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

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
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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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
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You mean where people who had read the book said the same as you are now. They were bring crude and making assumptions.
 
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.
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reminds me i've still got to read it.
 
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.
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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.
 
reminds me i've still got to read it.
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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.
 
frogwoman said:
reminds me i've still got to read it.
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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.
 
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 :p
 
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 :p
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No, I made sure to read the book first. As related on the longer thread about it. Where you also got it very wrong.
 
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.
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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.
 
My broader point was right - it wasn't *inevitable* from his social position that he would go wide of the mark.
 
articul8 said:
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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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.
 
I'm sorry, I didn't realise I needed to hand in the right to my colloquialisms when I passed the class police
 
Brace yerselves - he's doing Question Time this week :D
<dons flak helmet>

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