The Weaponisation of the Working Class
October 27, 2016 12:58 AM   Subscribe

The moment we get too uppity and start demanding anything other than commitments to the further brutalisation of foreign people at the hands of the state, they will turn on us just as quickly as they do on our non-native neighbours. We will be shifted from the frame where we are honest hard working salt of the earth noble peasants, to the frame where we are obese thick scroungers suitable only to be mocked on a Channel 5 docusoap.
McDuff on how the fetishisation of the very real concerns of the (white) working class in British politics doesn't extend outside of providing cover for racists.
posted by MartinWisse (83 comments total) 97 users marked this as a favorite
 
That's the best analysis I've yet read of racism, class and the media in the UK.
(Note for US readers: 'thick' means 'stupid' rather than 'fat' in British English)
posted by pipeski at 2:00 AM on October 27, 2016 [9 favorites]


I know a lot of political issues aren't comparable, but it reminds me of a 538 article from earlier this year: The Mythology of Trump's White Working Class Support

It is weird seeing how the narrative of the racist, ignorant working class both is and isn't reflected in the working class people that I know. There is, I think, a hell of a lot of projecting going on.

There is a shyness about race and racism in the middle class, a sort of acknowledgment that "racism" is bad and things that could be interpreted as racist (like acknowledging someone's race) should be avoided--but very little understanding of what racism actually is. And there is much more racial segregation, as well.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:01 AM on October 27, 2016 [14 favorites]


We will be shifted from the frame where we are honest hard working salt of the earth noble peasants, to the frame where we are obese thick scroungers suitable only to be mocked on a Channel 5 docusoap.

Marx believed, I think, that these are two different classes that coexist and do not in fact have porous borders either way. There is a large underclass of people who are so mentally and physically destroyed by capitalism that Marx believed there is no hope for them, they can never be employed by capitalism, and foresaw that they ultimately side with the most reactionary forces in society (fascism), having never taken part in either mainstream politics (voting) or labour organisation. They're the guys Channel 5 docusoaps are about.
posted by Coda Tronca at 2:25 AM on October 27, 2016 [10 favorites]


This article certainly conforms to my prejudices about prejudices and what constitutes 'legitimate concerns'. How legitimate concerns about the NHS were converted into 'leave the EU' was a masterstroke the nefarious UKIP rhetoric.
posted by asok at 2:50 AM on October 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


Marx believed, I think, that these are two different classes that coexist and do not in fact have porous borders either way.

Well, like anyone else suggesting that we "scroungers" are unreformable, Marx can get fucked in this instance.
posted by Dysk at 3:12 AM on October 27, 2016 [24 favorites]


Being the recipient of welfare benefits doesn't make someone a member of the underclass or lumpenproletariat.
posted by Coda Tronca at 3:19 AM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


But something does, if you want to create an entire class of 'bad' poor people. Fuck that noise.
posted by Dysk at 3:22 AM on October 27, 2016 [5 favorites]


this isn't much different than what goes on in the states - in short, the working class is used, not represented, by both parties
posted by pyramid termite at 3:26 AM on October 27, 2016 [10 favorites]


But something does, if you want to create an entire class of 'bad' poor people.

It's the things they do, according to Marx:

"The finance aristocracy, in its mode of acquisition as well as in its pleasures, is nothing but the rebirth of the lumpenproletariat on the heights of bourgeois society...in 1847, on the most prominent stages of bourgeois society, the same scenes were publicly enacted that regularly lead the lumpenproletariat to brothels, to workhouses and lunatic asylums, to the bar of justice, to the dungeon, and to the scaffold."
posted by Coda Tronca at 3:39 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


'Dictatorship of the lumpenproletariat' - an interesting way to imagine Trump's Presidency
posted by thelonius at 3:59 AM on October 27, 2016 [17 favorites]


Great article! Only such a pity that even though this gets said and repeated time and time again, I bet you there will be a white working class man on TV tonight, expressing stupid racist views and being used by the news people as an "explanation" for Brexit/Trump/le Pen/German neo nazis etc.
My FB is filled with white men putting this straw-worker in front of their own racism and fear, while repeating the old "I'm not racist, but..", and I need to get better at reminding them how all working class people are not white or male.
posted by mumimor at 4:00 AM on October 27, 2016 [5 favorites]


It pretty amazing how the US and UK keep sounding more and more like Mexico in the '60s.
posted by ridgerunner at 4:01 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Also published in The Guardian a couple of days ago, where it's currently attracted 6023 comments so far ...
posted by Sonny Jim at 4:02 AM on October 27, 2016 [7 favorites]


My FB is filled with white men putting this straw-worker in front of their own racism and fear, while repeating the old "I'm not racist, but..", and I need to get better at reminding them how all working class people are not white or male.
But that's not the point of the article, though, and that form of othering just feeds into the stereotype and adds to its political usefulness as a tool to divide people. The point is that Brexit was at heart an elite project, and that its natural support base was wealthy, older people living in overwhelmingly white communities in the home counties. The "white working class" is being used as a front for this group and others allied with them—it's a subject position that people can occupy and presume to speak on behalf of. It's an appropriation of a rhetorical tactic that liberals and well-heeled leftists have been using for generations.

George Packer makes a rather similar set of observations in the US context in last week's New Yorker.
posted by Sonny Jim at 4:14 AM on October 27, 2016 [21 favorites]


Great analysis of the rhetorical uses of class and the way that the working class is represented alternatively as noble/scroungers depending on whether they agree with what is being said, or has McDuff puts it: The working class are always viewed through the lens of their value to others.

