"Chav - the Musical"

[noel emits]

If your arguments are so great, by all means, regale us with them.

Yawn. There's not a lot of point in arguing with people like you. you're either a complete wind-up or completely mental. Certainly not interested in getting at the truth in a discussion anyway, just throwing up spurious arguments to get a rise out of people.

 

[noel emits]

I'm not the one who is saying that poor people are just lazy and "bully each other" into not finishing high school. That was you and Mr. Tea.

Damn, I know I should just let it lie but I can't. It wasn't me or Mr. Tea, it was you, just there.

So do you think all people with bad jobs who didn't finish school are "reverse snobs", Noel Emits?

Where on earth do you get these ideas?

 

[swears]

What's wrong with expecting a bit more sense from people of all classes? Your average working or lower middle class person needs to wise up to how much we're being fucked around now, there's really no hope that anything will get better or more importantly, the idea that things could be different. We've lost all sense of society since the 80s, and pessimistically, I don't see any change in the near future. You have people aspiring economically: to flashy clothes, expensive holdays and overrated products like a bunch of zombies obsessed with status. Whether that's the hardest geezer on the council estate or the posh nob trying to get a villa in Tuscany, how can things change so that we aspire to something, I dunno...more worthwhile?

 

[baboon2004]

To go back to that long argument, I'll back up what Noelemits was saying: reverse snobbery is endemic in the UK. It's not as though we live in a society where most people are too poor to have access to knowledge....

 

[baboon2004]

And some people here seem to be confusing gaining knowledge with going to university/studying formally, which is ridiculous. The point is that it's become a badge of pride to be ignorant (among a wide swathe of classes, actually). And that is, in a word - stupid.

 

[Mr. Tea]

bullying other kids to fail school? huh?

you're ignoring the fact that most poor kids from inner city projects, should they bother doing extremely well in high school, still would have little to no chance to be able to afford college, so it's really not worth their time or attention. might as well start work construction at 16, you'll make more money than you would sitting around waiting for a lucrative degree to fall into your lap.

i notice a lot of women in the projects work as nurses in my neighborhood...they must be the ones who do really well in school compared to their peers

What are you talking about? You don't need a degree for most jobs, but even employers in the most unskilled service work are going to look askance if you don't even have a GCSE. Plus kids from poor(er) families get all sorts of financial help to go to universirty (in Britain) - this is without even going into the fact that far too many people are going to university these days, full stop...

And the bullying I'm talking about is the chronic culture of underachievement found in many British schools, whereby anyone who demonstrates an ounce of intelligence of interest in academic achievement is, as I said above, 'sad' and 'gay'.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'm not the one who is saying that poor people are just lazy and "bully each other" into not finishing high school. That was you and Mr. Tea.

But this is ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENS. for fuck's sake. They don't do it "because they're poor", they do it because that's the dominant culture in many schools. I saw it to an extent in my school, and there are many schools that are far, far worse than mine was. And if you leave school with no qualifications, a history of trouble with the police and burgeoning alcohol and cannabis problems, you are more or less dooming yourself to a life of poverty.

 

[vernoncrane]

"you are more or less dooming yourself to a life of poverty"

So this life of poverty is something you opt for, is it? They're deliberate decisions, rationally chosen by independent actors are they, alcohol and cannabis addiction, academic failure, poverty? Every opportunity to succeed is present and there is a willed refusal, meaning then that the poor are poor because they choose to be, "they only have themselves to blame." We live in an open, meritocratic society and they are poor and uneducated because of "bad character."

Would this also be true on a global scale….say that the vast swathes of poor and illiterate in South America or Africa are in the position they are because of “ laziness” as I have heard people say, or is it only in developed nations that we face the curious phenomena of children simply refusing to learn to read from a very young age in order to ensure that they when they grow up they will be faced with a lifetime of unemployment?

 

[Slothrop]

"you are more or less dooming yourself to a life of poverty"

So this life of poverty is something you opt for, is it? They're deliberate decisions, rationally chosen by independent actors are they, alcohol and cannabis addiction, academic failure, poverty?

Did you notice the bit two sentences before the line you quoted: They don't do it "because they're poor", they do it because that's the dominant culture in many schools.

