London's poor fetish: commodifying working class culture
roarmag.org
roarmag.org
Seriously, what gives the author the right to blanketly declare the lives of the middle class to be souless, meaningless, and that their jobs are bullshit? How does he not realize that he is projecting his own insecurity and outdated ideas about "authenticity" on to these people.
Honestly, I've found that most people don't really give a shit about doing something truly meaningful and soul-fulfilling in their work. I may, you probably do too. But most people are fine with showing up, doing what they have to do, then getting out and spending time with the people that they love. What is so wrong with that?
Sure, we get it, the visual signifiers of the exotic have changed over the last 10 years. Once upon a time in the UK it was Superclubs and being part of something fancy and opulent. Now, the iconography of the working-class has been appropriated - and people want to buy into that, probably based on the tail-end of the skeuomorphic thing - where we were desiring to feel connected to nostalgia based aesthetics.
But what the author doesn't get is that people are deeply social. Sure, the economic and cultural environment will shift things the modes of interactions - but people will continue forming relationships with friends, relaying experiences, dancing to dumb songs with their friends. The artcile had some great observations, but maybe rethink framing this as "a problem" and stick to the description of culture (which was actually interesting).
Well, that's what modern life is under the TINA regime[1]. A whole society of people who've sold out every heroic ideal humans have ever conceived, in order to live as cells inside corporate organs of a hyper-capitalistic organism that would collapse if it stopped expanding. Money is god (it's about equal in power to law, at least), and money is created in a Ponzi between central banks and governments, and between private financial corporations and private enterprises/individuals, all on the promise that there will be even more money next year to pay back the debts of this year, and give "good enough or better" returns on large capital pools invested. We consume natural resources in an unsustainable way in exchange for this money, and for a cellular role in the organs and the organism, and it will last in this way until the last day comes, when we starve to death on our own planetary stripmine.
We could be taking a new course right now, to live in idealistic ways, in sustainable ways, in heroic ways. But we all just quit that notion before we start, because it's just too hard, and we distract ourselves with the greatest media spectacle of entertaining diversions and political issues every conceived.
Welcome to life in hell. You can get defensive and self-righteous when people point out the mass hypocrisy and delusion and error in all our lives, but it doesn't change the truth that we are all living in an awful state, as cowards and lapdogs of the hyper-capitalist system that gives us life today, even as it guarantees death in the future.
I figure that a not-yet born post-human super-predator will take the best of human intelligence and anti-entropic principles and incorporate them, and destroy the rest. Or some already-existing higher powers will swoop in at some point in the future to harvest the best of our anti-entropic principles, and destroy the rest of us.
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
Starts off iffy, gets really good.
Incidentally, that page led me to this by the same author:
http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html
Which is very much like something I'd been meaning to write for some time, though better-done (and certainly longer) than mine probably would have been. Strictly separating the practical and moral sides of the arguments was, in particular, a great idea. I do wish someone would send him more rebuttals, since I like reading take-downs of things I agree with and the only one linked there is really poor, even by the not-especially-rigorous standards of the original.
Rousing rhetoric, but it doesn't change the fact that while it's shit to be poor, it's still better to be poor now than at pretty much any previous time in known history.
A whole society of people who've sold out every heroic ideal humans have ever conceived
Which again sounds like nice and tasty demagoguery, but isn't true. We continually progress and improve on civil rights, for example.
Capitalism does not require net growth. People, things, culture and organisations decay. People get old, Teens in 2016 are not going to dress the same, listen to the same songs, or even read the same books from the 2015. The is a long cycle of banks flat out failing in good times and in bad. Clothing, Houses, Bridges, and Roads need to be replaced etc.
Sure, in steady state economy's there is a different balance and fewer people get to retire early. However, lower returns and later retirements does not break capitalism. Just look at Japan's falling GDP.
You probably mean "parody" (they are pronounced very similarly)
Eventually global energy production will taper off, but I would bet strongly against it being within the next century.
