> I find most people who think of themselves as class traitors are
referring
> to their having been born to a family that enjoys some degree or another
> of consumption...
Let's backtrack from the discussion: Dan takes issue with Ahmad's criticisms of Said, specifically that Ahmad complains about Said's predilection for certain cultural pursuits (piano, etc), and that his complaint is somehow meant to imply something about Said's 'bourgeoisness'. When Dan responds to this by ironically designating himself as a 'class traitor', you then consider this as an occassion on which to assert that Dan in fact thinks, as does Ahmad, that patterns of cultural consumption are the index of one's class location. The best I can say about such a polemical play is that it might impress a precocious three year-old.
If in fact you had serious reservations about a conception of class defined as patterns of cultural consumption or any other sociologistic definition, then you would have agreed with Dan that it Ahmad is wrong to think that this might constitute a criticism of Said.
> I'm not saying that Daniel does this necessarily, but that is what I
> usually encounter when I press so-called 'class traitors' on their
> self-appelation...
Uhu? But you strongly imply it. Whatever the debate between you and Daniel on Said is, it's clear to me at least that here you owe Daniel an apology. He was the first to raise the problem with a culturalist definition of class which you now pretend to have discovered as Dan's problem. Remarkable.
Angela