I also thought this was well put:
[Neoliberalism] reduces large scale, systemic issues down to individual choices and responsibilities, effectively alleviating the ruling classes of any responsibility for the impacts of their own choices.
posted by ropeladder at 4:25 AM on October 27, 2016 [40 favorites]


[Neoliberalism] reduces large scale, systemic issues down to individual choices and responsibilities, effectively alleviating the ruling classes of any responsibility for the impacts of their own choices.

It's important to tell children that they can be "Anything they can dream," so that, one day, they'll blame themselves instead of the system
posted by acb at 4:55 AM on October 27, 2016 [70 favorites]


The "white working class" is being used as a front for this group and others allied with them

Exactly. The term the author uses is "human shields".
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 5:08 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


INCREDIBLY relevant and well thought out, put into words things better than I could.

Very clear line between the weaponisation of the working class on immigration and the weaponisation of the referendum result - 'Working Class Concerns' is now 'WIll of the the 52%'. Strange how both just happen to want neoliberal economic policy...
posted by litleozy at 5:11 AM on October 27, 2016 [8 favorites]


George Packer makes a rather similar set of observations in the US context in last week's New Yorker.

That is a really shitty article, and an excellent example of what I am tired of and angry with.

The point is that Brexit was at heart an elite project
Is that the point? And was Brexit an elite project? Obviously, parts of the elite had/have a vision of Britain as some sort of giant conservative tax-haven with no rules or regulations protecting workers or consumers, but for others, Brexit is a real catastrophe. Both banks and big industry are facing huge problems, that will hit the elite owners as well as the workers in factories.

Otherwise, I think we agree.

The Brexiteers I know or know of are middle-class know-nothings (both left and right) who believe whatever vile conspiracy-theories the tabloids (or far-left web-sites) throw at them. And when they appear on my FB, they do exactly what is described in McDuff's article: put up a straw-man working class person with "legitimate worries", that "the elite" is not taking seriously. And yeah, I've heard this for my entire life in different iterations, and it is getting very old.
posted by mumimor at 5:13 AM on October 27, 2016 [13 favorites]


Also published in The Guardian a couple of days ago, where it's currently attracted 6023 comments so far ...

I was just about to link to your post in the current brexit thread when I saw your note.

The author has posted a post-guardian followup: The Meaning of Us. "CiF commenters told me that I was an out of touch lefty because class is such an outdated notion so there’s no such thing as working class any more. And they also listed all the reasons I couldn’t be it. Which raises the question, if it’s so outdated and unimportant that nobody cares why did people spend 5,000 comments trying to prove that I wasn’t it?"
posted by effbot at 5:20 AM on October 27, 2016 [12 favorites]




The point is that Brexit was at heart an elite project

Elites are always feuding amongst themselves. Nobody in their right mind could deny that the EU is an elite neoliberal project as well.
posted by Coda Tronca at 5:35 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


From that Guardian comment section I was particularly interested in the back and forth between one commenter "vijgos" (an Asian-British citizen) and some of the others regarding vijgos's use of the term "British Culture". vijgos later clarifies:
Defining any culture is hard, but one knows it when one sees it (try denying the existence of French culture, then try defining it without recourse to stereotypes)

Let's have a go: Traditional community, traditional sports, traditional religion (in terms of celebrating shared holidays, no further) and traditional concepts of rights and responsibilities.
Now, I'm not saying I disagree with vijgos on some or all of those points, but then he/she makes a very serious error:
How can one feel patriotism for a country that stands for and represents nothing?
Britain is a nation of countries bound by the same landmass, and to try and sum up those individual country's idiosyncrasies into one definition is impossible, ludicrous, and, for want of a better word, damaging. Wars have been fought over the nation states of Britain over their individuality.

But this isn't about "British Culture" because this term conveniently forgets that it's the UK (Britain plus Northern Ireland) that is leaving the EU; Northern Ireland that's been fucked around forever by England, and will be fucked over again if/when the stupidly termed "Brexit" goes ahead.

So, don't give me "British Culture". Accept the term for what it is: "English Culture".
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 6:11 AM on October 27, 2016 [7 favorites]


This sums up some issues that I couldn't touch on. [Twitter link]: Peter Lilley says that Irish independence was "done smoothly".
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 6:40 AM on October 27, 2016 [5 favorites]


The writer lumps himself in with "working class." If you are NOT working class, what are you?
While we talk endlessly about the gap in pay for the middle class, there is also, clearly, a gap more and more taking place: education gap, a division that seems to be at work in the U.S. We do not have the immigration problem noted here but we make up for it with our minorities. Them versus Us.
posted by Postroad at 6:49 AM on October 27, 2016


I assume you're peeved about the fact that the balance of the vote on Brexit was different in England and Wales as against Scotland and Northern Ireland, urbanwhaleshark, but that hardly seems enough to invalidate the palpable unity of British culture, which actually looks pretty tight to me compared to the regional variety within most EU nations.
posted by Segundus at 6:57 AM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


There is a shyness about race and racism in the middle class, a sort of acknowledgment that "racism" is bad and things that could be interpreted as racist (like acknowledging someone's race) should be avoided.

It certainly doesn't extend to classism, at least in the US. One of the more chilling things about the Trump campaign for me is the torrent of ignorant, sneering classism it has unleashed in many of the nominally liberal-to-progressive people in my circle. People who would cut you out of their lives if you blanket slandered African-Americans, gay people, etc. have no problem at all calling the entirety of white working class America "stupid rednecks", "trailer park morons", etc.