And yeah, we're splitting hairs a bit, but to my mind that is a choice. Cultures aren't forced on people from above, they're a cumulative effect of the choices that the people participating in the culture make. And although one person in the culture has a pretty slim chance of just deciding one day to swim against the tide, it seems a bit harsh to reduce everyone involved to mindless zombies with no capacity for rational thought who are only capable of going whereever "external forces" push them.

Edit: in other words, just because a choice is made extremely difficult for you by the culture you're stuck in doesn't mean it isn't a choice in the sense that Tea seems to mean.

 

[vernoncrane]

"Cultures aren't forced on people from above, they're a cumulative effect of the choices that the people participating in the culture make.."

so there is no relation between economic/social factors and "cultures." Cultures are purely and simply elective....and things like, say, social mobility in the UK having stopped is due to people deciding that they no longer wish to change class, whereas thirty years ago, they felt like it, so they did.

or am i misuderstanding you?

 

[Slothrop]

"Cultures aren't forced on people from above, they're a cumulative effect of the choices that the people participating in the culture make.."

so there is no relation between economic/social factors and "cultures." Cultures are purely and simply elective....and things like, say, social mobility in the UK having stopped is due to people deciding that they no longer wish to change class, whereas thirty years ago, they felt like it, so they did.

or am i misuderstanding you?

Yes, obviously there are now greater social and economic obstacles to changing class now than there were thirty years ago. But the effect of those obstacles is made worse by the culture that appears in response to them. But unless you have a purely deterministic view of people's behaviour (or at least, poor people's behaviour) then that culture is a result of a series of decisions made by different people. And a collection of decisions made by different people can very easily have an overall result that none of the people involved wanted.

 

[vernoncrane]

so if cultures do arise from specific economic situations, where do economic situations come from? i mean are they just the arbitrary amalgams of collective actions which, like certain cultures, none of us actually wants, but in the face of which we are powerless to do anything?

 

[Slothrop]

so if cultures do arise from specific economic situations, where do economic situations come from? i mean are they just the arbitrary amalgams of collective actions which, like certain cultures, none of us actually wants, but in the face of which we are powerless to do anything?

That and natural events (bad years for growing corn for instance), yes. Where else would they come from?

And I'm not saying that we're powerless to do anything, just that we tend not to.

 

[swears]

This vernoncrane fella raises some valid points. What created this culture of failure and apathy? Funny how it seemed to do develop after the decontruction of any credible socialist alternative in the UK in the last 20-25 years. But hey, things just happen don't they?

 

[Slothrop]

This vernoncrane fella raises some valid points. What created this culture of failure and apathy? Funny how it seemed to do develop after the decontruction of any credible socialist alternative in the UK in the last 20-25 years. But hey, things just happen don't they?

No, of course there are reasons for it. But that way of looking at it where (for instance) poor people who end up with drug problems have at no point made any choice that lead to this situation but have done so purely because they are driven to it by their surroundings seems to push you towards the idea that you have a division between the sheep like masses who are incapable of thinking or doing anything effective themselves, and independently thinking middle and upper classes who (thanks to their superior breeding, education etc) are making thought out and rational decisions about how to exploit the working class and keep them in their place and middle and upper class socialists (hoorah), who are also capable of independent thought and have been able to see through the whole thing and ride to the aid of the Opressed Masses. That the proles are Effect and everyone else is Cause.

 

[DRMHCP]

Weird. Up north I always got the impression 2step/speed garage/R&B were quite classy, aspirational forms of music. Working class, but not uncouth. Listen to MJ Cole, doesn't get slicker than that!

I'd have to go with Happy Hardcore, or Cheesy/Hard House as being the most "chavvy" types of music. Fellas in white shirts smashing each other over the head with bottles of Stella, with "Castles in The Sky" blaring as the soundtrack.

I think the permeation of more "black" sounds to even the lower sectors of the working class in London and the South-East probably has something to do with the fact that over 80% of all people of African-Caribbean background live in that area. This has meant that since at least the early-60s black culture has become an inescapable feature of mainstream culture in this area. From when I first moved down there as a young kid in the seventies I remember the influence was everywhere...black programmes on mainstream London daytime radio, reggae imports being sold on 2nd hand market stalls, specifically black funk djs in the clubs (and this was a fact of life in even the farthest flung outer suburbs). Basically if you received London telly or radio you grew up with this influence. Obviously there are African-Caribbean populations in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds etc but never large enough to reach the critical mass of changing the overall youth culture of the area in the way it did in the South-East.

