Uppers and Downers [longish]
DaveVH
our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
I think he's identified something important. But my first thoughts are that
he doesn't seem to know what the working class is. They're people who work,
not people on benefits. And I think the contempt - which certainly exists -
is for the huge welfare class rather than workers who don't earn much.
Comments welcome.
==================================================
Uppers and downers
Ferdinand Mount believes a 'classless' delusion grips Britain. Not only is
the class divide wider than ever, but in a compelling new book he explores
how the rich are treating the poor with an unprecedented contempt
'Class doesn't count in Britain any more." I must have read the words, or
words very like them, dozens of times before. On lecture tours overseas I
myself have spouted something of the sort to audiences of innocent Germans
and amiable Americans, and they didn't utter a peep of protest, any more
than most of us do when we read such assertions in the newspapers. In fact,
it was only when one of these lectures was going to be reprinted and I was
correcting the proofs that I came across the sentence again and something
made me stop.
If pressed, I could still muster all the usual arguments supporting the
claim of Britain's growing classlessness: these days everyone wears blue
jeans, we are all on first-name terms, anyone can get to university or
become prime minister. But to make the claim at all suddenly seemed glib. It
tripped too quickly off the tongue, as though we wanted it to be true so
badly that we were prepared to cut any corners, as though behind it there
lay some sort of abiding embarrassment, possibly even a secret that we didn'
t want to confront.
My hesitation was not prompted by the obvious, continuing and perhaps
deepening economic inequalities in Britain. It was to do with something
else, with the sense that the worst-off in this country live impoverished
lives, more so than the worst-off on the Continent or in the United States.
They seem to me impoverished not simply in relation to the better-off in
Britain today but in relation to their own parents and grandparents. And the
upper classes are uncomfortably aware of it, which is why they show so
little respect and affection for the lower classes.
If that is true, then this becomes the most interesting and pressing social
question around. And if it is true also that the gap between the upper and
the lower classes has not been narrowing, as we fondly supposed, but
steadily and remorselessly widening, then we have been not so much labouring
as lounging under a gigantic delusion.
I am well aware that this is not what most of us believe. It is not what we
want to believe. It is counterintuitive and contrary to everything that we
have been told.
Besides, to reopen the whole question of class in Britain is to blunder into
a minefield. Most of us find the subject painful and embarrassing. The words
we have to choose from can sound patronising, crass or unkind - lower class,
lower middle class, working class, let alone bourgeois or petit bourgeois.
Even middle class is these days often used as a venomous synonym for smug,
unadventurous or selfish. And even if it is worth investigating what has
happened to the class system in general and the working classes in
particular, I may not look like the ideal candidate to undertake the task. I
was educated at expensive independent schools, I live in a very nice house
in a conservation area, I have a languid upper-class voice and a
semi-dormant baronetcy.
Worse than all of this is the fact that in the past I have worked for a
Conservative government, and not just any government but the administration
led by Margaret Thatcher, which its passionate opponents still believe did
more to deepen class divisions than any other government since the war. I
was, for a time, the head of her policy unit. How can someone like me
pretend to know what life was and is like for the worst-off of my fellow
countrymen? My answer is that it is People Like Us who are largely
responsible for the present state of the lower classes in Britain. It is our
misunderstandings, meddlings and manipulations that have transformed a
British working class that was the envy and amazement of foreign observers
in the 19th century into a so-called underclass that is often the subject of
baffled despair today, both at home and abroad. We did the damage, or most
of it. It is the least we can do to try to understand what we have done and
help to undo it where we can.
Yes, we no longer jeer at people for saying "pardon" instead of "sorry" or
"toilet" instead of "loo". We have stopped fretting over whether to address
the envelope to "Mr" or "Esquire". But discarding a few outmoded shibboleths
does not create a society that is at ease with itself and free of class
anxieties, frictions and divisions. It is hard to dodge the evidence that in
fact there is a new and perhaps more vicious class divide in Britain which
is hardening as we watch. As the Institute for Public Policy Research has
just reported, inequality of income has been steadily increasing not just
under Thatcher but ever since Tony Blair came to power.
And as for equality of opportunity, it is Blairites such as Stephen Byers,
Patricia Hewitt and Alan Milburn who are lamenting that, to quote Byers, "we
are now witnessing a silent and secret revolution where, to a greater extent
than ever before, those born into disadvantage and poverty will be condemned
to it for the rest of their lives".
Estelle Morris, confessing her failure as education secretary, openly
admitted that comprehensive education - so long cherished by progressive
thinkers as the engine for creating a classless society - had failed to
break the link between poverty and underachievement.
More than 40 years ago, the legendary British sociologist Michael Young, the
inventor of Which? magazine and much else, published a book called The Rise
of the Meritocracy. It was assumed by those who did not read the book that
it must be a celebration of the new meritocratic class. In fact it is a grim
satire on what happens to a society in which all the clever people get to
the top and all the stupid people are stuck at the bottom.
The lower classes in such a society are "bound to recognise that they have
an inferior status, not as in the past because they were denied opportunity,
but because they are inferior".
The date he chose for his bleak dystopia to come to fruition is 2003. But
long before Young, farsighted writers could discern the shape of things to
come. In the spring of 1895, H G Wells published his first novel, The Time
Machine. It is the first great modern dystopia, the heir of Plato's Republic
and Thomas More's Utopia and the immediate forerunner of Huxley's Brave New
World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
I remember how Wells's creations, the Elois and the Morlocks, made me
shudder as a schoolboy. They make me shudder still, more so if anything,
because on rereading the story I notice how explicitly Wells tells us that
these two races of the future have not arisen by accident. The Elois, the
children of light who play and dance and twitter all day, and the Morlocks,
the children of darkness who labour underground, are unmistakably descended
from us.
