“
But unfortunately you get no further by merely wishing class-distinctions
away. More exactly, it is necessary to wish them away, but your wish has no
efficacy unless you grasp what it involves. The fact that has got to be faced is
that to abolish class-distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself. Here am
I, a typical member of the middle class. It is easy for me to say that I want to
get rid of class-distinctions, but nearly everything I think and do is a result of
class-distinctions. All my notions –notions of good and evil, of pleasant and unpleasant,
of funny and serious, of ugly and beautiful–are essentially middle-class
notions; my taste in books and food and clothes, my sense of honour, my table
manners, my turns of speech, my accent, even the characteristic movements of
my body, are the products of a special kind of upbringing and a special niche
about half-way up the social hierarchy.
”
”