BBC's Great British Class Propaganda

You remember when in the movie V for Vendetta the British government official starts dictating what to do in the media to help manipulate people's opinions and keep the dictatorship in place? Maybe the Great British Class Calculator should have been in the movie as an exemplar tool that seems fun but really, is changing your perception of things and directing people to make certain propagandistic cultural assumptions.

Call me conspiracy-lover, but I think there are the assumptions that are embedded in the discourse of the little interactive system. Assumption which make us think more about our differences rather than what we have in common as people living in the UK.

Here they are:

1. First assumption: our social system is made up of social classes.
Don't get me wrong loads of people do want us to believe that, in the UK in particular, there is this social class system within which people always try to categorise themselves. However, is it there really or are the differences merging?


2. Second assumption: everyone who takes the "test" is going to be categorised so everyone is part of a class.
What about people from abroad living in the UK? No test is going to be able to measure each person's individuality. The BBC is blatantly ignoring the opinions of real people that have taken the test. Just read the comments here to see what users say.

Apart from the test's questionable validity, SHOULD any tool measure people's individuality?
It took me ages but I eventually did realise that being different is never a bad thing...thank goodness we aren't all the same! It is true: psychologically we sometimes need to use our brain to categorise people because it helps us remember more...but society never helps us grow out of this childish and inaccurate habit of ours! Why shouldn't we grow out of it? Life is, thankfully, more complicated than that. Do not just see your neighbour as your neighbour: you might miss the fact that he goes to the same gym you do, he's got interesting political opinions and (why not) he might even have interesting salsa moves! He is a human being after all, and as a human being his life is more than just being the neighbour of yours.


3. Third assumption: classes are acceptable social categories worth studying.
If the BBC spends money and time to make it, then the assumption is it must be worth knowing about. Is it really? Why is the fact that there are classes in place always worth mentioning before any event that has (or is) uniting people in some sort of way?

I suggest you being more inquisitive when it comes to things like that.
Do not fall for it. Do not give these discursive elements for granted.
Think with your own head.

The day in which one human life is worth more than another one is today.
The mentality is in place. I find this much more worth talking about than what my result is on the flippin' social class calculator.

Re-Creativity and Beyond

Do you follow the Big Bang Theory?
If so, have you seen the episode (season 6) when Sheldon tries to re-read his diaries and journals of when he was young to see whether he can find something that is worth a nobel prize?

For the people that do not watch big Bang Theory...I'm talking about a creative mind looking into his past to get answers for his future. I like the idea. I wish I also had written something when I was a child...I remember having all these thoughts...I'm sure most of them were illogical and in a way boring to adults...but who knows if one of them would be a creative approach to a way of living.
Children, with their ingenuity, should really be listened to...and I wouldn't be the first one to say that schools might kill some of our creativity by encouraging us to think only in certain specific ways.

I feel that today's generations are invited to use new technologies to re-arrange, re-propose, re-assemble things...to make new products. But doesn't that lead to re-creation rather than creation?
We can take a funny picture and write up our own phrases and we could even share it with friends and make it become a new internet "meme"...but is that CREATION?
I'm sure making new connections between old creations is part of creativity...but creativity is not only that. Has everything really been invented already, are we becoming more close minded as a society...or are we not encouraged to, and therefore scared to, play with the "new"?

When was the last time you felt like you made something for a purpose...without any adaptations?
When was the last time you went ahead and "created" in the core sense of the word?
When was the...oh ok, that's it: too many questions.

Maybe all we gotta do is allow ourselves to make mistakes. Many inventions were made in that way...and new realisations can bring to new outcomes. Just because we have memes doesn't mean Internet is "creative" and just because we can edit pictures easily on our phones...we shouldn't feel like we are awesome powerful creators.

Creators take risks, are unconventional. They find new connections between existing things but they also create some new stuff. Go beyond creating a "thing" that would fit a category by creating a category in itself.  Maybe it's ok once in a while to jot down that seemingly stupid thought you have in your head about making something that doesn't exist but that you wish existed...

I'm just sayin'...we got the capabilities. We might as well see what potential we can reach with them. And maybe one day we will be able to go "to infinity and.... ..." ...oh nevermind, that's not creative.