blissblogger
Well-known member
The last few return visits to the UK, i've felt genuine culture shock for the first time. ASBO's? Most confusing of all, "chav". Trying to track the happy slapping trend on the web to work out if it actually exists or is made-up, i stumbled on an anti-chav site. http://www.chavtowns.co.uk/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1580. it was quite disorienting.
My initial tentative diagnosis (excuse me if this seems obvious, i've been out of the country a long time. Following the disappearance of old style class war in the UK (as mediated by the trade unions--when i were a lad the leaders of the big unions were public figures, so famous that Mike Yarwood would impersonate them -- does anyone know the names of the leaders of any union nowadays? while in london i went past the TUC headquarters, i'd almost forgotten that acronym even existed) and the dominance of bland centrist managerialism, class tensions have resurfaced in an
Americanized form, i.e. their class nature disavowed, their basis in material inequality etc ignored. Instead the struggle expressed entirely as cultural antagonism. Ie. Chav being similar to America where it's considered OK to make fun of "white trash". In other words the UK has moved so far into post-socialism that the idea of "society is to blame" is long forgotten; the state of these people is regarded as entirely their own fault.
Except that, judging by this anti-chav site, it's felt that chav values are culturally hegemonic (something that could never be said in the USA of white trash culture).
So what's it all about then? And what exactly is the etymology of "chav"? And yeah, is happy slapping just an urban/media myth?
My initial tentative diagnosis (excuse me if this seems obvious, i've been out of the country a long time. Following the disappearance of old style class war in the UK (as mediated by the trade unions--when i were a lad the leaders of the big unions were public figures, so famous that Mike Yarwood would impersonate them -- does anyone know the names of the leaders of any union nowadays? while in london i went past the TUC headquarters, i'd almost forgotten that acronym even existed) and the dominance of bland centrist managerialism, class tensions have resurfaced in an
Americanized form, i.e. their class nature disavowed, their basis in material inequality etc ignored. Instead the struggle expressed entirely as cultural antagonism. Ie. Chav being similar to America where it's considered OK to make fun of "white trash". In other words the UK has moved so far into post-socialism that the idea of "society is to blame" is long forgotten; the state of these people is regarded as entirely their own fault.
Except that, judging by this anti-chav site, it's felt that chav values are culturally hegemonic (something that could never be said in the USA of white trash culture).
So what's it all about then? And what exactly is the etymology of "chav"? And yeah, is happy slapping just an urban/media myth?