is the generator of Socialism.
The ordinary social triptych—upper, middle, and lower classes—will not suffice us in our inquiry. ”

“ I propose now to discuss very briefly the peculiarities of groups of several types. Some classification of groups seems desirable as an aid to the discovery of the general principles of collective life and their application to the understanding of social life in general. It seems impossible to discover any single principle of classification. Almost every group that enjoys a greater continuity of existence than the simple crowd partakes in some degree of qualities common to all. ”

“ And then the relations of these three governing elements to the entire community may, and ordinarily do, undergo change by the formation of a passive class, excluded from their deliberations—a class at first composed of the women and afterward containing also the slaves or other dependents. ”

“ Everything that applies to social groups also applies to this class organization, brought about by natural conditions. In the ranks of this class organization, social motives, moral feelings, self-sacrifice and devotion for the entire body develop in a most splendid way. ”

“ The aggressive tendency of each class, so produced, has to be balanced by like aggressive tendencies of other classes. The class-feelings do, in short, develop one another; and the respective organizations in which they embody themselves develop one another. Large classes of the community, marked off by rank, and sub-classes marked off by special occupations, everywhere form their defensive combinations, and set up organs advocating their interests ”

“ I need not further illustrate the more special distortions of sociological belief which result from the class-bias. They may be detected in the conversations over every table, and in the articles appearing in every party-journal or professional publication. The effects here most worthy of our attention are the general effects—the effects produced on the minds of the upper and lower classes. Let us observe how greatly the sentiments and ideas generated by their respective social positions pervert the conceptions of employers and employed. We will deal with the employed first. ”

“ What books and newspapers do these boys read, what talk do they hear, what interests or amusements do they find in the theatre, the tavern, the streets, the home, and the church? What has been the training of the lad of the upper class—that class, small in number but great in influence, which, being lifted above any sordid pressure of material care, should be the spiritual leader of the classes below them—a class which has ten talents committed to it, and which inherits the grand old maxim, Noblesse oblige? ”

“ And therefore, if those whom we are addressing be consistent, they will exert themselves to do the latter; and, by increasing the knowledge, increase also the power of an extensive and important class,—a class which is as deeply interested as the peerage or the hierarchy in the prosperity and tranquillity of the country ”

“ Of course, this classification is made without reference to social 'classes.' The public is recruited from the upper, the middle, and the lower class. That the recruits come mostly from the lower class is because the lower class is still the least well-educated. ”

“ For this purpose, he shall become a member of a small class of six or eight, these classes being capable of being separated from each other, just as individuals are separated from individuals during the earlier stage, the members of each class to have a common interest, the marks earned or lost by each to count to the gain or loss of his party, not of himself exclusively. ”

“ This ambitious and exceptionally active class is the class for which the promise of equal opportunities possesses its main significance, and in its relation to which it mainly requires to be examined. ”

“ Do social classes tend to assume the character of cultural groups? That is to say, do the classes tend to acquire the exclusiveness and independence of a caste or nationality; or is each class always dependent upon the existence of a corresponding class? ”

“ I have found that to grow acquainted with the class that is the chief object of social legislation is to see more plainly the room for improvement, and also to see how much better, how much sounder, that class is than it appeared to be from the outside: how much might be gained, of material advantage especially, and at the same time how much there is to be lost of those qualities of character which have been acquired through long training and by infinite sacrifice. ”

“ As an analysis of the conditions for the seizure of power by revolutionary leaders, the theory of class consciousness is no more idealistic than the theory of class structure. Both theories are equally materialistic. ”

“ The division is an ancient one, and is the basis of our social life. The Third Class, which is the most numerous, is sometimes also called the Hungry Class; its members are notable for doing most of the country's hard work, and for being so poor that they rarely have enough to eat. ”

“ A subject which has attracted much attention, and which is often referred to in conversation, in books, in political assemblies, is the various classes of society; there are upper and lower classes, and between these two, a middle class. We speak of laboring classes, poor classes, rich classes. ”

“ Three very distinct classes disputed among themselves for the crown of beauty—the aristocracy, the middle classes, and a third class for which I cannot find a name, a pleasant intermediary between the middle class and the people, which belongs to neither, and to which class the dressmakers, seamstresses, and women-shopkeepers of a town belong. ”

“ Theseus, we are told, divided the people into three classes, irrespective of gentes, on the basis of property and social position. The chiefs of the several gentes with their families, and the citizens who through their great wealth had become influential, constituted the first class ”

“ Class distinctions, to a greater or less extent, will creep in—in fact, they do not have to creep in. They are there at the commencement, and they are born of the different conditions of the members.
These class distinctions are not always made by men of wealth. For instance, some men obtain money, and are what we call snobs. Others obtain it and retain their democratic principles, and meet men according to the law of affinity, or general intelligence, on intellectual grounds, for instance. ”

“ The theory of class consciousness defines people in terms of their thoughts instead of their practice, in terms of their ideology instead of their social relations, only in appearance. It does not define them in terms of the social relations described by the theory of class structure. But it defines them in terms of social relations nevertheless. To define social classes in terms of their ideas would require reading the minds of countless individuals; mind reading is not in fact the method by which the class conscious are defined. ”

“ Under every form of government, there will be distinct classes of society, which have only occasional and transient communication with each other; and the colored people, whether educated or not, will form one of these classes. ”

“ A class which has marched for ages in the first rank has acquired, in this long and uncontested exercise of greatness, a certain loftiness of heart, a natural confidence in its strength, and a habit of being looked up to, which makes it the most resisting element in the frame of society. ”

“ Every class is, in its eyes, only an aggregate of individuals, and to exalt one class above another is to appreciate some individuals at the expense of others, to place marks of comparative social worth upon the members of different groups which do not correspond to the relative values of their natural qualities. ”

“ Ladies and gentlemen of the cultured class in your day would no more have permitted persons of their own class to render them services they would scorn to return than we would permit anybody to do so. The poor and the uncultured, however, they looked upon as of another kind from themselves. The equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture which all persons now enjoy have simply made us all members of one class, which corresponds to the most fortunate class with you. ”

“ The interests of the society or nation furnish an easy phrase, but such phrases are to be regarded with suspicion. Such interests are apt to be the interests of a ruling clique which the rest are to be compelled to serve. On the other hand, a really great and intelligent group purpose, founded on correct knowledge and really sound judgment, can infuse into the mores a vigor and consistent character which will reach every individual with educative effect. ”

“ In the working of the machine of society, class moves pretty much with class; that is, one class moves pretty much with its equals in the community (equals so far as social station is concerned) , and apart from other classes, as much those below as those above itself ”

“ In the very next 'Atlantic,' you may be sure I shall. The class that do their own work are the strongest, the most numerous, and, taking one thing with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any other. They are the anomaly of our country,—the distinctive feature of the new society that we are building up here; and if we are to accomplish our national destiny, that class must increase rather than diminish. ”