# [Thu 1st Mar 2012] Class Wars/Culture Wars: Owen Jones and the Chavs (London, WC2A 2AE)



## dynamicbaddog (Dec 31, 2011)

The recent riots in parts of England have focussed increased attention on what has increasingly been described as the 'underclass' of English society. Various politicians have clambered (or leapt) onto a bandwagon that has defined this group as beyond civil society. Many of the people regarded as dangerous are young and male and one half of the 'chavs' who have been the subject of Owen Jones's book. But who are 'these people' and has a social identity been created for them that sees only the negative in their behaviour?
Sue Christoforou is a policy analyst and campaigner. She has worked for a number of national campaigning organisations, including Mind, Macmillan Cancer Support and DrugScope.
Mary Evans is Centennial Professor at the Gender Institute, LSE.
Owen Jones is author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. He has worked in parliament as a trade union lobbyist and parliamentary researcher.
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2012/03/LitFest20120301t1700vSZT.aspx


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## manny-p (Dec 31, 2011)

isn't Owen Jones abit of a dick.?


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## Joe Reilly (Dec 31, 2011)

manny-p said:


> isn't Owen Jones abit of a dick.?



Glib is the word that springs to mind.


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## ayatollah (Jan 1, 2012)

Owen Jones strikes me, possibly totally unfairly, (but that's what being an old cynic does for you) as yet another , quick on his feet to spot the issue of the day, academic/controversialist, who is currently making some interesting points about the demonisation of the poorer working class, but as with the likes of Julie Burchill (remember HER  radical Leftie posturing in the 70's ?)  in a few years he could just as well be demanding mandatory castration of poor families in his latest "rebranding". Probably TOTALLY unfair as I say - ,but how he came across in interviews I've seen.


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## treelover (Jan 2, 2012)

Sue came to our conference years ago on the welfare cuts, she sounded very london W/C, very angry, etc, next time i saw her was on the Select Committee hearings (where John Hutton lied saying ''current claimants will not be migrated onto ESA'' )representing Mind, she was a different person, spouting the MIND line in a very 'posh' and refined way...


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## smokedout (Jan 3, 2012)

I just read his book and whilst it's okay, it's very much an privileged outsider looking in and much of it blindingly obvious to anyone who's not a tourist, he never gets over his sense of shock that there are poor people and because of this his analysis oftens misses things and becomes a bit simplistic

also lots of nods to polly and johann, as much a CV as a critique of class relations, which is why he never goes too far, keeping things firmly in a liberal guardian friendly world


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## Captain Hurrah (Jan 3, 2012)

Talking and writing about working class people is good for his career.  Probably nothing more.


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## dynamicbaddog (Jan 3, 2012)

smokedout said:


> I just read his book and whilst it's okay, it's very much an privileged outsider looking in and much of it blindingly obvious to anyone who's not a tourist, he never gets over his sense of shock that there are poor people and because of this his analysis oftens misses things and becomes a bit simplistic


At a time when benefit claimants are attacked by the mass media on an almost daily basis and the low waged are airbrushed of existence it needed someone to come along and state the 'blindingly obvious' The book is aimed at a mainstream audience and I think it's achieved a lot in getting the issues out there. He's working on a follow up which I'm looking forward to reading.


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## kenny g (Jan 3, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> The book is aimed at a mainstream audience and I think it's achieved a lot in getting the issues out there.



What is a mainstream audience? Who defines it? It isn't aimed at the majority because it would tell them nothing new. Mainstream is just a code word for a small sub-section of the population that dominate politics and culture through their shitty newspapers, TV and radio.

The book is a repost to a particularly vicious attack that was rapidly becoming "mainstream." Where is the "out there" that it got the issues to? Do you mean it helped to remind some over paid scumsters that poor people are human too. Well, thank our lucky stars!


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## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> At a time when benefit claimants are attacked by the mass media on an almost daily basis and the low waged are airbrushed of existence it needed someone to come along and state the 'blindingly obvious' The book is aimed at a mainstream audience and I think it's achieved a lot in getting the issues out there. He's working on a follow up which I'm looking forward to reading.



I'd say 2 things in reply to that:

1. The book fails to acknowledge the impact of 30 odd years of neo-liberalism on w/c communities. Jones misses the important changes and the issues that they pose precisely because he is an outsider looking in imho.
2. His defence of 'real' Labour and attempt to pin the blames on 'The Tories' is lame in the extreme. Most of the areas he visited have had Labour councils for years and at the time of writing had just 'enjoyed' 13 years of a Labour Government.


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## butchersapron (Jan 3, 2012)

It's been selling very well in our shop but i think it's mostly been people buying into the sort of cultural identity politics that's done so much damage since 1981 and that run through the book itself - at least judging by the other stuff they've been buying at the same time and conversations they've started.


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## frogwoman (Jan 3, 2012)

not having read the book what sort of cultural arguments does it put across butchers? is it the whole idea of "class" as "culture" rather than relationship to the means of production etc (not that eg coming from a family that has lots of social capital can't and does not influence your status?)


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## frogwoman (Jan 3, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I'd say 2 things in reply to that:
> 
> 1. The book fails to acknowledge the impact of 30 odd years of neo-liberalism on w/c communities. Jones misses the important changes and the issues that they pose precisely because he is an outsider looking in imho.
> 2. His defence of 'real' Labour and attempt to pin the blames on 'The Tories' is lame in the extreme. Most of the areas he visited have had Labour councils for years and at the time of writing had just 'enjoyed' 13 years of a Labour Government.