Seconding George Packer's "Hillary Clinton and the Populist Revolt" gets at the roots of this better than any precis that I've seen so far. If the left doesn't reckon with its revulsion toward poor and working people, we are in deep, deep trouble politically.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:06 AM on October 27, 2016 [13 favorites]


I thought this whole thing was quite good and this particularly:

We have created a toxic way of talking about racial prejudice in this country which emphasises a binary where “racist” means someone is a bad person who goes around hating on foreigners for irrational reasons. Anyone who does not do this, for example those who hate foreigners for rational reasons like they take up room in the NHS, is Not A Racist and it is therefore bigotry to say that they are.

It pushes the usual "it is too overwhelming to say that people are Bad People if they say something racist" line much further and makes it say something useful.

The writer lumps himself in with "working class." If you are NOT working class, what are you?

Why do we think the writer isn't working class? Because he's got an article on Medium? If anything, there's a lot of working class people who are assumed to be middle class because we can wrangle language effectively or read hard books, or because we have full time jobs. I'm a secretary, for instance, and if I, through my own struggles, rise to "junior accountant" by retirement, I'll be doing very well for myself. My secretarial gig isn't a bad one - I'm a union member, I work at a university, I get to do some neat skilled stuff, but lord knows it's a working class job. Every time I meet one of my other fellow clever proles there's a moment of recognition - there's a guy who's one of the university painting crew who's about my age who is much the same as I am, for instance.

I mean, I think it's useful to define "working class" a bit since there's so many definitions floating around, from the strictly "your financial relationship to capital" into the most fantastic cultural "you wear a flat cap" ones.

Marx believed, I think, that these are two different classes that coexist and do not in fact have porous borders either way.

Marx has been known to be wrong. Fanon disagreed with him (per Wikipedia; I did not know this before). I'd also say that in the US, "lumpen" radicals were significant parts of the IWW and the other mining, forestry and sea-related unions and political movements. "Lumpen" people have been active in POC movements and welfare rights movements. This may or may not have been true in the moments that Marx was writing, I have no idea, but it's not at all true since the late 19th century. "Lumpen" radicals have a tough time of it because their experience is so different from the respectable working class and the middle class, and maybe this is why their experience gets written out.
posted by Frowner at 7:21 AM on October 27, 2016 [24 favorites]


I assume you're peeved about the fact that the balance of the vote on Brexit was different in England and Wales as against Scotland and Northern Ireland, urbanwhaleshark, but that hardly seems enough to invalidate the palpable unity of British culture, which actually looks pretty tight to me compared to the regional variety within most EU nations.

As with all things it's a matter of perspective. I am British, and I love being a part of a nation of countries that, despite all odds, have hung together despite our rivalries and crazy history. I also love being a part of the EU. Not peeved, no. I am furious that this shared community, not only the UK and the EU, is being put to the test by Brexiteers, but also the damage that it's doing to our own small union. Furious. And utterly heartbroken.

"British Culture" is being used as a nationalistic mantra to separate us from our friends in Europe, to isolate us, and make us weaker. And when the UK separates, I'm pretty sure that our small UK union will suffer greatly. "British Culture" will only mean something to those who chose to leave.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 7:31 AM on October 27, 2016 [8 favorites]


Let me just expand on that briefly. I was born in England and have lived here my own life, but I define myself as British. I don't define myself as English. "Britishness" seems to be a very English term.

But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves. Because, for example, I know a lot of people from Scotland and Wales who define themselves by their country rather by what's stamped on their passport.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 7:46 AM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


One of the things that's stuck with me from Disciplined Minds—a kind of takedown of the ideology of "professionalism," which is also largely the ideology of the middle class in neoliberal countries— is how eagerly the so-called "hard hat riots" (of blue-collar workers against anti-war students during Vietnam) were seized on by the middle classes as a way of blaming the working class for the war. In reality, support for the war was always stronger among the educated middle and upper classes than among the working class in the US (and, of course, it is those same classes from whom the architects of the war were drawn). Yet in the pop-historical narrative this is reversed: the draft-card-burning hippie stands in for the educated class while Archie Bunker represents the working class. It's never enough for the elites simply to hold repugnant views and champion regressive and destructive policies—it must be made to be someone else's (someone weaker's) fault.
posted by enn at 7:57 AM on October 27, 2016 [16 favorites]


Sonny Jim: "Also published in The Guardian a couple of days ago"
The Medium piece is longer than the Guardian piece. See the author's comments on Medium.
posted by brokkr at 8:05 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves. Because, for example, I know a lot of people from Scotland and Wales who define themselves by their country rather by what's stamped on their passport.

Well, the Scottish government has made it clear that Scottishness is not an exclusive ethnicity; any citizen who lives in Scotland is a Scot, regardless of ethnic background, race, religion, &c.. Englishness has always seemed like a ius sanguinis category; you're English if you have English blood in your veins. If not, you're British.

(Personal perspective: I'm British as of some three years ago; I have never lived in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, so one might think that I'd be English by default, though calling myself English feels like an imposture. So I just say that I'm British, or British/Australian. Had I settled in Scotland, I imagine I'd call myself Scottish, though would probably draw the line somewhere short of designing a tartan for myself.)