Let us try to describe the pretty people, the Elois, of our day and attempt
some sort of contrast with those people who are not so pretty and who are in
various different ways left out of the game, yet still have to perform all
the tasks that make the games possible - the dirty work, the heavy lifting -
the people the logical culmination of whose destiny Wells found in the
Morlocks.
To identify the particular aspect of these two tribes at the present stage
in the process, we need new names for them. I suggest we call them the
Uppers and the Downers.
The Uppers are up, upbeat, upwardly mobile, on the up, up for it. At every
stage in life they test positive and they expect to do so. They feel good
about themselves, and whenever they don't, they take action to put matters
right: they hire a personal trainer, they take a course in some new physical
or spiritual discipline, they pamper themselves with essential or
inessential oils, they move into a new relationship. They are above all
light on their feet. To be heavy in any respect is to be a loser. Mobility
is the essence of being modern. It is the key both to success and to
happiness.
Wealth and power are not the only things that count for the Uppers. One can
continue to be an Upper in good standing by downsizing and downshifting from
a house in Holland Park to a cottage in mid-Wales, from £200,000 a year in
the City to £10,000 a year as a carpenter or potter. But these downshifts do
not bring you any closer to full-time Downers because they are voluntary
moves that form a legitimate part of a self-chosen life project.
Even on this first meeting we notice striking differences between the Uppers
of today and members of the upper, upper-middle and middle classes as
traditionally understood and classified.
Certainly the bourgeoisie have always wanted to "make something of
themselves". You start at the bottom, you work hard and/or show conspicuous
daring or brilliance, and so you rise to wealth and honours and in due
course retirement to a house much more desirable than the house you were
born in.
But the more sophisticated Upper would not be content with that sort of
uncomplicated ascent. He or she will hope to explore his or her full
potential in every way, not only materially but also culturally, sexually
and spiritually. His or her notion of a full life encompasses, indeed
insists on, what I would call "maximum travel". Travel, first of all, in the
most literal sense to see as much of the world as possible, including and
especially its most remote and exotic cultures.
But "maximum travel" also has a more profound implication for Uppers. They
are under an obligation, too, to explore as many experiences as possible.
The more daring Uppers will embark on a voyage of sexual discovery without
claiming necessarily that it is in their nature to be unfaithful or gay or
bisexual or inclined to sadomasochism.
An Upper ought always to be on the lookout for a fresh challenge. Uppers who
turn down a move to a new company, a new town, a new job, are thought, again
in some not fully thought-out or openly expressed way, to have failed
themselves, to have not made the best of themselves, explored their
potential to the utmost.
Only in the past half-century, first in the United States and then more
recently in western Europe and the old "white Commonwealth", have prosperity
and security been so entrenched and widespread as to make the pursuit of an
interesting life available, not just to the artist and the aristocrat, but
also to the overwhelming majority of the upper and middle classes.
So far we have entered into this new world quite blithely. These new
freedoms are entrancing, these limitless possibilities seem so innocent. In
fact we now enjoy all four of Franklin Roosevelt's four essential freedoms:
freedom of speech, freedom to worship God as one pleases (or, more usually,
not to worship at all), freedom from want and, yes, freedom from fear. What
is there left to be afraid of? There is a simple answer to that question.
What the Uppers are afraid of is the Downers.
Just as Wells prophesied, the children of light are afraid of the tribes who
live in the dark.
It is the Downers who burgle Upper houses and hold the homeowners at
gunpoint. It is the Downers who abduct, rape and murder the children of the
middle class. It is the Downers who shamble through the streets at closing
time, noisy, foulmouthed and vomiting.
In reality many of these unpleasant fates are visited not on Uppers but on
other Downers. You are far more likely to get burgled in a poor area than in
a middle-class one. Less than 1% of households account for 42% of
burglaries, chief among them low-income and single-parent households. But
the Uppers neither know nor care about such things.
Nor is it possible to calm the Uppers' fears by producing statistics to
prove that the crime rate is actually going down. Improved security both in
homes and cars, the spread of alarms in particular, has produced a
substantial decline in the rate of burglaries over the past few years. Yet
the middle-class panic is as feverish as ever. The Downers are, after all,
still out there, brooding, feral, mysterious.
Mysterious especially, for the Uppers see so little of them these days. One
of the greatest changes of modern society has been the geographical
separation of the classes in Britain. The rise of council estates into huge
one-class ghettos and the bourgeoisie's flight to suburbia have introduced
an unintended social zoning into the cities.
Other occasions of contact between the classes - such as military service or
religious worship - happen only to a dedicated minority. It is possible for
a middle-class person to traverse the entire length of a blameless life
without seriously engaging with a member of the lower classes (although he
or she may well meet plenty of upward achievers from modest origins). In
some senses, the bottom class in England is more socially isolated than ever
before. The exceptional visitations from the middle classes in a therapeutic
role - as doctor or social worker or divorce lawyer - serve only to
emphasise that isolation.
It is impossible to remain entirely unaware of this separation which seems,
contrary to the hopes and predictions of the bien pensants, to be increasing
rather than diminishing. And you will often hear Uppers voice their anxiety
about the effects on the morale and temper of the Downers. In particular, it
is often said how demoralising it must be for Downers to see the "lavish
lifestyles" of Uppers depicted in full colour on television. Nothing, we are
told, could impress upon the Downers more forcefully the unfairness of
present social arrangements.