"chav" was a word that came about during the Labour government anyway ...


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## butchersapron (Jan 3, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> not having read the book what sort of cultural arguments does it put across butchers? is it the whole idea of "class" as "culture" rather than relationship to the means of production etc (not that eg coming from a family that has lots of social capital can't and does not influence your status?)


Yeah, class as culture - which of course does make up part of class - but more dangerously the idea of their being the possibility of a w/c identity politics based on the possibility of competing better with other such identities.


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## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> "chav" was a word that came about during the Labour government anyway ...



More pertinantly New Labour made the conscious choice to turn its back on the working class once and for all in 1994 on the - incorrect - presumption that they had nowhere else to go. They also did a really bad job of hiding their snobbish distate for the entire culture of the white working class and its active refusal to sign up to their brand of liberalism.

All of this seems to have been unnoticed by Jones.


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## Proper Tidy (Jan 3, 2012)

I didn't think much of his book. It's repetitive and misses a lot. I got bored and put it down for a few weeks before finishing it.

Having said that, I leant it to somebody I know, bright but not really arsed about politics, and she raved about it, started asking me a bit about the stuff he covered, has noticeably become a bit more class aware lately. And she's a w/c public sector admin worker, not in the bubble. Labour voter mind. She's passed it in to somebody in her office now.

No idea what this says/proves tbh


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## dynamicbaddog (Jan 3, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> More pertinantly New Labour made the conscious choice to turn its back on the working class once and for all in 1994 on the - incorrect - presumption that they had nowhere else to go. They also did a really bad job of hiding their snobbish distate for the entire culture of the white working class and its active refusal to sign up to their brand of liberalism.
> 
> All of this seems to have been unnoticed by Jones.


i thought the book covered New Labour turning it's back on working class people in great detail ( chapter 5 '' We are all middle class now'' for example)


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## frogwoman (Jan 3, 2012)

for what its worth i do think books like that are useful and it's refreshing to see people like jones etc get on the telly. i could imagine myself getting annoyed by it though.


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## smokedout (Jan 3, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Yeah, class as culture - which of course does make up part of class - but more dangerously the idea of their being the possibility of a w/c identity politics based on the possibility of competing better with other such identities.



I'm not sure that's his intention, I just don't think he has the tools to look at it any other way.  why would he, we're all animals in the zoo to him.


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 16, 2012)

Bump. Just finished reading this. After the criticism of it on the previous thread, I was expecting it to be pretty bad, but was pleasantly surprised.
As Dynamicbaddog says, Jones DID cover Labour's abandonment of the working class pretty clearly. I also disagree with the assertion that he covers working class identity in cultural rather than economic terms; I thought he was fairly clear (certainly clearer than I was expecting him to be) about working class as an economic identity; he didn't take it to its logical conclusion of full-on Marxism but so what. I wouldn't necessarily look to him to come up with all the answers. It's a piece of primarily journalistic polemic (which, as said above, consists mainly of quoting other journalists). As a first draft of history, it's not great, but as a relatively transient contribution to the debate here-and-now, it was better than I'd expected.
And yes, obviously he is making a career out of it. As 20-summat Oxford history graduates are wont to do. That doesn't invalidate his work, does it.

PS. I bet he'll stand for Parliament within the next decade.


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## butchersapron (Jan 16, 2012)

You disagree with assertions why?


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## butchersapron (Jan 16, 2012)

temper_tantrum said:


> As a first draft of history, it's not great, but as a relatively transient contribution to the debate here-and-now, it was better than I'd expected.
> And yes, obviously he is making a career out of it. As 20-summat Oxford history graduates are wont to do. That doesn't invalidate his work, does it.
> 
> PS. I bet he'll stand for Parliament within the next decade.



What would someone from where you are from expect though? Would it be different from me?

No,it raises questions about it ,how he got into the position of getting his questions taken seriously.


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 16, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> What would someone from where you are from expect though? Would it be different from me?



Fair point (if I've understood you correctly). That did occur to me before posting, y'know 



> No,it raises questions about it ,how he got into the position of getting his questions taken seriously.



Oh absolutely. Not everyone gets to write a 'relatively transient contribution to the debate here-and-now' via the medium of a tasty book deal. A lot of your criticisms on that basis from the previous thread, I do agree with.
Having read the book, I too am now rather baffled by his inclusion of Rachel Johnson as some kind of class lodestar. I'm guessing that he just lined up a few interviews with prominent media/political types he was vaguely connected with, to augment the shedload of quotes he pulled from people's columns and news coverage.


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## frogwoman (Jan 16, 2012)

Is it worth spending money on then? iv'e been debating getting it for months but i'm very fussy about reading books about politics. it's ironic that books about class, politics, etc, always have to be so expensive.


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 16, 2012)

You can have my copy if you like, Froggy! 
Edit: Can post to whatever address; PM me or summat.


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## frogwoman (Jan 16, 2012)

sure, send me a pm


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 16, 2012)

BTW, his choice of people like Rachel Johnson makes perhaps a little more sense if it's seen in the light of his target audience. He's not writing for the u75 politics forum, he's writing for the op ed page of the Guardian. I wouldn't even suggest he's writing for the average Guardian *reader*, he's writing for the London media world. And with that audience in mind, I'd say he's succeeded.

Edit: Now that I've read it, I'll repeat the question which I posted on the previous thread: 'Is there another book which does much the same, but without the problems in Jones' work?'
Or, alternatively, any other follow-up reading which anyone would like to suggest?


