A Conspiracy of Trash

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Sunday, 3 November 2013

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE UNDERCLASS

From the 1950’s through to the late eighties the appearance of grossly fat women waddling the streets of our cities was a rarity. If you saw such a person you blinked, shook your head and put it down to some hormonal malfunction. Today they are commonplace. However, alongside this phenomenon of the last two decades there has also appeared large numbers of men and women wearing tattoos, men with earrings and both sexes owning aggressive and threatening dogs. Added to such marks of identification, only too clear to the outside observer, are those of facial physiognomy. In women it’s an appearance of dullness together with what may best be described as a general plain ugliness. In men it takes the form of a dull, ugly, aggressive demeanor.  In many, most of  the above characteristics exist in a clearly observable combination.

It makes them look different to everyone else. That’s because they are different. They are a newly emerged social species of being who differ in habit, attitude and values… broadly definable as a new social class. Just a few decades ago they didn’t exist. Today we call them the Underclass.

They are to be found all over Britain, numbering as many perhaps as five million. They are also to be found across Europe, predominantly in Eastern Europe and the Ukraine but less so in Germany and France, and given that their emergence coincides precisely with major socio-economic changes in Britain and elsewhere, which, while different in character, explain the reasons for their appearance. In Britain the political era of Margaret Thatcher that dominated the 1980’s saw a profound decline in traditional industrial manufacturing and the skilled labour that accompanied it A process that had begun slowly in the preceding decade sharply accelerated and continued on into the 1990’s. Occupations needing skilled and semi-skilled labour were replaced by those requiring few skills in the new service industries. The impact of this sudden, radical change in the employment and cultural cohesion of the traditional working class and their communities was substantial. As industrial production gave way to commercial and finance capital large numbers of working people found themselves unemployed, underemployed and bereft of their old identity. Those especially at the lower levels of educational attainment pitched into poverty and cultural chaos. Prey to demoralization, family conflicts and crises, their children subsequently becoming victims of dysfunctional family life, alcohol and drugs.

And with these children, often descendants of skilled working households, came the emergence in the following decade of a new social class, its hapless members only too often the victims of family break up, disharmony and despair. Semi-educated at best, unskilled, unemployed or unemployable. Dissociated from old social values stressing stability and loyalty of family ties, subject to alcohol abuse, engaging in petty crime, drug-taking and violent conduct and unable to engage in constructive stable relationships. A new class of people which in the absence of viable employment is economically sustained through a culture of benefits dependence and petty crime to fuel escape mechanisms such as drugs.

Having emerged in Britain they quickly took on their own cultural identity. The women are fat and men  semi-malnourished because they eat cheap. Eat cheap because they have little money, spending much of it on tattoos, alcohol or drugs. They keep aggressive dogs because they themselves are aggressive and angry. They are the descendants of those who got left behind and abandoned by a fast changing society and became coalesced into a social-historical excrescence with its own content and form.

It was different in Eastern Europe. The rapid formation of an Underclass, or lumpen-proletariat in Britain resulted from rapid social change, mainly as a consequences of de-industrialization and identity crisis. Elsewhere the situation arose from the political collapse of postwar Stalinist regimes in the 1980’s and 90’s and subsequent economic chaos and impoverishment when their populations could no longer rely on economic bailouts and support from the old Soviet Union which had collapsed. Economically these countries were now on their own, facing radical change as their industries shifted from state support to private finance and enterprise.  It meant millions of workers throughout Eastern Europe and particularly the industrialized Ukraine facing catastrophe. The result of this great economic turmoil and upheaval has seen a similar social decay of the old working class throughout the region and emergence at its bottom end of an angry, shiftless, unskilled, semi-educated new class with new cultural values and symbols of identity. Indeed, an Underclass strikingly similar in appearance and character to that which we have in Britain today!  

This newly emerged British and East European Underclass is clearly a generalised consequence of rapid socio-economic upheaval and change. In Europe its political identity is often with the far right. In Britain, fuelled by extensive immigration, the manifestation of its political identity is that of a narrow Englishness rather than a broader national identity of Britishness though the same can also said to be true for the lower middle class! We are becoming a nation divided. One of discrete narrow national identities replacing that which once was a collected united whole.  

The Underclass has been as politically discernible in this narrowing identity as much as its culture and values make it sharply discernible from all the other social classes, perhaps with the exception of their love of aggressive dogs which again is also one of the joys of lower middle class life. In fact, come to think of it, there is a strange similarity in the cultural characteristics of both social classes. The Underclass is often semi-literate whereas the lower middle class, while proudly opinionated, is often stunningly ignorant with it. This similarity of educational deficiency may best be explained by the desire in both social classes for assertiveness. In the latter this is a function of their marginality, in the case of the Underclass that of sheer aggression. Either way both seem to know what’s what more than anyone else and won’t have anyone telling them otherwise!

The lower middle class however are not into tattoos. They prefer adorning their semi’s with decorative art forms rather than their own bodies. Here garden gnomes come to mind, standing rigidly serene among clusters of toad-stools, or girls with green faces lovingly suspended in silence in countless living rooms. None of this Death’s Head or Chinese lettering crap on arms and legs so beloved of those far below them in status and class. Or even the delight of a Rose so lovingly etched above some stupefying anal crack. This too is expensive but never mind, it’s often paid out of benefits.