Though it looks like, post-Brexit, May's Britain may be inching towards an exclusive ius sanguinis definition of Britishness; they're already scrapping limits on how long expatriates can vote in British elections, making the voting parts of citizenship dependent on essence rather than circumstance. Perhaps they'll scrap dual nationalities next.
posted by acb at 8:10 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

Proud citizen of nowhere.
posted by plep at 8:12 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Well, the Scottish government has made it clear that Scottishness is not an exclusive ethnicity; any citizen who lives in Scotland is a Scot, regardless of ethnic background, race, religion, &c..

That's remarkably lovely.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 8:25 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

I actually think for most people, they define themselves not by nation, but either by the city/county they grew up in or where they have spent their adult lives. My friend Jo would define herself as Mackem, despite having lived in Manchester for most of her adult life. A family member would define as Scouse but has lived in Scotland for 40 years.

The mention of the Rotherham report is interesting too. The part of the report which discusses that the abuse was also occurring within the Muslim community in Rotherham (to the anger of local Muslim women's groups) went basically unreported by the media.
posted by threetwentytwo at 8:33 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well, the Scottish government has made it clear that Scottishness is not an exclusive ethnicity; any citizen who lives in Scotland is a Scot, regardless of ethnic background, race, religion, &c..

That's remarkably lovely.


I went to Scotland last week, and there was a very lovely feel. As if all people were demonstrating against Brexit by being extremely nice to foreigners. But maybe it was always like that, I haven't been since I was 8.
posted by mumimor at 8:34 AM on October 27, 2016 [4 favorites]


I went to Scotland last week, and there was a very lovely feel. As if all people were demonstrating against Brexit by being extremely nice to foreigners. But maybe it was always like that, I haven't been since I was 8.

That was very much my experience of Scotland some eight years ago as well (though obviously without any Brexit overtones).
posted by Dysk at 8:39 AM on October 27, 2016 [5 favorites]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.
Other Mixed Background/Terrified.
posted by Sonny Jim at 8:57 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

Had this exact conversation with a bunch of friends a few weeks ago. The fellow from the Valleys identified thoroughly as Welsh, and disliked the label "British" (but then he is a bit of a Welsh nationalist) and all five of the people from and living in England identified as British, finding "English" to be an uncomfortablev label.
posted by Dysk at 9:06 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

I was born in Singapore, my father was Scottish, my mother Welsh and I've lived in England all my life (apart from three years in Wales during college). Since 1989 I've lived in London. I think of myself as a Londoner, European, British and English in that order. Property developers are conspiring to rob me of the first, Tory ideologues of the second, the third is next on the chopping block leaving me with the fourth, for which I have little use. But whatever. Identity is a prison.
posted by Grangousier at 9:16 AM on October 27, 2016 [17 favorites]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

Born in England, grew up in England, moved to Scotland at 18, still in Scotland in my 30s.

I put 'British' on forms etc. It's probably the most accurate. 'English', mostly only in contexts where it's somehow relevant that I didn't grow up here (which is generally for pop-culture discussions). 'Scottish' still doesn't feel quite right, although I couldn't put my finger on quite why - I think of Scotland as 'home' more than England by now.
posted by Catseye at 9:21 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I went to Scotland last week, and there was a very lovely feel. As if all people were demonstrating against Brexit by being extremely nice to foreigners. But maybe it was always like that, I haven't been since I was 8.
----------
That was very much my experience of Scotland some eight years ago as well (though obviously without any Brexit overtones).


Same here, circa 2012, as a white American. "A very lovely feel" is exactly how I'd describe it.
posted by abrightersummerday at 9:24 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


When we say “build more houses,” “stop throwing us out of the few houses we have,” “we need benefits to live because you hollowed out our towns and cities in pursuit of a flawed economic doctrine,” we are castigated for being workshy, of faking our disabilities, of only having ourselves to blame for our lack of education. If we alter our complaints to blame foreign people rather than the natives who have been in charge forever, suddenly we have more listening and sympathetic ears than we know what to do with. “I can’t get a council house because they’ve all been sold to private landlords” gets nothing. “I can’t get a council house because they’ve all gone to bloody Muslims” gets on the front page of the Express.

Reminds me quite a bit of America. I'm on record as saying that America has three primary drivers these days:

Group 1: Those who have wealth, power and/or influence to a significant degree, and wish to rig the system by whatever methods will let them retain/increase those benefits.

Group 2: Those who do not have wealth, power and/or influence, and view Group 1 as the reason why. They wish to de-rig the system, make Group 1 contribute a greater share to society, increase their own chances of bettering their position, and have a safety net so that no one falls too far.

Group 3: Those who do not have wealth, power and/or influence, and view Group 2 as the reason why. They have been told incessantly by Group 1's sponsored media that Group 3 would be part of Group 1 if Group 2's communist liberal immigrant welfare queen affirmative action unemployed deadbeats weren't living the high life being propped up by government assistance, and every dollar Group 2 spends comes straight out of Group 3's pocket.

And the easiest way to move someone into Group 3 is to provide a convenient scapegoat.
posted by delfin at 9:47 AM on October 27, 2016 [20 favorites]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

English. British is an elite identity created by Tudor imperialists to excuse the conquest of Wales and Ireland, which was the nursery for the genocidal centuries that followed. I'm unsurprised that such a thing is never mentioned, nor that most folk will baulk at the implications of it. I find being English a liberating anti-racist and anti-imperialist identity. As much as English people are othered and vilified by the British for their supposed racism, I can assure you that we've never done anything as heinous as the British Empire.
posted by Emma May Smith at 9:52 AM on October 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


There are not enough good jobs, so the working class resent any immigration policy which increases competition. Can you blame them? The easy answer is to say yes, but that accomplishes nothing other than to drive these people into the arms of the right wing, and things are only going to get worse as automation replaces more workers, self driving vehicles being one example.