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## frogwoman (Jan 16, 2012)

I do find it a bit weird that people writing books which are meant to be academic studies of something (was his tho tbf? I dunno) can put quotes from their mates in there rather than experts on the subjects, if i'd done that at uni and openly put put the opinions of someone i was mates with rather than an authoritative source, i'd probably have failed!


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 16, 2012)

Nah, there's nowaiiiii it's an academic study of anything. Like I say, it's basically a bunch of researched news clippings sellotaped together with a handful of interviews with meejah figures, and a couple of quotes from Yer Average Working Class Povs thrown in, probably at the insistence of his editor to make it look as though he actually did some work at some point or other.
It reads as though he knocked it up in his spare time, tbh. Which he probably did. As Butchers (I think) is suggesting, most of us could have done similar.


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## frogwoman (Jan 16, 2012)

yes i see! well you see if youve been involved in publishing in anyway you'll know why. i worked in a publishing company for a bit and you will not believe the nepotism that goes on and the importance of connections, i was so shocked about it.

is he actually upper class though?


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## butchersapron (Jan 16, 2012)

temper_tantrum said:


> Nah, there's nowaiiiii it's an academic study of anything. Like I say, it's basically a bunch of researched news clippings sellotaped together with a handful of interviews with meejah figures, and a couple of quotes from Yer Average Working Class Povs thrown in, probably at the insistence of his editor to make it look as though he actually did some work at some point or other.
> It reads as though he knocked it up in his spare time, tbh. Which he probably did. As Butchers (I think) is suggesting, most of us could have done similar.


Most of us could have done it - most of us wouldn't have got it published.


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 16, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> you will not believe the nepotism that goes on and the importance of connections



Yes I would 

I dunno about his background, as Butchers said on the other thread, his parents are an academic and a council worker.

Edit:




butchersapron said:


> Most of us could have done it - most of us wouldn't have got it published.


 
Precisely. So glad we agree on this


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## frogwoman (Jan 16, 2012)

Seriously on my first day there someone i was working with said "the books going to be really good because his dad is so and so and he knows so and so"


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## frogwoman (Jan 16, 2012)

to be fair though it's not just books like jones's, i bet that the vast majority of books that get published are both aimed and written by upper middle class people, even fiction. it's very rare to be honest that you get to read books (although perhaps kindle's different) that are about anyone who isnt quite rich, even "gritty" crime thrillers and so on (apart from Ian Rankin and some sci-fi). I read a lot of books and I've also noticed that so many of what gets published is very similar just because of "trends" in the publishing industry, not just to do with class. somebody could write a very good book but it may not get published because it isn't "trendy" at the industry at that time.


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## Fozzie Bear (Jan 16, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> is he actually upper class though?



He describes himself as middle class (Dad was a lecturer). Oxford Uni, then a researcher for Labour?

I got the book for Christmas and have found it annoyingly lightweight as well. His "why can't Labour get its act together?" routine on twitter is increasingly comic/tragic to watch.

It's been a while since I read it, but "The Likes of Us" by Michael Collins was a better book, though also plagued by misty eyed romanticism iirc.

"Estates" by Lynsey Hanley covers similar territory (in terms of housing) and is not exactly up there for penetrating analysis, but is also a better book than "Chavs".


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## temper_tantrum (Jan 16, 2012)

Fozzie Bear said:


> It's been a while since I read it, but "The Likes of Us" by Michael Collins was a better book, though also plagued by misty eyed romanticism iirc.
> 
> "Estates" by Lynsey Hanley covers similar territory (in terms of housing) and is not exactly up there for penetrating analysis, but is also a better book than "Chavs".



Ta for these  I have the former in my reading pile, and  the latter is on my wishlist.


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## october_lost (Jan 17, 2012)

temper_tantrum said:


> PS. I bet he'll stand for Parliament within the next decade.


I remember reading Owen's posts on the UK left network, and the occassional spats he had with the CPGB (early piece), one thing is for sure, I am guessing he doesn't talk about Lenin and imperialism as much, but were talking 10-12 years ago. He seems to have drifted on the well-trode path before ending up with the Labour Representation Committee.


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## frogwoman (Jan 17, 2012)

bloody hell at that piece. while i don't agree with what the serbs did to the kosovan albanians being genocide, calling it a falsification is a bit fucking much.


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## Fozzie Bear (Jan 17, 2012)

_"Imagine being a poor working-class youth in Britain today"_ (Chavs, p210).


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## romeo2001 (Feb 4, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> to be fair though it's not just books like jones's, i bet that the vast majority of books that get published are both aimed and written by upper middle class people, even fiction. it's very rare to be honest that you get to read books (although perhaps kindle's different) that are about anyone who isnt quite rich, even "gritty" crime thrillers and so on (apart from Ian Rankin and some sci-fi). I read a lot of books and I've also noticed that so many of what gets published is very similar just because of "trends" in the publishing industry, not just to do with class. somebody could write a very good book but it may not get published because it isn't "trendy" at the industry at that time.


 
this isnt a serious post surely? how can you read a lot of books and it be rare that you read books about people who arent quite rich?  There are loads


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## butchersapron (Feb 4, 2012)

romeo2001 said:


> this isnt a serious post surely? how can you read a lot of books and it be rare that you read books about people who arent quite rich? There are loads


And yet...it can still be quite rare for someone to read them. (To publish and write them is the larger point).


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## frogwoman (Feb 4, 2012)

i think it's got worse in recent years btw - look at a lot of/most of the bestsellers list for example.