But the question that is seldom if ever raised is whether the Uppers are not
themselves more corrupted by what television tells them about the lives of
the Downers. For the consequences of social separation work both ways. It is
just as true of the Uppers that most of what they know about the home life
of the Downers comes from television as it is the other way round.
All day long the Downers may be largely invisible to the middle-class
residents of British villages and suburbs, except as cleaners and delivery
men or when briefly glimpsed at the supermarket checkout. But after dark the
Downers emerge from their obscurity to take dominant roles in the two
leading dramatic television genres: the police drama and the soap. Sometimes
indeed it seems as if television can offer nothing else.
We see moral and physical degradation shown with a lurid relish that Dickens
might have envied. The women are slags, either scrawny with straggly blonde
hair, or grotesquely fat and bulging out of their tracksuit bottoms. The
children are surly, whining, spoilt, wolfing down their junk food with no
concept of manners and not much grasp of their native language. The men in
the regulation get-up - T-shirt, earring, shaven head - are equally surly
and incoherent, callous and faithless to their women, sentimental about
their children but liable to forget to pick them up at school and prepared
to leave home and abandon them if they meet a bit of skirt in the pub.
The popular media once represented the lower classes as sturdy, indomitable,
responding to misfortune and hardship with a chirpy "mustn't grumble"
stoicism. Now the worst-off are shown as sour, whingeing and defeatist.
There is never any suggestion that the Downer men might be interested in
anything except sex, drink, cars and football. They are not given any
individual traits or tastes at all, no interest in such things as
Latin-American dancing or growing leeks, which would have been plausible
attributes in television fiction of an earlier generation. Downers are
represented not merely as degraded and low but also in some awful sense as
hollowed out, so that there is scarcely any human substance left in them.
Are people like that or is this some vile caricature invented by the media?
Well, these characters appear on our screens, night in and night out, and
nobody protests. Viewers do not jam the BBC switchboard to say that they
live in Cardiff or South Shields and that people in their neighbourhood
simply aren't like that. On the contrary, such pictures of bottom-class life
are taken for granted. Nobody claims that they are not realistic.
How do Uppers react to the spectacle of so much apparently intractable
misery? It is surely a sight for embarrassment and guilt, as well as terror.
Can it be possible for persons who are so very much alive, as Uppers believe
themselves to be, to remain indifferent and pretend to be unseeing? How do
Uppers appease these feelings of guilt and apprehension (I am not talking
here about the large number of less sensitive Uppers who seem to experience
no such feelings)? Well, one route, predominantly taken by younger Uppers,
is to ape their inferiors, to play Caliban in the mirror. Never have young
people of the middle classes been keener to imitate the clothing, accent and
manners of their lower-class peers. Only thus can you indicate your
solidarity with the underprivileged and demonstrate your indifference to the
privileges you are burdened with.
I wonder if the imitation is entirely insincere. The Uppers do, I think,
find something worthy of imitation in the Downers' way of life, even if they
can't or won't articulate very well what it is. What they seek in
working-class life is precisely what the Uppers don't have: namely, that
stuck, immobile, rooted substantiality. Working-class families seem somehow
more real, partly because there appears to be no escape from belonging to
them. They may be warm and spontaneous, or bad-tempered and foulmouthed, or
both. But they are not pretending. In their very lack of aspirations they
are genuine.
Older members of the Upper tribe who may feel themselves too old for
earrings and baseball caps often adopt a different tactic for dealing with
the embarrassing gap. They jump class. That is to say, they make the bold
leap of claiming to be members of the socioeconomic class that in fact they
no longer belong to or never did belong to.
In one opinion poll (Sunday Times, August 25, 2002), more than two-thirds of
British adults considered themselves to be "working class". A startling 55%
of those classified as belonging to the ABC1 social groups refused to admit
to their true place on the social scale. They preferred to claim that they
had resisted the charms of embourgeoisement and still stood shoulder to
shoulder with the fellow toilers from whom they or their parents had sprung.
Such downward mobility of the mind may be seen as an endearing moral
gesture, or by the less forgiving as humbug. But it remains only a gesture.
Even those Uppers who do go so far as to attempt to send their children to
the same schools as the Downers find themselves conveniently balked by the
geographical apartheid that has made it quite hard for the well-to-do to
send their children to a really bad comprehensive. Thus belonging in your
mind to the working classes does not entail living alongside them or indeed
having much contact with them.
There is something peculiar about the British attitude to class, some
contradiction or unease. On the one hand we say that class is a thing of the
past or rapidly becoming so. On the other hand the subject has not lost its
power to provoke and wound - and illuminate.
We tend to be especially resentful when the Americans or the French describe
Britain as uniquely class-divided. Don't they have their own class divisions
too? Don't the Americans talk quite casually about someone being "from the
wrong side of the tracks"? And don't Parisians talk about being "bien" or
"BCBG" in the most flagrantly class-conscious way? So they do, but the
difference precisely is that they say these things so flagrantly, without
shame or discomfort. Is there something different about the history or the
present reality of class in Britain that prevents us from being just as
blithe? Is there something that has gone wrong here and which so far we have
not discovered how to put right, or even to identify and define to our own
satisfaction?
Are the Downers in this country somehow worse off than people at the bottom
of the heap elsewhere? I believe that they are. The English working class
is, I think, uniquely disinherited, and the most important ways in which it
is disinherited are the more crippling because they are largely hidden from
us.