The only solution is some sort of guaranteed income (pipe dream) or a government program which is set up to employ anyone who can't find steady work.
posted by Beholder at 9:54 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


"Why do we think the writer isn't working class? Because he's got an article on Medium? If anything, there's a lot of working class people who are assumed to be middle class because we can wrangle language effectively or read hard books, or because we have full time jobs"--ok...what then is working class? anyone with a job, someone spending some time somewhere doing something for which he or she gets paid? Or: what used to be referred to as blue collar job? I am simply looking for a clear explanation for the use of the term "working class."
I have a friend who was a college teacher--working class? then he became a dean...working class? his father, years ago, worked in an aluminum smelting place, a union guy..clearly working class unless managerial non-union?
posted by Postroad at 9:57 AM on October 27, 2016


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

Most people I know assume I'm English.
I live in London and have an Oxford accent.
But I was born in Wales and lived there for my early childhood (till 11) and all my family are Scottish.

I wouldn't call myself Welsh. I don't have any kind of family heritage of welshness, I don't identify particularly as Welsh.
I wouldn't call myself Scottish, I've never lived there, I've visited a lot, I have family all over, but I'm not scottish.
I wouldn't call myself English. Because, I'm not. I have no English Family I wasn't born in England, even if I were skilled enough to do so I couldn't play for the England football team.

So it's a bit odd when people ask are you British then English/Scots/Welsh first or vice versa (which is a sort of shibboleth some times, it's not an unusual question to be asked). In terms of nationality I guess British is first, but I don't hold any kind of reverence for the notion.
British is a legal description, it's not my tribe. I feel no great affection for it.
I'm quite fond of London? Is that a thing?

I could see the use of "citizenships" outside of geographically defined nation states.
But I think then you need to answer the question on what is nationality, I mean apart from a system of dividing resources between us to do things and agreeing together how we're going to do them.
Maybe everything beyond that is tricks and rhetoric designed to persuade me that some people are more human than others.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 10:00 AM on October 27, 2016 [7 favorites]


The "is the author really working class?"-derail is just off everything. And he addressed it himself.

That said, I can understand how the identification of working class and lack of education exists, since across the board, school districts where the majority are working class often have bad schools because of lack of funding. However, there are school districts in working class communities that have excellent schools. And there are people who graduate from those schools with perfect skills who choose to remain working class, pursuing working class jobs and being union members. After the 80's tyranny of Thatcher/Reagan/whatever local versions, these people are maybe rare. But they exist - I know several.
posted by mumimor at 10:06 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


“I can’t get a council house because they’ve all been sold to private landlords” gets nothing. “I can’t get a council house because they’ve all gone to bloody Muslims” gets on the front page of the Express.

This is the whole article in a nutshell. Successive British governments have completely gutted the safety net and the welfare state and run formerly prosperous areas into the ground, and in collaboration with their friends in the right-wing press, they've managed to blame both ordinary people (wherever they were born) and EU institutions that have nothing to do with the issues in question. They've turned the perception of the safety net as something for the average person to for 'spongers'. In areas that are doing well there is overcrowding and waiting lists for services because the government refuses to spend the taxes they get from immigrants on providing public services for those immigrants. I saw a map the other day that showed the ten most deprived areas of western Europe and it turns out nine are in the UK.

If anything, there's a lot of working class people who are assumed to be middle class because we can wrangle language effectively or read hard books, or because we have full time jobs.

Yep, here in Ireland the class system isn't nearly as entrenched as in Britain, but there are still huge differences in university attendance between different areas for example. I'm a software engineer/quant in a prestigious sector, I have a PhD, my house is well-stocked with fine wine and exotic cheese, but people I meet through work are still extremely surprised when I tell them my family background. Both my parents are from large (9 sibling) families and nobody in that generation or the generation before ever had a realistic hope of going to college. My dad worked in a factory for over 20 years, then there was a strike over pay and hazardous conditions that lasted several months, then he worked a ton of overtime to make up for the money he lost, then he had a stroke as a result which left him partially sighted and has been on what the British call benefits since then. My mam's dad worked in an iron foundry all his life. Her brother worked in a chemicals factory and died of emphysema as a result of the chemicals he was exposed to. Their siblings all worked in factories and shops (except for a couple who were a circus trapeze act, but that's a story for another day). You wouldn't know that from my fancy cheese though.

I'm glad Ireland doesn't have quite the nasty edge that seems to be there in Britain - I can only imagine what it'd be like if my dad had to fight a system like the DWP in Britain. We also have a larger Polish population per capita than Britain, and there are exceptions but in general everyone gets along, Poles are welcome here, Irish fans had a mighty time in Poland at Euro 2012, and there are plenty of Irish-Polish kids around.

Rereading the article, he's on the money again and again:

If there are 100 vacancies and 400 people looking for work, the amount of training, motivation, ambition that individuals have may well impact which of those 400 people get the jobs, but it won’t impact the problem that 3/4 of them won’t get work.

Reminds me of when the government here blamed young people during the crash for essentially not wanting to work, at a time when the unemployment rate went from 4% to 14% in three years. Did they think 10% of people decided to be lazy by chance at the exact same time a massive recession was happening?
posted by kersplunk at 10:19 AM on October 27, 2016 [26 favorites]


Well, the Scottish government has made it clear that Scottishness is not an exclusive ethnicity; any citizen who lives in Scotland is a Scot, regardless of ethnic background, race, religion, &c..