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 4, 2012)

Thought he done well on 5 live last night, challenging Edwina Currie when she yet again tried to deny that child poverty exists in Britain today.
 BTW tickets for the Class Wars/Culture Wars talk   become available online from this Monday (6th Feb)


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## butchersapron (Feb 4, 2012)

How odd that an oxbridge boy is on 5live talking politics for and to us.


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> How odd that an oxbridge boy is on 5live talking politics for and to us.


he went there from a comprehensive school .
http://labourlist.org/2011/06/abolish-oxbridge/


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## butchersapron (Feb 4, 2012)

And?


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## articul8 (Feb 5, 2012)

Finally getting around to reading it - it's all a bit predictable really.


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## articul8 (Feb 5, 2012)

october_lost said:


> I remember reading Owen's posts on the UK left network, and the occassional spats he had with the CPGB (early piece), one thing is for sure, I am guessing he doesn't talk about Lenin and imperialism as much, but were talking 10-12 years ago. He seems to have drifted on the well-trode path before ending up with the Labour Representation Committee.


 
He's isn't LRC now - he's kind of around "Next Generation Labour" - which seems like a Socialist Action thing


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 5, 2012)

articul8 said:


> He's isn't LRC now - he's kind of around "Next Generation Labour" - which seems like a Socialist Action thing



Who? Is this Livingstone et al? Didn't he work for John McDonnell and/or Alan Simpson who are Campaign Group/LRC?


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 5, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Who? Is this Livingstone et al? Didn't he work for John McDonnell and/or Alan Simpson who are Campaign Group/LRC?


As far as I know he has'nt left the LRC, but he's not been that active in it of late. NGL seem to be a new group, dunno much about them. - http://nextgenerationlabour.org/2012/01/austerity-isnt-working-join-our-discussion/


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## articul8 (Feb 5, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Who? Is this Livingstone et al? Didn't he work for John McDonnell and/or Alan Simpson who are Campaign Group/LRC?


 
He wasn't very complimentary about LRC when I last spoke to him - "some good people but they'll never achieve anything" was the gist


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## love detective (Feb 5, 2012)

they'll never achieve as much as owen jones 'doing the papers' on sky news will


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## articul8 (Feb 5, 2012)

Do people get paid for that kind of gig?  Or do it for the exposure?


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## butchersapron (Feb 5, 2012)

Course they get paid. Look at the MPs registers of interests and you'll see just how much.


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## articul8 (Feb 5, 2012)

Well I can't believe the royalties of a even a successful book with Verso would give you an income to live off - so that only leaves media handouts or parental subs.   He's definitely a full-time "commentator" now


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## frogwoman (Feb 5, 2012)

sorry i missed this - was he commentating on the papers etc with sky? (i havent looked at the news for ages sorry)


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## love detective (Feb 5, 2012)

'doing the papers' is the real movement which abolishes the present state of things


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## frogwoman (Feb 5, 2012)

love detective said:


> 'doing the papers' is the real movement which abolishes the present state of things


 
so this type of thing basically?


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## Wolveryeti (Feb 5, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> How odd that an oxbridge boy is on 5live talking politics for and to us.


How odd that Botchers is going on about Oxbridge again. Did he get jilted at interviews, I wonder?


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## frogwoman (Feb 5, 2012)

that's the onl reason to mention oxbridge, obviously


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## The39thStep (Feb 5, 2012)

Wolveryeti said:


> How odd that Botchers is going on about Oxbridge again. Did he get jilted at interviews, I wonder?


 
No. Why are you asking?


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## Wolveryeti (Feb 5, 2012)

Are you his stalwart? Bless.


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## The39thStep (Feb 5, 2012)

Wolveryeti said:


> Are you his stalwart? Bless.


 
Don't get all coy, just answer the question


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:


> He wasn't very complimentary about LRC when I last spoke to him - "some good people but they'll never achieve anything" was the gist


 
That's odd, because a number of members of the LRC exec are 'credited' in the book. I've never heard of next generation Labour but looking at the link posted by dynamicbaddog the speakers at their event are the usual LRC/Campaign Group suspects.


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

He was LRC, he's distanced himself now without being hostile.  NGN are a Socialist Action thing I'm pretty certain - a split from Compass Youth.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

_Compass youth_. Has ever a more pathetic thing existed? I thought they all fucked off after your mates voted to allow lib-dems to join anyway?

And SA being behind both groups? What makes you suggest that?


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

SA are behind NGN not Compass - Cat Smith [ex Compass Youth] from Islington is one of theirs, and hence the prominent role of Ken campaigning in their priorities.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

I didn't mean behind compass but the oh so energising compass youth. So just Cat Smith? Is that enough to say it's a SA front?


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

Well, it's a pointer in that direction.

Reading Jones I'm struck how little agency the w/c has in his account - they are "victims", "the conquered", the reality disappearing totally behind an all powerful m/c construted stereotype.  One of the few examples of fighting back he gives - the Lindsey refinery - he credits to the "commendable leadership" of the SP.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

Odd that when i and others said similar it was crude class stereotyping.


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

I said it was crude to assume from his social background that he would *automatically* reproduce m/c prejudices despite himself.  Anyway having read the book now I can see that it didn't avoid some of the weaknesses I'd hoped it would.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:
			
		

> I said it was crude to assume from his social background that he would *automatically* reproduce m/c prejudices despite himself.  Anyway having read the book now I can see that it didn't avoid some of the weaknesses I'd hoped it would.



You mean where people who had read the book said the same as you are now. They were bring crude and making assumptions.