It is not too much to say that the lower classes in Britain between 1800 and
1940 created a remarkable civilisation of their own that it is hard to
parallel in human history: narrow-minded perhaps, prudish certainly,
occasionally pharisaical, but steadfast, industrious, honourable,
idealistic, peaceable and purposeful.
Yet, for most of us today the civilisation of the 19th-century working
classes - with their dissenting churches, welfare societies, independent
schools, self-improvement classes, high literacy rate and strong sense of
morality - is largely hidden from view, buried under the ideology of social
progress that has been drummed into us by schoolteachers, historians and
self-congratulatory politicians ever since. The conventional view now is of
an uneducated, largely illiterate proletariat sitting in moronic torpor
until the beginnings of state education.
Not the least remarkable fact about this whole episode in British history is
how the memory of it has been so successfully erased. Those who seek its
remains cannot help feeling like the prisoner in the story by the Czech
writer Bohumil Hrabal. He is released from jail at the end of the war, gets
drunk, then stumbles back to his home village, hoping to surprise his
mother, but can find no trace of it at all because the occupying forces have
erased the buildings and grassed the site over, seeking to remove all
evidence of the atrocities they have committed there.
I have visited the real-life site of the story, Lidice, a few miles outside
Prague. It is an eerie spot. Now and then I experience something of the same
uneasiness in revisiting the sites where the institutions of the lower
classes in England once flourished. Working men's institutes with their
windows smashed and graffiti on the walls, Baptist chapels turned into bingo
halls, furniture showrooms, a strip club, clubs for squash, boxing and
climbing and even into mosques.
It is, of course, grossly unfair to bracket the rewriting of British
lower-class history with the appalling deeds of the Nazis. Yet we do need
some sort of violent metaphor to bring home the length, ferocity and success
of the campaign. The fate of these central social and spiritual sites of the
lower classes demonstrates in the most visible and painful fashion that
society today sets little or no value on them and regards their disposal as
a matter of indifference.
This is no accident. The final closure of so many working-class institutions
is only the culmination of a long and bitter campaign to deride and eclipse
them - and to replace them by the hand of the state, a purposeful process
for which the lower orders were expected to be grateful.
Yet what are the people at the bottom left with? Their churches have been
derided and strangled, their schools and savings schemes have been taken
over by the state, they have been herded into mass housing (largely paid for
by the tax deducted from their own pay packets), and in return for modest
improvements in their real take-home pay they remain subject to the bleak
disciplines of capitalist enterprise. Their old loyalties to Queen and
country - and indeed to county, town and trade union - have been belittled.
We are often told that deference has disappeared from modern Britain. Yet
the adulation of the rich and famous is surely as fulsome as ever. The new
upper crust is fawned on as egregiously as old money in its Edwardian
heyday. All that has happened is that the composition of the upper class has
changed, as it has done roughly once a century since the Norman conquest.
What has almost disappeared is deference towards the lower classes.
Throughout the two world wars and the decades following both of them, the
lower classes were widely revered for their courage in battle and their
stoicism in peace. Values such as solidarity, thrift, cleanliness and
self-discipline were regularly identified as characteristic of them.
That is no longer the case. By a remarkable shift in public discourse, the
middle classes have come to regard most of these virtues as characteristic
of their own behaviour, indeed as largely confined to themselves.
So the ultimate deprivation that the English working class has suffered, in
fact the consequence of all the other deprivations, is the deprivation of
respect.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2766-1236734,00.html
William Black
"DaveVH" <da...@vhvhvh.com> wrote in message
news:cgte0m$v2p$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
treated
> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
The sight of an old Thatcherite regretting what he's done to the UK is an
unedifying sight.
That he can't tell the difference between the 'non aspirational, hand out
dependant, underclass' he was partly responsible for creating and the
working class people who are climbing with difficulty from the ghastly
Thatcherite pit he helped dig is terrifying.
--
William Black
------------------
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government
David Platt
DaveVH wrote:
> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once treated
> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
I've been saying it on here for years, glad to see that these no talent
bastards at the times are finally taking notice.
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once treated
>our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>
>I think he's identified something important. But my first thoughts are that
>he doesn't seem to know what the working class is. They're people who work,
>not people on benefits. And I think the contempt - which certainly exists -
>is for the huge welfare class rather than workers who don't earn much.
>Comments welcome.
Largely agree.
Much of the problem, and it is well evidenced on this newsgroup, is
that wildly incompetent people believe that they
1) Have useful opinions (as opposed to legitimate opinions)
2) Are entitled to [insert whatever you like]
>My hesitation was not prompted by the obvious, continuing and perhaps
>deepening economic inequalities in Britain. It was to do with something
>else, with the sense that the worst-off in this country live impoverished
>lives, more so than the worst-off on the Continent or in the United States.
>They seem to me impoverished not simply in relation to the better-off in
>Britain today but in relation to their own parents and grandparents. And the
>upper classes are uncomfortably aware of it, which is why they show so
>little respect and affection for the lower classes.
>
>If that is true, then this becomes the most interesting and pressing social
>question around. And if it is true also that the gap between the upper and
>the lower classes has not been narrowing, as we fondly supposed, but
>steadily and remorselessly widening, then we have been not so much labouring
>as lounging under a gigantic delusion.
I don't have enough social history to know if the trend is true, but
the anger of the Platt's and Paris's of this world suggest it is.