Such cultural joys are part of the fleeting upside of life and little to do with the downside of Underclass existence, either hidden behind the front doors of council dwellings or grimly emerging in Social Services offices. Lack of money, prospects, fidelity and an inability to cope. These are its main characteristics. For most any sweetness and light is never sustained. However the problems caused by their dysfunctional lifestyle are echoed only too often in family trauma as is readily seen in the Jeremy Kyle show, an only too evident display of all that is deeply and disturbingly  dysfunctional. Endless histories of appalling behaviour where the conduct of both perpetrators and aggrieved victims never fail to astonish selected audiences of other family members and random viewers most of whom are underclass themselves or peripheral to it.

Not all of the Underclass lead disturbed and dysfunctional lives. Mostly those whose circumstances, possibly a combination of family background, unemployment and poor education, engender stress and lack of self-control, ultimately leading to anger and violence. The fact is that they exist in very large numbers. It’s no use going on about them being vile as some media commentators are prone to do. Their existence is a function of the social dynamics of modern economic life. They’ve suddenly arrived as a social class whether anyone likes it or not and it’s useless for the middle class to complain about their appearance onto the social scene. As useless indeed as it will be to complain when half a million gypsies pitch up in coach loads out of Romania during the course of next year!

The question is, are we to feel sorry for or sympathize with the Underclass because of the problems they face and be tolerant of their cultural lifestyle? I mean, simply as a matter of plain human kindness if you will? Can we not say that their plight is really no fault of their own and requires understanding?

WELL ACTUALLY NO! People don’t have to behave badly to each other and everyone else. No-one’s forcing them to externalize their problems. Give others trouble and misery not of their own making. Cause problems and offence all over the show! If you don’t like the deal you’ve been handed toughen up and do something about it to make a better life for yourselves. It’s possible if you’ve got the courage. However, this is for those whose social and personal behaviour is wanting in dignity. Many of those in the Underclass are not prey to their emotions or victims of their situation. They live normal untroubled lives and make the best of their circumstances. It is only their poverty and culture that makes them only too visible and easy to condemn by the snobbery that pervades British society i.e. if you don’t like their culture then condemn it! Rather like our attitudes towards immigrants who all so desperately want to be British! Well the Underclass in a way are like immigrants. They’re newly arrived into the social structure of British society with their own culture and values and they won’t go away. Not until economic circumstances change over a generation or more and their children move back up into the working class.

And like immigrants, the Underclass have the distinction of being only too visible in appearance, habits and manner. But then, and here’s a thought, can immigrants themselves belong to the Underclass? Well we don’t see many Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Somalis or Poles wearing hoodies and walking bull terriers on leads let alone wearing earrings, and short trousers to show off their tattoos. Perhaps that’s because the majority are ambitious and upwardly mobile, but not all. Gangs of Pakistani youths in our northern cities display many symptoms of social deprivation but do they belong to an Underclass? If so do they identify themselves with the youth of the English Underclass? Perhaps not. Both groups may experience the same deprivation but deeper cultural factors preclude any social class homogeneity. Social scientists await further development for study, particularly among and between the four traditional national identities of English, Welsh, Irish and Scots.

Meanwhile for the sake of a generalised national identity, the Underclass is a social group that most people recognise but don’t want to think about let alone come across. Except when they want to get some fun out of them by watching the Jeremy Kyle show. In a way, observing their dysfunctional conduct and learning its history provides an affirmation of their own good fortune, their own ‘better’ more conservative values. A reflection of what they are in contrast to the sad awfulness of what they see. The question is, are the people who appear on the show all hand-picked special cases, carefully selected as case studies for one form of ghastliness or another, or is the entire Underclass jam-packed with dreadful behaviour? It’s a fact that the show is exceptionally popular. So much so that a parallel series runs in America with much the same grossly fat women appearing! It’s popularity, perhaps, is that many viewers want something unpleasant to contrast themselves with. As I’ve said, a kind of self-affirmation or reverse mirror image of their own personal sobriety. See, this is what you get if you live normal… not like the others. But then maybe those in the Underclass think that their own lives are normal! Just consider… If they have no-one else to compare themselves with except those in their own peer group then maybe they think everyone else is just like they are, even Daily Mail readers who resent every penny they’re getting on benefits!   

But then not to worry! There’s no group of people in the entire country who resent everything and everyone more than Daily Mail readers! I mean if aliens from Planet Zog suddenly made a surprise landing and said hi guys we want to be friends you can bet your life that Daily Mail readers would seriously resent it. The paper next day running a front page story on the dangers of Britain being invaded by illegal alien immigrants with Ed Miliband promising to give them all immediate free housing and state benefits if he won the next General Election after having met their leader in secret! However the Daily Mail, after exposing this ‘vile’ socialist betrayal, wishes to assure all its readers that it is personally taking up the case with the Prime Minister and will campaign tirelessly against alien immigration from Planet Zog into Britain and make it their editorial policy no less! And furthermore mobilize the entire population of Essex for their campaign!

Finally let me say this. There will undoubtedly be many seriously fat women out there who strongly resent any blanket membership of the underclass they think I’ve ascribed to them in this post. This is certainly not the case and is indeed a denigration of all those who may engage in, for whatever reason, the uncontrolled guzzling of sugary cream cakes and donuts. On its own any such sugar addiction does not automatically qualify people for membership. Indeed, on a recent visit to a local hospital I witnessed a couple of grossly plump ladies doing responsible and important jobs in the National Health Service and on asking both for advice it immediately became clear that they were certainly not members. No, belonging to the underclass comes via a combination of qualifications acting in concert, so no-one should jump to any conclusions if, for example, they see men covered in tattoos. Things like that are only a pointer. However if you add to it a pair of stud earrings, endless boozing, a predilection for eating cheap pies and a fanatical support of certain football teams your supposition could well be taking you in the right direction.

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