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## frogwoman (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I said it was crude to assume from his social background that he would *automatically* reproduce m/c prejudices despite himself. Anyway having read the book now I can see that it didn't avoid some of the weaknesses I'd hoped it would.


 
reminds me i've still got to read it.


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:


> He was LRC, he's distanced himself now without being hostile. NGN are a Socialist Action thing I'm pretty certain - a split from Compass Youth.


 
That's revealing because SA - as well as being secretive, irrelevant and clueless all at the same time - have a long record of viewing inequality as a race/other minority issue rather than a class issue. The er, very thing Jones is fleetingly critical of in his book.


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

> reminds me i've still got to read it.


You won't find it says much you don't already know - and there's an odd cringe-worthy passage here and there. But not a bad effort all told given where he's coming from.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

frogwoman said:
			
		

> reminds me i've still got to read it.



its great until you actually read it then it both shows you to be both wrong and right before even reading it and also everyone else wrong for being right.


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

I suspended judgement until I'd read it.  You judged first - I objected.  That you happened - in this rare instance - to be right was more by luck than owt else


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:
			
		

> I suspended judgement until I'd read it.  You judged first - I objected.  That you happened - in this rare instance - to be right was more by luck than owt else


No, I made sure to read the book first. As related on the longer thread about it. Where you also got it very wrong.


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:


> You won't find it says much you don't already know - and there's an odd cringe-worthy passage here and there. But not a bad effort all told given where he's coming from.


 
One of the many failings of the book which hasn't been discussed is the style of writing. Jones can't decide if the book is reportage ( a chatty conversational report from the working class ghetto), an academic thesis or a polemic. It ends up being a mess to read because it tries to be all 3.

My main criticisms remain the fact that he is clearly an outsider looking in and therefore misses entirely the devastating impact of 30 years of neo-liberalism on the working class _itself_ and the ludicrous notion running though the book that suggests it's all the fault of the Tories and 50 odd people in New Labour. He is also guilty of using the analysis of others without crediting them properly.

As others have said the fact its been published is more to do with his connections than to the fact that he has got something important to say. Whilst far from perfect The Likes of Us is a much better read if nothing else.


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

My broader point was right - it wasn't *inevitable* from his social position that he would go wide of the mark.


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:
			
		

> My broader point was right - it wasn't *inevitable* from his social position that he would go wide of the mark.



Your point that people who had read the book could only come up with the same criticisms as you through social prejudice not through actually reading the book. Some prejudices are certainly on show right now.


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

prejudice against rent-a-gob internet ranters nowt else


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## butchersapron (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:
			
		

> prejudice against rent-a-gob internet ranters nowt else





Nowt #and# owt, w/c ambassador to the bubble left, you do spoil us today.


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## articul8 (Feb 6, 2012)

I'm sorry, I didn't realise I needed to hand in the right to my colloquialisms when I passed the class police


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## manny-p (Feb 6, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I'm sorry, I didn't realise I needed to hand in the right to my colloquialisms when I passed the class police


Your a liberal cunt


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## articul8 (Feb 7, 2012)




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## temper_tantrum (Feb 14, 2012)

Brace yerselves - he's doing Question Time this week 
<dons flak helmet>

Edit: With Ken Clarke, Susan Kramer, John Prescott and Julie Meyer, in case anyone cares.


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## butchersapron (Feb 14, 2012)

Well that's at least 4 out of 5 on there this week from oxbridge - the other one (Julie marie meyer - who the fuck is that?) probably is as well. 5 out of 6 if you count the presenter.


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## temper_tantrum (Feb 14, 2012)

She's some kind of business type.
Edit: Founder of Ariadne Capital among other things:
http://www.entrepreneurcountryforum.com/speakers/julie-meyer


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## JHE (Feb 14, 2012)

temper_tantrum said:


> Brace yerselves - he's doing Question Time this week
> <dons flak helmet>


 
Good.  It'll make a nice change from that strange young women with red-dyed hair being wheeled out as the Voice of The Left.


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## butchersapron (Feb 14, 2012)

temper_tantrum said:


> She's some kind of business type.
> Edit: Founder of Ariadne Capital among other things:
> http://www.entrepreneurcountryforum.com/speakers/julie-meyer


Oh great 5 people from oxbridge and someone normal for balance. I take it Jones is the comedy act this week?


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## articul8 (Feb 14, 2012)

Prescott's not Oxbridge?


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## JHE (Feb 14, 2012)

unless you count Ruskin


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## butchersapron (Feb 14, 2012)

True, his college merely has a special relationship with oxbridge. Down to 4 1/2 out of 6.


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## treelover (Feb 15, 2012)

Julie Meyer is a very aggressive free marketeer/neo-liberal, it will be an interesting programme...


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## manny-p (Feb 15, 2012)

temper_tantrum said:


> Brace yerselves - he's doing Question Time this week
> <dons flak helmet>
> 
> Edit: With Ken Clarke, Susan Kramer, John Prescott and Julie Meyer, in case anyone cares.


When is questions time on again? Ain't watched that shite in years.


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## articul8 (Feb 16, 2012)

Tonight (Thursday) - round half ten I think


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 16, 2012)

It's rare to get a socialist on a platform like Question Time. I hope he does well


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## JHE (Feb 16, 2012)

He's made a good start.  What a pity he wasn't given the chance to say how to cure unemployment.  He was cut off by the blonde Yank gibbering about self-employment.


