Some Notes: Identity and Class
The true understanding is probably always intuitive and sudden: a revelation, an "epiphany", a "satori".
Psyche (our souls: collective soul, Anima? Animula?), cannot be protean, amorphous, undefined, "amoeba-like", multi-pronged and multi-plugged. It is a pathology; subtle and higher level, almost undetectable, but "pathology". We have to know who we are and where we belong to: so, more precise term in this sense, probably will be "social identity", which merges with the notion of "social roles". It is one of the prerequisites of healthy psychic, and probably including "intrapsychic", psychosocial and social functioning.
The class systems are traditionally defined as hierarchical vertical (mostly economic) structures, from "lower" to "upper", etc. There is another way to look at this: social class as mentality and system of communication; not necessarily economically defined (economic status can be very changeable, especially in cultures with the high level of socioeconomic mobility, as the USA), hierarchical and vertical.
Social classes are the societal subgroups which share the same system of communications, the same "language" in a broad sense: emotional, behavioral and linguistic. In one of the most class conscious cultures, Great Britain, class is defined on the basis of accent: "Queen's English" (with all the corresponding behavioral attributes) is a different universe, compared with "cockney English".
The USSR was almost classless society, but this "almost" also contained all sorts of hierarchical shades.
The point is that we have to have very clear sense of belonging to our social subgroup (the lower classes do not know what it is and simply do not care much about it, although they are always aware of their "station" in life; upper classes do not care much about it either, but for very different set of reasons: they see themselves as simply above any class system; middle classes are quite class conscious), and very importantly, we have to have a sense of loyalty and responsibility to our social subgroup and share its ideology and behavioral standards. It is one of the "sine qua non" requirements of healthy mental and social functioning.
We belong to those social subgroups or "classes", in which we feel most comfortable and with which we share the same common languages of various types.
Links
Social class - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Understanding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The true understanding - Google Search
Class - Google Search
class system in england - GS
class system in america - GS
class system in india - GS
socio-economic mobility in america - GS
social classes in america - GS
queen's english accent - GS
cockney english accent - GS
the former soviet union was a classless society without social stratification - GS
would a society exist without social stratification - GS
without social stratification and social mobility society would collapse - GS
society without social stratification - GS