And as its taken as a given that genuinely working class youth hasn't for decades (ever?)really gone for guitar music en masse in any part of England its just a matter of WHAT type of dance music they're going to be into. In the South-East I think that the influence of black music has been strong enough to filter down to even the unaspirational lower working class ("ch*vs") whereas in the rest of the country its less strong influence lets in happy hardcore/trance/scouse house to fill the vacuum.
Obviously this is a real generalisation as you often hear booming black sounds coming from cars on estates in Yorkshire and when I lived in the London area happy hardcore etc was always massive with certain swathes of the youth too.

An interesting aside would be the contention I heard made once that the "harder" the working class youth the "softer" his tastes in music and that the only time that this was ever untrue was when hardcore/rave ruled the roost in the early 90s. Maybe this was something to do with the fact that it still had the all important black influences and what he'd see as a decent dance beat. Oh and of course students didn't like it!

 

[Mr. Tea]

And although one person in the culture has a pretty slim chance of just deciding one day to swim against the tide, it seems a bit harsh to reduce everyone involved to mindless zombies with no capacity for rational thought who are only capable of going whereever "external forces" push them.

Edit: in other words, just because a choice is made extremely difficult for you by the culture you're stuck in doesn't mean it isn't a choice in the sense that Tea seems to mean.

Try telling that to, ooh, most of the people on this forum. I'm not the one trying to characterise people as helpless automata drifting this way and that under the influence of omnipotent forces they have no control over or understanding of - that would nomad, vernoncrane et al.

If you go to school with the attitude that it's you vs. the teachers, you vs. 'the system', and consequently emerge with no qualifications and a massive chip on your shoulder about it then yes, I would say you have doomed yourself to what will probably amount to a life of poverty, disfunctionality and trouble. Of course, if you arrive at school and such a culture is already in place, then you can hardly be blamed for that, but as Slothrop says, people still have free will and personal choice. Successive governments haven't exactly helped in this regard by allowing a legal culture to develop in which it is impossible to impose the slightest bit of discipline in schools, kids have to be treated as 'equals' of teachers and as 'young adults', and the attendent pseudo-progressive rot that goes with it.

 

[nomadologist]

What are you talking about? You don't need a degree for most jobs, but even employers in the most unskilled service work are going to look askance if you don't even have a GCSE. Plus kids from poor(er) families get all sorts of financial help to go to universirty (in Britain) - this is without even going into the fact that far too many people are going to university these days, full stop...

And the bullying I'm talking about is the chronic culture of underachievement found in many British schools, whereby anyone who demonstrates an ounce of intelligence of interest in academic achievement is, as I said above, 'sad' and 'gay'.

This is where the UK and the US diverge completely. In the U.S., you need a BA to DRIVE A FED EX TRUCK these days. I think the arguments mostly stem from the fact that policy-wise and in terms of culture, the American economy is much more oppressive to the poor than the British one is.

This could be the case, I have no idea. I can only really talk about what happens in the U.S.

 

[nomadologist]

Damn, I know I should just let it lie but I can't. It wasn't me or Mr. Tea, it was you, just there.

Where on earth do you get these ideas?

Mr. Tea did say that. Ask him.

 

[nomadologist]

What's wrong with expecting a bit more sense from people of all classes? Your average working or lower middle class person needs to wise up to how much we're being fucked around now, there's really no hope that anything will get better or more importantly, the idea that things could be different. We've lost all sense of society since the 80s, and pessimistically, I don't see any change in the near future. You have people aspiring economically: to flashy clothes, expensive holdays and overrated products like a bunch of zombies obsessed with status. Whether that's the hardest geezer on the council estate or the posh nob trying to get a villa in Tuscany, how can things change so that we aspire to something, I dunno...more worthwhile?

The problem in the U.S. is that "sense" won't get you health benefits (I know people with MULTIPLE DEGREES who have no health benefits here), it won't get you an education loan so you can go to college, and even if you did get to college, college doesn't necessarily equate to an economic risk worth taking for many, many impoverished people here.

Class is a reality. You can't chalk up "class" to a cultural refusal to learn in school.