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## The39thStep (Feb 16, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> It's rare to get a socialist on a platform like Question Time. I hope he does well


 
As a friend of mine commented he is fast becoming what carol vordermen was in the 1980s


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 16, 2012)

good audience reaction when he mentioned Tesco and workfare


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## JHE (Feb 16, 2012)

It's a pity Jones couldn't bring himself to support a modest extension of democracy.  Clarke's answers on policing were better, gawd help us.


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## frogwoman (Feb 16, 2012)

The39thStep said:


> As a friend of mine commented he is fast becoming what carol vordermen was in the 1980s


 
it was before my time lol but what was that?


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## The39thStep (Feb 17, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> good audience reaction when he mentioned Tesco and workfare


 
clapping seals


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## manny-p (Feb 17, 2012)

Julie Meyer is a disgusting cunt


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## Random (Feb 17, 2012)

articul8 said:


> My broader point was right - it wasn't *inevitable* from his social position that he would go wide of the mark.


 Just like on the morality thread - when you're wrong, you're wrong on a higher plane, that's pretty much the same as being right. You'll go far in politics.


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 17, 2012)

The39thStep said:


> clapping seals


so I take it that you support Tesco using workfare to exploit the unemployed?


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## frogwoman (Feb 17, 2012)

manny-p said:


> When is questions time on again? Ain't watched that shite in years.


that fucking programme should carry a health warning on it for the blood pressure. don't watch it, you'll end up with a stomach ulcer!


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## The39thStep (Feb 17, 2012)

Easy fish for Jones to throw them .


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## articul8 (Feb 17, 2012)

He did pretty well - if being ultra critical he gave too much ground to the view that US Democrats had it right re US economy and implicitly suggested that policing could be "above" politics.  But by the standards of QT he didn't do bad?


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 17, 2012)




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## manny-p (Feb 17, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> that fucking programme should carry a health warning on it for the blood pressure. don't watch it, you'll end up with a stomach ulcer!


Just watched it. Lolz at that lib dem peer and ken clarke telling Jones to join the green party.


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## articul8 (Feb 18, 2012)

Is Kramer a peer now?  Jones did well not to turn on the old cow


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## manny-p (Feb 18, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Is Kramer a peer now? Jones did well not to turn on the old cow


 
I don't know. Question time is a joke, I will keep away from it indefinetly


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## articul8 (Feb 22, 2012)

yer man's on the 10 O'Clock show tonight -- on workfare


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 22, 2012)

articul8 said:


> yer man's on the 10 O'Clock show tonight -- on workfare



He's certainly the media 'go to' person when an opinion from the middle class left is required isn't he?


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## Captain Hurrah (Feb 23, 2012)

Middle class cunt.


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## nino_savatte (Feb 24, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> to be fair though it's not just books like jones's, i bet that the vast majority of books that get published are both aimed and written by upper middle class people, even fiction. it's very rare to be honest that you get to read books (although perhaps kindle's different) that are about anyone who isnt quite rich, even "gritty" crime thrillers and so on (apart from Ian Rankin and some sci-fi). I read a lot of books and I've also noticed that so many of what gets published is very similar just because of "trends" in the publishing industry, not just to do with class. somebody could write a very good book but it may not get published because it isn't "trendy" at the industry at that time.


 
Yes and I'm going to sound as though I've swallowed a load of texts by Adorno/Horkheimer but that's the nature of the culture industry. Anything that is produced from below is usually stamped out or recuperated. I don't have to time to expand on this but I may come back to it later.


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## butchersapron (Feb 24, 2012)

That's not really the point of their argument nino. The culture industry as they see it isn't like some chomsky thing stopping stuff being put out there, it's more about what the mass nature of culture demands things do - it's a pathetic elitists argument against stuff from below.


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## nino_savatte (Feb 24, 2012)

I don't follow you. Whose argument?


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## articul8 (Feb 24, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> That's not really the point of their argument nino. The culture industry as they see it isn't like some chomsky thing stopping stuff being put out there, it's more about what the mass nature of culture demands things do - it's a pathetic elitists argument against stuff from below.


is it fuck - that's the bastardised cultural studies version, promoted by people who want to claim that watching Eastenders or going round ASDA can be dead subversive honest


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## nino_savatte (Feb 28, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> That's not really the point of their argument nino. The culture industry as they see it isn't like some chomsky thing stopping stuff being put out there, it's more about what the mass nature of culture demands things do - it's a pathetic elitists argument against stuff from below.


 
My argument has nothing at all to do with Chomsky. It's about the bourgeois reproduction of power through media and cultural institutions. Jones gets his book published because he is a member of the class that produces cultural artefacts. He does book tours.  He has, if I can use a Bourdieusian term, the correct amount of social capital. This enables him to become the poster boy of the leftish yoof.


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 28, 2012)

nino_savatte said:


> This enables him to become the poster boy of the leftish yoof.


 
Who are also overwhelmingly middle class, university educated and completely irrelevant outside of their self-congratulatory, smug clique.


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## nino_savatte (Feb 29, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Who are also overwhelmingly middle class, university educated and completely irrelevant outside of their self-congratulatory, smug clique.


Which means that the same stale ideas are allowed to circulate and thus dominate political thinking.


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## dynamicbaddog (Feb 29, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Who are also overwhelmingly middle class, university educated and completely irrelevant outside of their self-congratulatory, smug clique.