[0] http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Uranium...
Constructive proof: build a large suspended reflector (mirror), put you power source on it and pump heat from earth to a sphere of any material, which radiates heat into space.
No, this of course can't easily solve global warming due to enormous cost it would have and ludicrous efficiency. It's way cheaper to just absorb less heat from the sun (less CO2).
What you cite are technical reasons, not thermodynamic. Thermodynamics doesn't disallow the situation, only technical reasons make it difficult.
> Sometimes it's best to do the math before claiming stuff
> I see that none of you have heard of Carnot efficiency
Sometimes it's best to get off your high horse.
So, if you put your apparatus anywhere but in the low atmosphere, how do you expect it to pump heat from the low atmosphere (where the heat is)?
I'm not on any high horse, but I'm surprised at how quickly people dismiss this problem as absurd. It's quite obvious if you know some engineering thermodynamics. I think people dismiss it out of cognitive dissonance, since they don't want another unfixable world problem.
> people dismiss it out of cognitive dissonance
Ok then.
You are making a few claims:
1) Thermodynamics imposes a finite limit on the energy consumption on Earth;
Sure, it might be necessary to build a fleet of titanic cooling towers to cool the atmosphere, I don't think we will ever need to do that; but thermodynamics doesn't forbid cooling Earth, hence your claim is false.
That out of the way
2) The direct thermal output of power sources/uses is going to be a problem in the near future
I claim that's also false. In fact, the burden of the proof should be yours when you make such a claim, but let me show why I believe otherwise: (approximate figure from wiki [1])
142 PWh of energy was used worldwide. Solar irradiance is 340000 PWh. It would take almost 200 years of steady 3% growth (or a 240x increase in consumption) to even reach 1% of solar irradiance as internal heat. Even then, the impact of greenhouse gases massively overshadows that.
On top of that, there's no activity requiring exponentially more energy, or evidence that we may continue expanding energy demand for hundreds or years. In fact, if you look at per capita energy consumption vs GDP [2], you can clearly see a saturation of energy needs. Once the developing nations reach this, it seems demand growth is going to slow down. Nothing physical ever maintains an exponential growth for too long.
[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/The-NASA-...
Oh. You quit?
>Welcome to life in hell. You can get defensive and self-righteous when people point out the mass hypocrisy and delusion and error in all our lives, but it doesn't change the truth that we are all living in an awful state, as cowards and lapdogs of the hyper-capitalist system that gives us life today, even as it guarantees death in the future.
No, the working classes are actually revolting, because the system has guaranteed them death today.
All kinds of things are actually happening around the world to deal with humanity's problems, and here you're complaining instead of contributing.
Get back to work!
>I figure that a not-yet born post-human super-predator will take the best of human intelligence and anti-entropic principles and incorporate them, and destroy the rest. Or some already-existing higher powers will swoop in at some point in the future to harvest the best of our anti-entropic principles, and destroy the rest of us.
I'm right here, and it really boggles me why people like you keep thinking people like me would destroy you ;-).
>But we all just quit that notion before we start
Don't forget we also denounce and ridicule anyone who tries to live outside the system we have constructed and rely on.
People will also keep chasing what's cool and play the social signaling game, especially young, single people. When I view the article as an examination of how this evolved in an anti-consumerist era, it's actually pretty interesting.
When I view it as a critique of "work" as "showing up, doing what they have to do, then getting out and spending time with the people that they love." - or something that is not culturally, spiritually, etc, uplifting on its own, it's OKAY. Saying that pursuing faux-lower class experiences is motivated by that is kind of a touchy proposition, but it's worth examining, I suppose.
But then it ends with the derail into "the poor poor people" It almost feels like the author has to dive into the political argument at the very end, because this site has as its subtitle "reflections on a revolution".
It's an ill supported point. How does spending $10 on a cocktail in a mason jar hurt people, exactly? Maybe it's pointless, or part of an elaborate social signaling game, but it's not exploitative. Much less so than classic consumerism, I'd argue.
