What are you Worth?: Why Class is an Embarrassing Subject

The paper attempts to explain the unease and evasion that sociologists commonlyencounter when asking lay people about class. It is argued that these responsesderive from varying degrees of awareness of the morally problematic nature ofclass. This has been obscured by contemporary sociology's tendency to explainbehaviour by reference to interests and power or custom and to overlook laymoral sentiments. That the responses are reasonable is shown by an analysis ofa) the injustice of class, b) its effect in distorting moral sentiments, and c)the injuries caused by class. Combinations of self-justification withacknowledgement of undeserved advantages and disadvantages result in ambivalenceand embarrassment about class, though this may not preclude class pride. Theanalysis of these moral sentiments is then developed further in relation tostudies of the struggles of the social field, in the work of Bourdieu andothers, commenting on his shift from a hermeneutics of suspicion to ahermeneutics of sympathy in The Weight of the World. It is argued that what isat stake in these struggles is not only differences in material wealth andrecognition but differences in ability to realise commitments and valued ways ofliving.