There is no doubt that the vast bulk of what I would call the
ill-educated classes - a mixture of unemployable and barely employed -
live squalid lives that are a menace to themselves and their
neighbours
Take for example, the following well established facts
Ill-educated people
1) Die earlier
2) Are less healthy for the years they are alive
3) Are more likely to be criminal
4) Are more likely to engage in wife/spouse beating
5) Are more likely to divorce
6) Bring up kids who are ill educated
7) Have more kids
8) Are subject to more ASBOs
9) Are more likely to smoke, and to pollute the world of better
educated folks
Take your pick from any social or economic indicator. This is the
fundamental argument from the Bell Curbe - ignore the racial stuff
(which whilst true is irrelevant)
>Yes, we no longer jeer at people for saying "pardon" instead of "sorry" or
>"toilet" instead of "loo". We have stopped fretting over whether to address
>the envelope to "Mr" or "Esquire". But discarding a few outmoded shibboleths
>does not create a society that is at ease with itself and free of class
>anxieties, frictions and divisions. It is hard to dodge the evidence that in
>fact there is a new and perhaps more vicious class divide in Britain which
>is hardening as we watch. As the Institute for Public Policy Research has
>just reported, inequality of income has been steadily increasing not just
>under Thatcher but ever since Tony Blair came to power.
This is, IMHO, a function of rate of change. During periods of rapid
change, the premium for education (largely as a proxy for
intelligence) rises.
>Estelle Morris, confessing her failure as education secretary, openly
>admitted that comprehensive education - so long cherished by progressive
>thinkers as the engine for creating a classless society - had failed to
>break the link between poverty and underachievement.
Agreed
>More than 40 years ago, the legendary British sociologist Michael Young, the
>inventor of Which? magazine and much else, published a book called The Rise
>of the Meritocracy. It was assumed by those who did not read the book that
>it must be a celebration of the new meritocratic class. In fact it is a grim
>satire on what happens to a society in which all the clever people get to
>the top and all the stupid people are stuck at the bottom.
>
>The lower classes in such a society are "bound to recognise that they have
>an inferior status, not as in the past because they were denied opportunity,
>but because they are inferior".
Agreed. What we have now IMO, is what is described in the Bell Curve.
A class of well-educated people who recognise that education matters,
marrying and interacting with each other, creating a social group that
runs nearly everything. And it's quite a small group in many ways -
perhaps 10,000 people in London plus half that number outside. It's a
total guess, but I am continually amazed about the frequency with
which people inside this group know each other from work, university,
or, rarely, school
>I remember how Wells's creations, the Elois and the Morlocks, made me
>shudder as a schoolboy. They make me shudder still, more so if anything,
>because on rereading the story I notice how explicitly Wells tells us that
>these two races of the future have not arisen by accident. The Elois, the
>children of light who play and dance and twitter all day, and the Morlocks,
>the children of darkness who labour underground, are unmistakably descended
>from us.
Agreed
>Let us try to describe the pretty people, the Elois, of our day and attempt
>some sort of contrast with those people who are not so pretty and who are in
>various different ways left out of the game, yet still have to perform all
>the tasks that make the games possible - the dirty work, the heavy lifting -
>the people the logical culmination of whose destiny Wells found in the
>Morlocks.
>
>To identify the particular aspect of these two tribes at the present stage
>in the process, we need new names for them. I suggest we call them the
>Uppers and the Downers.
>
>The Uppers are up, upbeat, upwardly mobile, on the up, up for it. At every
>stage in life they test positive and they expect to do so. They feel good
>about themselves, and whenever they don't, they take action to put matters
>right: they hire a personal trainer, they take a course in some new physical
>or spiritual discipline, they pamper themselves with essential or
>inessential oils, they move into a new relationship. They are above all
>light on their feet. To be heavy in any respect is to be a loser. Mobility
>is the essence of being modern. It is the key both to success and to
>happiness.
This is caricature. But one aspect is true; they are optimistic. They
can do because they actually do.
>Wealth and power are not the only things that count for the Uppers. One can
>continue to be an Upper in good standing by downsizing and downshifting from
>a house in Holland Park to a cottage in mid-Wales, from £200,000 a year in
>the City to £10,000 a year as a carpenter or potter. But these downshifts do
>not bring you any closer to full-time Downers because they are voluntary
>moves that form a legitimate part of a self-chosen life project.
Know the song 'Mile End' by Pulp? (I think?)
>Even on this first meeting we notice striking differences between the Uppers
>of today and members of the upper, upper-middle and middle classes as
>traditionally understood and classified.
Agreed. The old class labels are useless
>Certainly the bourgeoisie have always wanted to "make something of
>themselves". You start at the bottom, you work hard and/or show conspicuous
>daring or brilliance, and so you rise to wealth and honours and in due
>course retirement to a house much more desirable than the house you were
>born in.
>
>But the more sophisticated Upper would not be content with that sort of
>uncomplicated ascent. He or she will hope to explore his or her full
>potential in every way, not only materially but also culturally, sexually
>and spiritually. His or her notion of a full life encompasses, indeed
>insists on, what I would call "maximum travel". Travel, first of all, in the
>most literal sense to see as much of the world as possible, including and
>especially its most remote and exotic cultures.
>
>But "maximum travel" also has a more profound implication for Uppers. They
>are under an obligation, too, to explore as many experiences as possible.
>The more daring Uppers will embark on a voyage of sexual discovery without
>claiming necessarily that it is in their nature to be unfaithful or gay or
>bisexual or inclined to sadomasochism.