Yep, and are still changing and always will. Has the author even kept up? I mean, Red Stripe? Get lost, it's craft IPA or nothing!
This is a traditional part of the British class system from at least the 60s onwards. There's an entire pundit industry in stating this in lifestyle supplements, pop science, and inoffensive indie music. It's something that we recite, not something actionable. It's like going to church to top up your existential guilt.
Ask the people that are desperately trying to convince us otherwise. I see this a lot in "tech". That new library, language or company by "hackers" that are going to change everything. Start asking about security, practicality or why they sold and you're ignored at best. Not everyone expects you to do that, so if you're actually honest your projects gets no attention.
In particular, this bit:
"That their accent, speech patterns and knowledge of institutions, by their very deployment in the job market, perpetuate norms that exclude those who were born outside of the cultural elite."
It's a very valid point that culture drives so much of hiring and economic reality. That it creates economic barriers everywhere.
There's also a valid complaint against the meaninglessness of the office job. But to say "Hipsters :("... I'm not sure that really means all that much on its own.
I don't think it's a case of seeking meaning in a pointless non-struggle by emulating the struggling classes.
It's the same as it always was - the middle classes trying to differentiate themselves by social signaling - doing things others can't. Classic yuppies just bought expensive toys. The newer generation spends on other things. For instance, by dressing like a hipster, you can signal that you are not chained to the traditional office. You can buy $8 drinks at bars on weeknights. You can spend a year or two abroad.
We aren't quite like Effie, but only because the peacocking evolved in a different direction.
But let's not forget that Hunger Games is some ways an allusion to the Roman Empire - and that the fundamental problem is not a new one.
Hipsters are nowhere near as bad as keyboard class warriors whose pretentious prose belies the inauthenticity of their attempts to speak for the working class as surely as the braying accents they whinge about.
What is the author's point, exactly?
For the vast majority of the article, the point is "the life of the middle class is pointless; they try to find some meaning in it through trivialized edgy experiences - which fail to provide much relief to the ennui since they are too sanitized."
Okay, so I buy that. It's less about "poverty tourism" than it is just the classic social signaling game, made more complex by anti-consumerism.
Maybe you take a month off of work to work on your burning man mutant vehicle rather than spending a month's salary on a flashy Mercedes, but you're signaling the same thing.
Be that as it may, it takes until the last few paragraphs to really derail into "oh, but the poor poor people!". In a paragraph it tries to explain how rising rents are tough; how the privilege afforded to some young people magnifies itself later in life, etc, is harsh.
Very little of which is an indictment of faux working-class escapism. That escapism in itself only seems to be indicted by the way that it raises rents, a very tired argument.
But in what way do the "£6 jerk sandwiches and £8 cocktails" hurt the lower classes? The article never makes the point, exactly.
Basically... I read this article as "Chasing faux-working-class hipster stuff is completely pointless, but people feel compelled to do it anyway since they have nothing better to do." I agree with that. Examining the way young urban professionals evolved in an anti-consumerist era is worthwhile.
The little "Oh, btw, die yuppie... er, hipster scum" paragraph I am forgiving. The point is just too weak, and it's better read the other way.
It's clear that the author has an extremely limited view of the middle class. It's an incredibly broad demographic; they aren't all twentysomething hipsters downing microbrews in converted warehouses.
I'm a working class boy with the middle class car and I know upper class people with the working class clothes listening to grime, middle class people living in a working class area who like eating out at the upper class joints, and even working class people with upper class money. While it's extremely unlikely for one change their underlying class (in the UK), now more than ever it's possible to enjoy the diversions, entertainments, and even trappings of any class.
As Kanye said to Zane Lowe in his interview today, fusion the future, and that's not just music but culture full stop. And it's a great thing too, IMHWCO.
(UK but not London) Warehouses are cheapish, available and more easily licensed. Good old fashioned middle class practicality.
They are at once chastised for "inoculating" themselves from working class culture, and for embracing it.
