The Elite and Middle Class Values
The Victorian Era began with the elite in total control of society and its politics. The elite class was made up of 300 families which were firmly established as the traditional ruling class. However, the development of new types of values, such as individualism, introduced changes throughout the Victorian Era. The idea of the self-made man became dominant in the middle class. Similar to the American Dream, the idea is that, if they work hard enough, all men can become wealthy.
Read more about this topic: Victorian Morality
Famous quotes containing the words elite, middle, class and/or values:
“Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality.”
—Rupert Murdoch (b. 1931)
“The goods of fortune ... were never intended to be talked out of the world.—But as virtue and true wisdom lie in the middle of extremes,—on one hand, not to neglect and despise riches, so as to forget ourselves,—and on the other, not to pursue and love them so, as to forget God;Mto have them sometimes in our heads,—but always something more important in our hearts.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“It is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician demonstrative proofs.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“Science has nothing to be ashamed of even in the ruins of Nagasaki. The shame is theirs who appeal to other values than the human imaginative values which science has evolved.”
—Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974)