'More daring' - I doubt many are there
>An Upper ought always to be on the lookout for a fresh challenge. Uppers who
>turn down a move to a new company, a new town, a new job, are thought, again
>in some not fully thought-out or openly expressed way, to have failed
>themselves, to have not made the best of themselves, explored their
>potential to the utmost.
Arghh... this is dinner-time conversation. 'Uppers' have life
projects, meaning. The fulfillment of meaning matters. For some this
is experience, but not for most
>So far we have entered into this new world quite blithely. These new
>freedoms are entrancing, these limitless possibilities seem so innocent. In
>fact we now enjoy all four of Franklin Roosevelt's four essential freedoms:
>freedom of speech, freedom to worship God as one pleases (or, more usually,
>not to worship at all), freedom from want and, yes, freedom from fear. What
>is there left to be afraid of? There is a simple answer to that question.
>What the Uppers are afraid of is the Downers.
Perhaps, but this is Daily Mail nonsense. The Downers are the source
of misery for themselves, and those who are neither Up nor Down
>Just as Wells prophesied, the children of light are afraid of the tribes who
>live in the dark.
>
>It is the Downers who burgle Upper houses and hold the homeowners at
>gunpoint. It is the Downers who abduct, rape and murder the children of the
>middle class. It is the Downers who shamble through the streets at closing
>time, noisy, foulmouthed and vomiting.
Agreed
>In reality many of these unpleasant fates are visited not on Uppers but on
>other Downers.
As above, here our author is right on the money.
>You are far more likely to get burgled in a poor area than in
>a middle-class one. Less than 1% of households account for 42% of
>burglaries, chief among them low-income and single-parent households. But
>the Uppers neither know nor care about such things.
Agreed
>Nor is it possible to calm the Uppers' fears by producing statistics to
>prove that the crime rate is actually going down. Improved security both in
>homes and cars, the spread of alarms in particular, has produced a
>substantial decline in the rate of burglaries over the past few years. Yet
>the middle-class panic is as feverish as ever. The Downers are, after all,
>still out there, brooding, feral, mysterious.
>
>Mysterious especially, for the Uppers see so little of them these days. One
>of the greatest changes of modern society has been the geographical
>separation of the classes in Britain. The rise of council estates into huge
>one-class ghettos and the bourgeoisie's flight to suburbia have introduced
>an unintended social zoning into the cities.
Which is one of the remaining joys of London - that dire and desirable
are still so close.
>Other occasions of contact between the classes - such as military service or
>religious worship - happen only to a dedicated minority. It is possible for
>a middle-class person to traverse the entire length of a blameless life
>without seriously engaging with a member of the lower classes (although he
>or she may well meet plenty of upward achievers from modest origins).
Spot on
>In
>some senses, the bottom class in England is more socially isolated than ever
>before. The exceptional visitations from the middle classes in a therapeutic
>role - as doctor or social worker or divorce lawyer - serve only to
>emphasise that isolation.
Agreed. Who the fuck wants to get involved with these people? Even
remotely, i.e. on usenet, they are vile. Can you imagine meeting
Platt? Having a conversation with him? Or Chris X? Let alone 'M1ckey'
This does of course raise the huge problem of who educates this entire
class? A few organisations of idealists are working hard at this -
notably TeachFirst - but they are drops in a vast ocean of ignorance
>We see moral and physical degradation shown with a lurid relish that Dickens
>might have envied. The women are slags, either scrawny with straggly blonde
>hair, or grotesquely fat and bulging out of their tracksuit bottoms. The
>children are surly, whining, spoilt, wolfing down their junk food with no
>concept of manners and not much grasp of their native language. The men in
>the regulation get-up - T-shirt, earring, shaven head - are equally surly
>and incoherent, callous and faithless to their women, sentimental about
>their children but liable to forget to pick them up at school and prepared
>to leave home and abandon them if they meet a bit of skirt in the pub.
>
>The popular media once represented the lower classes as sturdy, indomitable,
>responding to misfortune and hardship with a chirpy "mustn't grumble"
>stoicism. Now the worst-off are shown as sour, whingeing and defeatist.
Worse. I despise the soaps my wife watches because the stupid people
are portrayed as stupid, emotionally incoherent. They lack even the
basics of the wisdom required to conduct a 'normal' (to my mind) life
and relationships. Yet this is not the reality of many Downers I have
known, who have borne the outrageous slings of misfortune with a
stoicism and fortitude I would be proud to display.
My concern is that this portrayal
1) Coaches downers into these ludicrously dysfunctional behaviours
2) Makes Downers even less attractive to interact with
>I wonder if the imitation is entirely insincere. The Uppers do, I think,
>find something worthy of imitation in the Downers' way of life, even if they
>can't or won't articulate very well what it is. What they seek in
>working-class life is precisely what the Uppers don't have: namely, that
>stuck, immobile, rooted substantiality. Working-class families seem somehow
>more real, partly because there appears to be no escape from belonging to
>them. They may be warm and spontaneous, or bad-tempered and foulmouthed, or
>both. But they are not pretending. In their very lack of aspirations they
>are genuine.