The twenty-somethings are filled with a sense of meaninglessness because their lives are meaningless. They allowed their careers to define who they were, and are now surprised when the market created a large, ticketed carousel for them.
I wonder how many people commenting on this thread are confusing / conflating them?
And yet if the middle class ask their representatives to scale back the very same social programs that provide the uber cool, uber cultural working and welfare classes that the author is idolizing here they are demonized in the extreme.
Sure, the middle class give the working and welfare class schools, access to universities, free healthcare, lots of cash welfare, houses to live in cost free and lots more, but don't you know that they're literally the devil incarnate? Who do they think they are to have parties in warehouses? That's what we do when we've claimed our welfare for the week! Those damned culture vultures!
Point being, not only do the middle class provide universities and health-care by paying taxes for them, they make up a large portion of the actual professional labor force at those institutions.
I'm very, very left-wing, but having newspapers print long articles more-or-less pointing and laughing at any of the workers who actually keep whole countries running is pretty goddamn insulting, and that includes when they label those workers "middle class" or "hipsters".
Dignity in labor applies to the white-collared, too.
My colleagues might manage a token one day strike now and again, but basically that is your lot. What is termed 'action short of a strike' can actually be more effective in certain circumstances. Cutting off the flow of data really bothers the management but the everyday work of the institution continues; students continue to be taught, to have work marked and to receive feedback designed to improve their understanding of the material.
Although admittedly it has now backfired, as it's now easier to have children on welfare than it is for many working would-be parents.
The working class WILL stop working and in the very near future, as basic jobs such as checkout staff, or taxis, become automated. It's an impending crisis.
But at the same time it glorifies it.
That is of course interesting. I believe Slavoj Zizek (who's quote is at the top of the article) would have a lot to say about that. How the new mode for something to be accepted is for it to also contain satire about itself. It is in a way inoculating itself against other satire.
I recommend reading or listening to Zizek. Not sure how serious you can take him (maybe his philosophy works are more in depth and serious) but his talks are very engaging. It at least makes for good conversation topics.
When poor or redneck Whites live in their own way, the are characterized as uneducated violent brutes who are in need of education and culture.
And yet when middle class Whites act decently, they are attacked for their soullessness and lack of authenticity. They are criticized for being out of touch with poor people, by the same people who heap scorn on poor (White) people.
See my blog for a deconstruction of anti-racist ideology and its attack on White people.
Besides which, black people in the USA are under attack in the form of being regularly murdered by officers of the state for no legal reason.
Citation for that?
Ah, making sweeping generalisations of one demographic containing about 80m people and another of 330m people. Bound to be a good tactic.
Jeb's Catholicism is not a big deal for his electability or this would not be the first time I'd heard of it. By this time Mitt Romney's run I'd read multiple discussions on his Mormonism.
I think very roughly, Americans are fine with economic classes, but not with social classes. Probably because even our rich are mostly new money outside of Manhattan elite.
We love us some Warren Buffet, but hate fatcat, bluebooded new york bankers.
It probably explains why reality TV is obsessed with following around Rich people doing mundane things.
also SV start-up ecosystem is full of snobbery, just slightly different context/values
It's also weird that the article states that the middle-class are priced out by rent and head towards working-class areas for the cheaper rent, then blames the middle-class for doing so.
I'm kind of sick of these idiots that raise a particular kind of work up on a pedestal. Seriously, the author is complaining about fetishization and doing a boatload of it himself.
You are damned if you do and damned if you don't with these journalists, many of whom are middle class or higher white people themselves who've simply developed somewhat of a hardon for self-loathing.
If rich young techies in San Francisco took their money and went and lived in areas already established as being the dwelling of the rich they would face criticism from these journalists for isolating themselves, not investing in the community, etc.
If rich young techies go and buy up property in previously poor areas, attract businesses to serve their needs, etc. they're damned for gentrifying the area and driving the culture out.
