None of us, individually, it may be, want to be caring or cultured or classless, or to belong to a particular class. The three C's are for other people. In repudiating the categories, we repudiate, in one sense, the society we live in - a very practical example of Marxian alienation. And a significant one, because caring, culture and class are all more or less modern concepts. 'Caring', the imperative now laid on all persons in the community, has taken over from the social responsibilities that went with rank and status. Culture is a 19th-century invention designed to inculcate a national and racial heritage of art and literature on an egalitarian basis. And class was invented in an age of nominal equalities to put our differences on a comfortably scientific and sociological basis.

LRB 20 June 1985 | PDF Download