Arghhh. I doubt it. What adolescent Uppers see is consequence-free
idiocy. Something they grow out of as soon as they take on
responsibility
>We tend to be especially resentful when the Americans or the French describe
>Britain as uniquely class-divided. Don't they have their own class divisions
>too? Don't the Americans talk quite casually about someone being "from the
>wrong side of the tracks"? And don't Parisians talk about being "bien" or
>"BCBG" in the most flagrantly class-conscious way? So they do, but the
>difference precisely is that they say these things so flagrantly, without
>shame or discomfort. Is there something different about the history or the
>present reality of class in Britain that prevents us from being just as
>blithe? Is there something that has gone wrong here and which so far we have
>not discovered how to put right, or even to identify and define to our own
>satisfaction?
>
>Are the Downers in this country somehow worse off than people at the bottom
>of the heap elsewhere? I believe that they are.
They are - look at the data for the impact on educational standards of
being from a single-parent family - and the number of single parent
families here vs elsewhere.
>It is not too much to say that the lower classes in Britain between 1800 and
>1940 created a remarkable civilisation of their own that it is hard to
>parallel in human history: narrow-minded perhaps, prudish certainly,
>occasionally pharisaical, but steadfast, industrious, honourable,
>idealistic, peaceable and purposeful.
Hard to believe it today, but I take his word for it
Argghhh. Here the author is falling foul of his own unconscious
prejudices and guilt. This is not about 'society', but about the
ill-educated classes. The well-educated *never* cared for this stuff,
because they had other routes
>sets little or no value on them and regards their disposal as
>a matter of indifference.
Agreed
>This is no accident. The final closure of so many working-class institutions
>is only the culmination of a long and bitter campaign to deride and eclipse
>them - and to replace them by the hand of the state, a purposeful process
>for which the lower orders were expected to be grateful.
>
>Yet what are the people at the bottom left with? Their churches have been
>derided and strangled,
Their churches died because fundamentalism died and the
sophistication, some might say sophistry, of the CofE didn't make
sense to them.
>their schools and savings schemes have been taken
>over by the state, they have been herded into mass housing (largely paid for
>by the tax deducted from their own pay packets),
The author must realise that this is a grotesque misrepresentation.
Taxation does not come from these folks. Nonetheless, the
disempowering effect of the state is a valid point
>What has almost disappeared is deference towards the lower classes.
>Throughout the two world wars and the decades following both of them, the
>lower classes were widely revered for their courage in battle and their
>stoicism in peace. Values such as solidarity, thrift, cleanliness and
>self-discipline were regularly identified as characteristic of them.
>
>That is no longer the case. By a remarkable shift in public discourse, the
>middle classes have come to regard most of these virtues as characteristic
>of their own behaviour, indeed as largely confined to themselves.
>
>So the ultimate deprivation that the English working class has suffered, in
>fact the consequence of all the other deprivations, is the deprivation of
>respect.
Fair observation.
--
cheers
www.libraryofalex.com
Wherever book may be burned, men also, in the end, are burned
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
I think most people do treat you with contempt. Why do you think that
is?
Moral Conscience
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:43:00 -0700, David Platt <pl...@mail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>>In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once treated
>>>our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>>
>>
>>I've been saying it on here for years, glad to see that these no talent
>>bastards at the times are finally taking notice.
>
>
> I think most people do treat you with contempt. Why do you think that
> is?
If I was to answer that question it would mean many hours of just
writing one post :)
David Platt
You, Mathew Robb, and all the other phony PC multi culti bigots get far
more contempt from me, than you could imagine. You are scum.
David Platt
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
> Much of the problem, and it is well evidenced on this newsgroup, is
> that wildly incompetent people believe that they
>
> 1) Have useful opinions (as opposed to legitimate opinions)
> 2) Are entitled to [insert whatever you like]
YOu are the most ignorant and useless poster here, everything you write
is cut and pasted straight out of the economist, any moron could do
that, this particular article shows you up for what you are, and coming
from one of Thatcher';s inner circle, only hi-lites your out moded
philosophy for the utter failure it was.
No wonder you are all overt this thread, weazle's don't like the light
shined directly onto them, but it's great to watch you squirm.
Thur
> 1) Die earlier
> 2) Are less healthy for the years they are alive
> 3) Are more likely to be criminal
> 4) Are more likely to engage in wife/spouse beating
> 5) Are more likely to divorce
> 6) Bring up kids who are ill educated
> 7) Have more kids
> 8) Are subject to more ASBOs
> 9) Are more likely to smoke, and to pollute the world of better
> educated folks
define "Ill-educated people".
Perhaps you refer to a section of people (who knows how many)
who have the lowest educational achievements?
Even this is difficult. I think you mean the poorest people.
If you are poor you have fewer choices, lower morale and
are housed with people who are all in the same fix.
Being poor in a Capitalist society may mean you have fallen
into a cycle of bad luck, such as illness, where you have to
pay hospital fees. In spite of denials, I have read of several
types of situations where people drop down the financial scale
as a result.
Better education may not matter if you belong to a group that
is generally refused access to opportunity.
Take for examples, the Afro-Caribbean peoples, the disabled,
immigrants, people who follow paths in life not tailored to "win"
in the capitalist world.
Thur
<libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:9nl4j010mg8jv6nf4...@4ax.com...
Thur
> is for the huge welfare class rather than workers who don't earn much.
> Comments welcome.
I don't quite know what group of people you refer to, and what you
are getting at. Sounds to me like the unemployed, whose numbers are
not "huge".
Thur
"DaveVH" <da...@vhvhvh.com> wrote in message
news:cgte0m$v2p$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
Havirrion
> "DaveVH" <da...@vhvhvh.com> wrote in message
> news:cgte0m$v2p$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
>>In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
>
> treated
>
>>our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>
>
>
> The sight of an old Thatcherite regretting what he's done to the UK is an
> unedifying sight.