The only way it seems that these people would be satisfied is if the value creators simply went to work every day and created value and the output was distributed across the entirety of society, regardless of contribution...which in a very unfair way places all of society's burdens at the feet of the working current middle class even more than they currently are.
I'm a white, middle class software developer. I tend to go for these kind of things such exhibitions in warehouses, quirky restaurants and bars, etc. I don't do it to appropriate culture, I do it because it's more interesting to me than sterile, obviously very well financed restaurants and bars that charge you huge amounts of money to sit in a room packed with suits desperately trying to impress other people.
I'm not trying to take from below, I'm trying to find things of some substance that I'll enjoy and will likely find other people that I can connect with at.
Again, these hit pieces are pretty damn tiring. Who is it whose paying the bulk of the taxes to sustain the free schools the working and welfare classes send their kids to? Who is it that is making the finance available so that working class, welfare class, etc. can access third level education as those above them can? Who is it that is paying the bulk of the costs associated with those universities? Who is it that is covering the welfare that those in the welfare class are currently surviving on? And those in the working class whose manual jobs are quickly becoming redundant?
Who is it that is paying the vast bulk of the costs associated with providing the welfare and working classes with access to healthcare they absolutely otherwise would not be able to afford?
The middle class.
Second, the warehouse galleries, bars and restaurants aren't real working class. It's an illusion to give the middle class what they want. If it were real they wouldn't charge £4 beers because working class people can't really afford it.
The culture they discuss in the article is highly applicable to the home of the modern startup though - San Francisco.
What does it say about a society where lawyers, doctors and professors are considered "middle class"? These are educated professionals. They earn, or should earn, higher-than-average wages. But today such professions are looked down upon.
Why would anyone want to be a doctor? They spend their time dealing with old/sick people. Even a lawyer has to keep appointments, has to show up to work regardless because other people plan their day around meetings with lawyers.
It was not that long ago that people dreamed and struggled to complete the education necessary to enter these professions. Today they are looked down upon as labourers, wage earners whose pay is a function of their skill and the number of hours worked. Instead we praise property owners, capitalists, whose investments and pensions are instead a function of how much property they already own.
It is time to properly tax investment income and start respecting those who actually work for a wage,.
For instance, a tax break by government to help "the middle class" shouldn't be helping lawyers and doctors. They aren't middle class. Progressive taxation or benefits should not aid those earning 200k/year.
Which was toped by an even grander MP who remarked "that is a bit rich coming from someone whose father had to buy his castle"
Say what you will about Western society but it does provide many opportunities for a working class kid to take agency and move themselves into the middle classes while still identifying with their upbringing too. I can afford nice things now, and I treat myself from time to time, but I (and many others I assume) haven't abandoned the things I grew up on either.
As the poster child of gentrification in action, the city certainly has no shortage of artsy hipsters culturally appropriating both the trappings of the poor, as well as their actual dwelling spaces (adding insult to injury, one could say).
But unlike the article's description of London, the Californian hipsters aren't underpaid, underemployed youth who aren't able to make it to affluence in a finance-dominated economy. They're those working in software, supposedly the most meaningful of professions in the area, for companies that "change the world." They're well-paid, even if it's not because of equity, as the last vestige of the middle class here (https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-make-so-much...)
So where are the similarities?
Thank you for that link. I've tried to explain that to several people in the past few years with little success. That page explains it very well though.
In terms of pay, most developer positions are comparable to what union tradesmen can make. It varies city to city, trade to trade, and developers in the states are not unionized so maybe they could make more if they were, but regardless they are still in the same neighborhood. Yet the popular perception is that a typical developer is making brain-surgeon money.
Can also be applied to Hip Hop and punk.
London problems could be fixed in four simple steps:
1) introduce 0.1% property tax
2) build a few decent schools
3) improve subway
4) deregulate high raise buildings
You don't get what the article is talking about, but you can turn around and say something as hard to interpret as that? Is this some kind of drugs reference, or are you saying people work hard, or they're always excited? What the hell is "flowing"?