Is everyone who goes to uni middle class tho? Owen Jones makes no secret of his comfortable upbringing but he did go to Oxford from a state school. While there he says he  was given a hard time by the public school educated students because of this . He nows says It’s time to abolish Oxbridge. 
However  Joe Baden,  the founder of  Open Book  says that  '' 54% of the Oxbridge cohort are state school recruits''  he says his original  anti Oxford stance was' bigoted' and that 'The ability to attain academic excellence is classless and must be the goal for all students.' 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jan/11/accesstouniversity.highereducation
I think I'm with Joe on this one.


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## butchersapron (Feb 29, 2012)

Er - 54% of the people at Oxbridge are state school educated (and only 25% are comp educated) despite making up 93% of the population. How is pointing out the disproportionate amount of privately educated students there and what this represents for wider society in various terms bigoted.

Why should i care what Joe baden said four years ago btw?


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## revol68 (Feb 29, 2012)

articul8 said:


> is it fuck - that's the bastardised cultural studies version, promoted by people who want to claim that watching Eastenders or going round ASDA can be dead subversive honest


 
we've had this debate before, you're wrong.

also Eastenders is a thousand times more subversive than the Labour Party.


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 29, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> Is everyone who goes to uni middle class tho? Owen Jones makes no secret of his comfortable upbringing but he did go to Oxford from a state school. While there he says he was given a hard time by the public school educated students because of this . He nows says It’s time to abolish Oxbridge.
> However Joe Baden, the founder of Open Book says that '' 54% of the Oxbridge cohort are state school recruits'' he says his original anti Oxford stance was' bigoted' and that 'The ability to attain academic excellence is classless and must be the goal for all students.'
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/jan/11/accesstouniversity.highereducation
> I think I'm with Joe on this one.


 
I didn't say everyone who went to university is middle class - what I said is that Jones is the new pin up boy of a clique of Labour left types who are overwhelmigly middle class, university educated and utterly irrrelevant outside of the chattering class bubble they exist in.    

Bit hypocritical of him to demand the abolition of the institution that has clearly benefited him isn't it? Do as I say, not as I do etc.


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## revol68 (Feb 29, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I didn't say everyone who went to university is middle class - what I said is that Jones is the new pin up boy of a clique of Labour left types who are overwhelmigly middle class, university educated and utterly irrrelevant outside of the chattering class bubble they exist in.
> 
> *Bit hypocritical of him to demand the abolition of the institution that has clearly benefited him isn't it? Do as I say, not as I do etc.*


 
Not at all.

I' sitting typing this on a computer built from parts manufactured in china by cheap labour, whilst drinking coffee some poor fuck got paid peanuts to pick, does that mean I can't oppose sweat shop conditions or wage labour in general?


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 29, 2012)

revol68 said:


> Not at all.
> 
> I' sitting typing this on a computer built from parts manufactured in china by cheap labour, whilst drinking coffee some poor fuck got paid peanuts to pick, does that mean I can't oppose sweat shop conditions or wage labour in general?


 
It depends whether you were planning to build a budding career off the hypocrisy really - otherwise your analogy is stupid.


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## revol68 (Feb 29, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> It depends whether you were planning to build a budding career off the hypocrisy really - otherwise your analogy is stupid.


 
So if I went on to write a book on my computer talking about working conditions in these factories?

Also in Northern Ireland they had the 11+ for selection when I was at school, I did it, got an A and went to a grammar school, was my subsequent opposition to selection at 11 hypocritical because going to a grammar school certainly did give me a foot up in terms of my qualifications and higher education?

The whole "he's a hypocrite" game is nothing but the small minded's way of avoiding dealing with the actual issue whilst feeling smug.


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## revol68 (Feb 29, 2012)

also nearly every person in the West enjoys a higher standard of living than most i the third world because of a legacy of imperialism and colonialism that both helped kick off the industrialisation of the west and uphold it, does that make every person in the west who criticises the empire and the ongoing wars for foreign resources a hypocrite?


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 29, 2012)

revol68 said:


> The whole "he's a hypocrite" game is nothing but the small minded's way of avoiding dealing with the actual issue whilst feeling smug.


 
What issue would that be then? That dynamicbaddog cites his empty call for the scrapping of Oxbridge as evidence that Jones isn't part of an overwhelmingly middle class, university educated and completely irrelevant outside of their self-congratulatory, smug clique?


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## butchersapron (Feb 29, 2012)

I haven't a problem with own jones beyond what he argues - i think a huge part of what he argues comes from being in that elite bubble and how he got there.


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## Smokeandsteam (Feb 29, 2012)

revol68 said:


> also nearly every person in the West enjoys a higher standard of living than most i the third world because of a legacy of imperialism and colonialism that both helped kick off the industrialisation of the west and uphold it, does that make every person in the west who criticises the empire and the ongoing wars for foreign resources a hypocrite?


 
Also if I keep using ridiculous examples to make my point people will perhaps forget that I really haven't got a point to make at all.......


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## revol68 (Feb 29, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> What issue would that be then? That dynamicbaddog cites his empty call for the scrapping of Oxbridge as evidence that Jones isn't part of an overwhelmingly middle class, university educated and completely irrelevant outside of their self-congratulatory, smug clique?


 
I'm not arguing with the fact that his rather soft brand of left liberalism is perfectly in keeping with marketable mainstream "dissent" or that it's very surprising that someone from oxbridge should get to serve in that role (see also Laurie Penney).

I'm not a fan of his politics or a lot of the crap he spouts about the working class or Labour and yes as Butcher's said much of that stems no doubt from where he is and how he got there.

The only thing I was taking issue with was the idea that someone who went to Oxbridge is hypocritical is they argue it needs shut down or radically reformed.


