...class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as betwe… - E. P. Thompson
" "...class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs. The class experience is largely determined by the productive relations into which men are born—or enter involuntarily. Class-consciousness is the way in which these experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms. If the experience appears as determined, class-consciousness does not. We can see a logic in the responses of similar occupational groups undergoing similar experiences, but we cannot predicate any law. Consciousness of class arises in the same way in different times and places, but never in just the same way.
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About E. P. Thompson
Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993), usually cited as E. P. Thompson, was a British historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best remembered for his historical work on the British radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class (1963).
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Edward Palmer Thompson
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Edward Thompson
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Additional quotes by E. P. Thompson
John Mortimer: Now that nuclear weapons exist, you have to face the fact that you would rather be conquered by, say, the Russians than have the world blown up?
Thompson: Yes, I think so. Don't you?
Mortimer: Better red than dead?
Thompson: Yes.
Mortimer: So, if nuclear weapons had existed in 1939, we would have had to accept conquest by Hitler to save a nuclear war?
Thompson: Yes.
[I]n the early eighties, I was turned aside once again, by the emergency of the “second cold war” and by the heavy demands of the peace movement. I do not regret this: I am convinced that the peace movement made a major contribution to dispersing the cold war, which had descended like a polluting cloud on every field of political and social life.
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We are going to stop those piffling cruise missiles, you know, on land if not on sea. What we have to do is seize this moment of mass consciousness to move directly into the structures of the Cold War themselves, the blocs behind the missiles. We have to keep to some very large and simple ideas – like remaking Europe and putting peace and liberty together... This is the most serious political work I have ever done or will ever do in my life. It won't last long. If we succeed a little, the politicians will move in and take it off us.
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