In other words, All True Scotsmen?
posted by non canadian guy at 10:21 AM on October 27, 2016 [7 favorites]


Obligatory Linda Colley.
posted by Sonny Jim at 10:28 AM on October 27, 2016


I'm a Londoner.
posted by Coda Tronca at 10:29 AM on October 27, 2016


It certainly doesn't extend to classism, at least in the US. One of the more chilling things about the Trump campaign for me is the torrent of ignorant, sneering classism it has unleashed in many of the nominally liberal-to-progressive people in my circle. People who would cut you out of their lives if you blanket slandered African-Americans, gay people, etc. have no problem at all calling the entirety of white working class America "stupid rednecks", "trailer park morons", etc.

I've seen versions of this a lot in articles like Packer's and I find it very frustrating, as a person of color and a woman and an immigrant and someone visibly foreign. I do feel a lot of contempt for Trump supporters because they frighten me on an existential level. They say hateful things about me and my friends and family. They actually make me fearful about my place in America.

This isn't because of my own bigotry or unexamined prejudices but because of things they say and policies they support. I would not care at all about Trump supporters if they didn't make me so fearful for myself and for people I love. Am I mistaken to feel this way? Also, isn't there a lot of evidence that Trump supporters are mostly motivated by racial animus and not economic concerns? This article in Vox identifies the problems in the whole "we snobbish liberal elites really need to listen to Trump supporters" argument.
posted by armadillo1224 at 10:33 AM on October 27, 2016 [14 favorites]


Marx was a scientist. He didn't romanticize the proletariat. As one of his expositors puts it:
Individually, the proletarians cannot be much better than the hard, cruel anti-social conditions permit them to be. Only when, as in the time of a proletarian revolution, the proletarians unite their efforts and fuse together their mind and soul, does the proletariat bring out a social mind and a social soul, which are far more comprehensive and superior than their several individual minds and souls. It is this social consciousness that brings out the great truths and the sublime ideals.--The philosophy of Marx / Harry Waton
Proletarians need to cultivate their thinking so that they free themselves from the poisons of the existing system. To quote Waton again:
As philosophy finds in the proletariat its material weapon, so the proletariat finds in philosophy its spiritual weapon.--A Program for the Jews, an answer to all anti-semites, a program for humanity
So, weaponize the proletariat? Hell yeah.
posted by No Robots at 10:37 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


as a person of color and a woman. I do feel a lot of contempt for Trump supporters because they frighten me on an existential level.

An entirely understandable reaction. I share your fear and contempt.

But I think ryanshepard's point (and Packer's?) is that –while there's obviously some degree of overlap – working class whites ≠ Trump supporters.
posted by non canadian guy at 10:38 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


But I think ryanshepard's point (and Packer's?) is that –while there's obviously some degree of overlap – working class whites ≠ Trump supporters.

This is true and the research has bared this out. It is difficult to completely blame people for making the connection as both the media and the Trump campaign itself has been driving this narrative.

Heck even some Trump supporters themselves who by all standard measurements would not be working class think of themselves as if they are because the GOP for years and now the Trump campaign itself is telling them that's what they are.
posted by Jalliah at 11:09 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


The George Packer article is yet another article by an elite white male pretending that Trump voters are poor disenfranchised working class and that Hillary Clinton is a vicious elitist criminal.
There are huge (yuge!) logical holes in his argument, one of the more entertaining being that he needs to explain why Hillary got more working class votes than Bernie Sanders. (Why does he even mention this? It makes him look even stupider than he is). And half of the article is gossip and innuendo, he might as well be writing about some royals at a tabloid.
Now why do elite white men do this? One thing is that it is a career building strategy. And the reason it is so is that the media is still governed by white men who feel anxiety because of POC and women getting ahead. (BTW, in that respect, I do get some of the solidarity with Megan Kelly). Another, more profound reason is that he is personally scared by what is happening in the US now. First with a black president and now with a woman. All the privilege he has had by default is melting away, and till a moment ago, he didn't even realize he had privilege; he thought that was life.
posted by mumimor at 11:33 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


I don't think white male privilege is under any threat from Hillary Clinton. That's the point.
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:39 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


My partner and I were talking about that this morning--in relation to the apple-picking automation in the works (there was a thing about it on NPR earlier this week) where farmers are hoping to replace 30 workers per machine. So then what do those 30 individual people do? What are your options when all your skills are being automated? We went back and forth about whether policymakers and businesspeople, sitting around making these decisions, fantasize a little about displaced workers just...dying. No income, no home, no safety net. I think that many people do like that idea, of a lower-working-class extinction. Capitalism is evil this way.

This is one of the background events in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake except it's coffee beans whose harvest is automated. There's massive riots and boycotts and nothing does any good. In that grim and depressing book, that was probably the thing that scared me the most, and it's just the backdrop.

On another note, though, perhaps before it all goes to hell I will find the money and time to visit the UK. I particularly want to visit Scotland, but in general I'd like to visit the various places mefites have talked up and told stories about.
posted by Frowner at 11:46 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]



I don't think white male privilege is under any threat from Hillary Clinton. That's the point.