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## revol68 (Feb 29, 2012)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Also if I keep using ridiculous examples to make my point people will perhaps forget that I really haven't got a point to make at all.......


 
they're all examples of someone criticising a set up that in some way provided them with a material benefit.


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## articul8 (Mar 1, 2012)

revol68 said:


> we've had this debate before


we have - you don't learn


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## revol68 (Mar 1, 2012)

articul8 said:


> we have - you don't learn


I'd suggest your posts about strikes around the olympics show exactly what is wrong with your understanding of the media and mass culture in general, treating as it does ideology as being essentially uni-directional and people as passive consumers of it. Your pathetic concern for how the media will spin things and the big other of "public opinion" (as mediated through media framed parameters and leading questions) perfectly matches the movement away from the materialist terrain of class struggle and all the contradictions and fissures within it, towards an idealist sphere of the media/spectacle/culture industry. This is the common weakness (to a greater or lesser extent) that runs through much of the Frankfurt School and even the situationists.


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## articul8 (Mar 1, 2012)

There's nothing necessarily uni-directional - the point is to take adequate account of the power of those mediating relations, the role of which is wholly explicable in materialist terms.  "Public opinion" might well be an artificial construction, but it's none the less real for all that - its effects are material.  Go round ASDA and have a wank


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## revol68 (Mar 1, 2012)

Of course people take account of it, they don't however get fixated on it and end up caught in it's inertia, nor do they think that because ideology and mass culture isn't a passive one way process that it's actually some pure bottom up yearning for liberation and that shopping at ASDA is some sort of radical self affirmation of working class desire, instead they might look at for materialist reasons for the rise of supermarkets and certainly not putting it down to them being brainwashed idiots produced by a culture industry.


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## articul8 (Mar 1, 2012)

Frankfurt School never included supermarkets as the "culture industry" - in fact, they drew on Benjamin saying the rise of consumerism drew on distorted utopian desires.   BUT they didn't draw back from the distorting power of mediation/representation - the idea that there's some pure vein of proletarian authenticity (which seems to underlie half of the ultra-left posturings on here) is a total myth.


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## revol68 (Mar 1, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Frankfurt School never included supermarkets as the "culture industry" - in fact, they drew on Benjamin saying the rise of consumerism drew on distorted utopian desires. BUT they didn't draw back from the distorting power of mediation/representation - the idea that there's some pure vein of proletarian authenticity (which seems to underlie half of the ultra-left posturings on here) is a total myth.


 
I never said they did, as far as I'm aware the supermarket didn't really have much of an existence in their day, it was you who brought up ASDA when you told me to go wank around it. Also your argument as to why supermarkets can't be covered by "culture industry" is rather odd, afterall those areas that are included also draw on distorted utopian desires.

The idea of authenticity and the ever tedious search for it is actually something that haunts the likes of the Frankfurt School and the Situationists with their implicit (and often explicit) notion of real versus produced desires, the spectacle and instrumental reason, which take Marx's idea of commodity fetishism and stretch it to breaking point.


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## nino_savatte (Mar 2, 2012)

articul8 said:


> There's nothing necessarily uni-directional - the point is to take adequate account of the power of those mediating relations, the role of which is wholly explicable in materialist terms. "Public opinion" might well be an artificial construction, but it's none the less real for all that - its effects are material. Go round ASDA and have a wank


 
ASDA? You might try Westfield, Bluewater, the Metro Centre or any other massive shopping mall....the "Village" at Westfield in Shepherds Bush, for instance, has all that lovely Prada and Louis Vuitton stuff to tempt you. Yes, you too can achieve parity with the mega-riche simply by buying this stuff (but you need to go through a period of self-denial first. I.e. go without food for a year or more).


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## articul8 (Mar 2, 2012)

revol68 said:


> Also your argument as to why supermarkets can't be covered by "culture industry" is rather odd, afterall those areas that are included also draw on distorted utopian desires.


eh?  I'm saying that the accusation that the FSers are elitist mandarin snobs is a shabby misrepresentation from the likes of pomo cultural studies types who think that supermarkets and shopping malls are the site of dead subsversive consumer practices. 



> The idea of authenticity and the ever tedious search for it is actually something that haunts the likes of the Frankfurt School and the Situationists with their implicit (and often explicit) notion of real versus produced desires, the spectacle and instrumental reason, which take Marx's idea of commodity fetishism and stretch it to breaking point.


The FS precisely don't seek some immediate access to "the authentic" and repeatedly challenge the likes of Heidegger on precisely this point


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## butchersapron (May 4, 2012)

Don't they have subs at the independent or something? How sloppy is this bagshawe flavoured intro?



> Backbench Tory MP Louise Mensch is a craven apologist for Rupert Murdoch, and deserves to be exposed as such. This does not distinguish her from the Tory leadership, except that she is more honest about it and has less power to act on her sycophancy. But following the culture, media and sport select committee's conclusion that Murdoch was not "a fit and proper" person to run a major international company, it was Mensch who rode to the much-maligned mogul's defence on Newsnight.


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## Random (May 4, 2012)

Mensch ministrates mercy to the manager of a major media company, a much maligned mogul


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## butchersapron (May 4, 2012)

Can you spot the made up quote?


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## Random (May 4, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Can you spot the made up quote?


There's only one quote, isn't that what the committee said about Murdoch?


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## butchersapron (May 4, 2012)

No it's not. Hence wtf is the sub doing - and wtf is he doing?


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## Random (May 4, 2012)

The Independent is falling apart at the seams


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