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

[dynamicbaddog]

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

 

[manny-p]

isn't Owen Jones abit of a dick.?

 

[Joe Reilly]

isn't Owen Jones abit of a dick.?

Glib is the word that springs to mind.

 

[ayatollah]

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.

 

[treelover]

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...

 

[smokedout]

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

 

[Captain Hurrah]

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

 

[dynamicbaddog]

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.

 

[kenny g]

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!

 

[Smokeandsteam]

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.

 

[butchersapron]

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.

 

[frogwoman]

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?)

 

[frogwoman]

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 ...

 

[butchersapron]

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.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

"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.

 

[Proper Tidy]

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

 

[dynamicbaddog]

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)

 

[frogwoman]

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.

 

[smokedout]

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.

 

[temper_tantrum]

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.

 

[butchersapron]

You disagree with assertions why?

 

[butchersapron]

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.

 

[temper_tantrum]

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.

 

[frogwoman]

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.

 

[temper_tantrum]

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

 

[frogwoman]

sure, send me a pm

 

[temper_tantrum]

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?

 

[frogwoman]

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!

 

[temper_tantrum]

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.

 

[frogwoman]

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?