You may well be right. Still you might find something to think about in the Vox article armadillo1224 posted
posted by mumimor at 11:52 AM on October 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Excellent article! I want to print it out and distribute copies of it everywhere. Should be mandatory reading for everyone eligible to vote.
posted by pjsky at 12:18 PM on October 27, 2016


I'm an American who likes reading about race and class and the intersection between the two. This article is pretty clearly about the U.K.

TFA does not include the words "America", "United States", "U.S.", "Trump" or "Clinton." Maybe we shouldn't make this thread about the U.S. election. I would love to have a discussion about this subject in a U.S. context, but this doesn't seem to be the place to have that conversation.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 12:21 PM on October 27, 2016 [19 favorites]


I agree that using this article solely as a jumping-off point to validate and draw comparisons to the current American pre-election hellscape is wrong on many levels. The points of parallel to the US experience are easy to see if you look for them, but the essence of the British class system is not mirrored over here. I'm American but even with my limited understanding of that system (only through books, movies, TV etc.) I realize it uses far more rigorous definitions of "class" than any American can align themselves with. Therefore I don't want to co-opt that experience, even if doing so feels like it validates my own.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 12:39 PM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


witchen My partner and I were talking about that this morning--in relation to the apple-picking automation in the works (there was a thing about it on NPR earlier this week) where farmers are hoping to replace 30 workers per machine. So then what do those 30 individual people do? What are your options when all your skills are being automated? We went back and forth about whether policymakers and businesspeople, sitting around making these decisions, fantasize a little about displaced workers just...dying. No income, no home, no safety net. I think that many people do like that idea, of a lower-working-class extinction. Capitalism is evil this way.

I know for a fact that at least some people do like that idea, because I've spoken with them. The first time I ever encountered someone seriously, no joke, relishing the idea of displaced workers dying was decades ago in an email group (back when those were a thing) for a paper and pencil space strategy game.

The conversation drifted to automation and several people on the list were quite adamant that as automation took over jobs those who could not find work were parasites and should be left to die. The alternative, a guaranteed income, a robust welfare system, etc were viewed as an evil plot to steal resources from those with the requisite skill, mental status, and general whatittakes to survive as conditions changed. A few framed it in eugenic terms, I suppose these days they'd be "race realists" and alt-right Dark Enlightenment types, back then they framed things more generally and were careful not to express any overt racism. Mostly though those on the let 'em die side just really, really, hated the idea of socialism and viewed mass die offs of others as being infinitely preferable to allowing socialist policies to help the displaced.

I poked a bit to see if this was exclusively due to a feeling of being ripped off, what if, I asked, just 10% of humanity working produced the goods and services necessary to allow 100% of humanity to live in luxury? I was told that the 90% should die off.

I asked about this working as a vicious cycle, first there are 1000 people, and the labor of 100 people will produce 1000 people worth of goods. But we let 900 people die. Now there's only 100 people, and it turns out it takes the labor of only 10 of them to provide 100 people worth of goods. So we let 90 people die. Now there's only 10 people and it takes the labor of 1 person to provide 10 people worth of goods. So we let the other 9 die.

I was told that this was the only possible moral solution, but also that it was absurd because automation would never get to the point where we didn't need 100% of available quality human labor, and that if the people who couldn't provide quality labor died everyone would be better off.

So yes, there are very much people who believe, or claim to anyway, that displaced workers dying is not merely acceptable, but desirable.
posted by sotonohito at 12:44 PM on October 27, 2016 [8 favorites]


The thing is that even though there are huge differences between US, UK and EU politics, there are also similarities. And the reason I am following US politics closely is that from experience, what happens in the US will happen in the EU with some delay. European politicians and journalists go to Washington to learn. I know it is crazy, but it is also true.

The legendary British class system is a thing, but honestly, I'm not seeing it having much of a political impact. To the contrary, it seems the Tories are not agreeing at all on Brexit
posted by mumimor at 12:51 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Chilling and extremely common, we can talk about what good we can do but in reality most people would rather accept less if someone else is less off than have everyone get the same treatment.
posted by The Whelk at 1:23 PM on October 27, 2016


I've said it before, Whelk, but the truest thing ever said about American politics was by Davis X. Machina:

"The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it."
posted by tavella at 1:40 PM on October 27, 2016 [6 favorites]


My partner and I were talking about that this morning--in relation to the apple-picking automation in the works (there was a thing about it on NPR earlier this week) where farmers are hoping to replace 30 workers per machine. So then what do those 30 individual people do?

what do they do the rest of the year when it's not apple picking season?

this isn't the best example of automation taking people's jobs
posted by pyramid termite at 2:23 PM on October 27, 2016


People who pick produce travel from place to place, or else they do odd jobs in one location for part of the year and then travel to harvest sites at the harvest. It's not a job you do because you have just so much awesome work that the apple-picking represents a welcome change; it's more like you need any work you can get just to get by, and losing any one part of it is a big deal.

How do I know? Used to know some people who worked seasonal harvesting jobs, still know some Mainers who pick up work that way now.
posted by Frowner at 2:34 PM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


i don't mean to say it's not a problem - but it's one that has to be considered in context - a lot of people move on to more steady work, even on farms ...

i live in an area where farmers are starting to have trouble finding people to harvest crops because it's just not that desirable a job
posted by pyramid termite at 2:37 PM on October 27, 2016


(You know that sometimes people complain in Metatalk about Americans wandering into threads that are focused on the specific experiences of countries that aren't America and turn them into places they can generally chitchat about America. You're doing it again. Just thought you might like to know.)
posted by Grangousier at 2:38 PM on October 27, 2016 [13 favorites]


picking jobs on english farms
posted by pyramid termite at 2:40 PM on October 27, 2016


Whatever.
posted by Grangousier at 2:42 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


Kind of a so-so article. Middle class people hiding their xenophobia behind phony concern for the working class is a real thing, and of course there are working class people who aren't xenophobic, but white working class xenophobia isn't something invented out of whole cloth. One difference between the support for Brexit in the UK and support for Trump is that whereas Trump's working class support is something of a myth, pro-Leave voters did skew towards older and lower income demographics. Obviously beware generalizations etc etc, but in a democracy, isn't it aggregate voting patterns that matter?
posted by L.P. Hatecraft at 2:48 PM on October 27, 2016


You may well be right. Still you might find something to think about in the Vox article armadillo1224 posted

A reasonable response on the limitations of Matthews' argument. I think trying to make either economic factors or racism the single narrative of Trump's success is misleading.
posted by atoxyl at 3:44 PM on October 27, 2016


but white working class xenophobia isn't something invented out of whole cloth.

Too true, I'm sure. The question of why specific groups have success with certain arguments and not with others is far more compelling than the "notallworkinclasspeople" or "notallBrexiters" angle.

I think it's possible that there is so little room in the public imagination for a white, male, working class identity that isn't somehow reactionary that some people will willingly play up the stereotype just so they'll appear on the cultural radar, regardless of how it dilutes or distorts their message.

But I wouldn't want some precious little thought experiment to distract from the work of combatting actual racism or xenophobia. That's the dilemma I find myself in regarding Trump supporters here in the States: I sincerely want to examine how my own biases and blind spots might be contributing to their anger without indulging the racism and I can't quite figure out how.
posted by ducky l'orange at 5:28 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

Up until the Tories got in charge I was happy to call myself a unionist (small u... purely pragmatic rather than ideologically driven - there's power in a union after all).

The past 6 years have been horrendous. In it together, Greenest Party ever, Big Society, keeping Britain at the heart of the EU, party of the NHS. What a bunch of horrible self interested liars. After the Brexit vote my fears were confirmed. A majority of English seem to now put self interest and xenophobia above any kind of union so...

I'm a European Irishman living on a part of Ireland that is unfortunately still entwined with a union I can't possibly support or consider myself a part of. Irish passport is on it's way and thankfully I can hopefully still be a citizen of the EU.
posted by twistedonion at 6:20 AM on October 28, 2016 [4 favorites]


Actingthegoat, you may be interested in the Reith Lectures, currently being broadcast by the BBC (you may need some technical trickery to get the streams outside the UK). The lectures are being delivered by Kwame Anthonty Appiah, who's career as a philosopher has been centred on identity. Guardian article covering some of the subject area which is very pertinent to TFA.
Two weeks ago Theresa May made a statement that, for many, trampled on 200 years of enlightenment and cosmopolitan thinking: “If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere”
...
“It’s just an error of history to say, if you’re a nationalist, you can’t be a citizen of the world,” says Appiah bluntly.

Yet, the prime minister’s words were timely. They were an example of what Appiah considers to be grave misunderstandings around identity; in particular how we see race, nationality and religion as being central to who we are.
But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

I was born in England and have lived most of my life here. Due to the use of the St George's Cross flag by racists throughout my life I have little affection for that symbol and tend to look askance at people who use it to define themselves. One of the side effects of this is that anyone who identifies as English is automatically filed as 'probably racist' until they can prove otherwise; I have a prejudice against self defined 'English' people. The recent history of that symbol is inextricably linked with far right nationalists in a way that the Union Jack has escaped to a large degree. Also, the Union Jack is recognised around the world, whereas the St George's Cross is generally used to self identify soccer hooligans when used overseas. There was a marked difference between the voting preferences for people who identify as English as opposed to British in the EU referendum.

My forebears have traced my mother's side of the family back to the time of Henry the 8th and my father's Welsh family back beyond that, to when they were honored for their part in fighting against the English in the 1400's.

I identify as a citizen of the world, British, European, Australian (dual citizenship) and Welsh, in that order.
posted by asok at 6:23 AM on October 28, 2016 [7 favorites]


“If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere”

Christ, I had to look that up - she really said that!
posted by twistedonion at 6:30 AM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


But I'm curious for those reading from Britain/UK how they define themselves.

I'm British, and also English. Although in some contexts I'm Scottish, because I was born in Scotland - to English parents, one of whom was born in Wales, though actually there's some real Scottish ancestry on my mother's side if I go back a couple more generations. For added entertainment, my surname sounds Welsh but isn't - it's from the north of England - and various relations on my father's side have moved to Northern Ireland.

If asked my nationality in casual conversation abroad, where it's unlikely to be a weighted question, it's a toss-up as to whether I say "British" or "English". If you ask me which I identify with more, it feels like a trick question - like asking me whether I identify more with my first name or my surname.

I haven't any affiliations tighter than "English". I've lived in five different countries (six if Scotland leaves), six different English counties, 14 different cities, towns and villages - I've never put down roots. After the referendum I felt more of a stranger in my own country than ever before.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:39 AM on October 28, 2016 [2 favorites]


I gotta say I wish that something like this was making waves over in the US. It's a remarkably complicated thesis; every time I try to sum it up, I can't quite.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 12:49 PM on October 28, 2016 [1 favorite]


Marx was a scientist.

Not according to Karl Popper; there is nothing falsifiable in Marx' theories.
posted by acb at 3:40 PM on October 28, 2016


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