>
> That he can't tell the difference between the 'non aspirational, hand out
> dependant, underclass' he was partly responsible for creating and the
> working class people who are climbing with difficulty from the ghastly
> Thatcherite pit he helped dig is terrifying.
>
I think we are supposed to be impressed that it only took him 25 years
to reach this conclusion.
David Platt
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>
> Much of the problem, and it is well evidenced on this newsgroup, is
> that wildly incompetent people, such as myself believe that they
I treat you with contempt in just the same way as this article blows
your phony thatcherite dogma tight out of the water, you are all washed
up along with your unsound economics.
hippo
"DaveVH" wrote in message
> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
treated
> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
[.]
Where to begin? The article is muddy, imprecise, leaves out more than it
includes, and , not surprisingly, reaches an erroneous conclusion. It reeks,
too, of upper-class guilt looking for a painless way to assuage itself and
for that reason it is condescending.
First the writer doesn't define 'class', only laments that it has many
meanings. In the feudal sense of class-by-birth modern western society is
classless which makes it far more 'classless' than any society in history
since perhaps the Mesolithic when the social unit was too small to be
classed much beyond Og-who-finds-game is made chief. A meritocratic
structure is *not* rigid which means any child with ambition, energy,
brains, creativity, a little direction in youth, and hard work can make the
passage from the very bottom to the top with few impediments imposed on him
by the society.
The generalizations he makes about fears, disrespect by achievers for
non-achievers, and geographic separation and exclusivity have been ongoing
since recorded history and have nothing unique to do with modern society.
What *are* unique is that talent is being sought through all 'classes' and
now finally through all races and that an artificial social system is no
longer in place to protect the offspring of the plutocrats from their own
folly, or in other words instead of taking ten generations for an old
upper-class house to fall into obscurity by mismanagement, now it will only
take one or two which is until the inherited money is squandered. -the Troll
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>>> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
>>>>> treated
>>>>> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I've been saying it on here for years, glad to see that these no
>>>> talent bastards at the times are finally taking notice.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think most people do treat you with contempt. Why do you think that
>>> is?
>>
>>
>> If I was to answer that question it would mean many hours of just
>> writing one post :)
>
>You, Mathew Robb, and all the other phony PC multi culti bigots get far
>more contempt from me, than you could imagine. You are scum.
Proof that the answer, whatever it may be, will not come from you
DaveVH
Thur <a@nospam.z> wrote in message
news:n0wYc.199$H7...@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
> > And I think the contempt - which certainly exists -
> > is for the huge welfare class rather than workers who don't earn much.
> > Comments welcome.
> The huge welfare class?
> I don't quite know what group of people you refer to, and what you
> are getting at. Sounds to me like the unemployed, whose numbers are
> not "huge".
> Thur
I mean those receiving benefits.
"Benefit expenditure has risen eight-fold in real terms since 1949/50, and
by about quarter during the 1990s. Social security expenditure equates to 13
per cent of GDP and is predominantly funded through direct taxation...
About 6 million households - a little under a fifth - receive Income
Support, the principal means-tested benefit."
See http://www.treasury.govt.nz/workingpapers/2000/00-23.asp
Those figures are correct up to 1999.
The key figures *have* dropped since then - in 2001, 17% of households were
receiving Income Support or Family Credit. But I'd say 17% is still a huge
number.
See http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Expodata/Spreadsheets/D7755.xls
Chris X
<libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:l4o5j09v0hnd774pa...@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 17:56:40 -0700, David Platt <pl...@mail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>>>>> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
>>>>>> treated
>>>>>> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been saying it on here for years, glad to see that these no
>>>>> talent bastards at the times are finally taking notice.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think most people do treat you with contempt. Why do you think that
>>>> is?
>>>
>>>
>>> If I was to answer that question it would mean many hours of just
>>> writing one post :)
>>
>>You, Mathew Robb, and all the other phony PC multi culti bigots get far
>>more contempt from me, than you could imagine. You are scum.
>
> Proof that the answer, whatever it may be, will not come from you
You neo-cons have never given a damn about the people. All that matters to
you is cheerleading for Moronica and "Israel" and making sure your mates in
big business have a plentiful supply of dirt cheap, dumbed-down labour.
Unfortunately for you, your reign is coming to an end.
David Platt
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>>You, Mathew Robb, and all the other phony PC multi culti bigots get far
>>more contempt from me, than you could imagine. You are scum.
>
>
> Proof that the answer, whatever it may be, will not come from you
Proof that you have nothing whatever to say.
Keep squirming.
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
More contentless rubbish. The wail of the impotent
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
It is a pity you can not see how pointless your comments are
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>> Ill-educated people
>> 1) Die earlier
>> 2) Are less healthy for the years they are alive
>> 3) Are more likely to be criminal
>> 4) Are more likely to engage in wife/spouse beating
>> 5) Are more likely to divorce
>> 6) Bring up kids who are ill educated
>> 7) Have more kids
>> 8) Are subject to more ASBOs
>> 9) Are more likely to smoke, and to pollute the world of better
>> educated folks
>
>define "Ill-educated people".
>Perhaps you refer to a section of people (who knows how many)
>who have the lowest educational achievements?
Seems the most sensible definition
>Even this is difficult. I think you mean the poorest people.
No. I mean ill-educated. I mean the 25-30% of the adult population who
are incapable of performing the basic acts of self-maintenance. I mean
the same sorts of numbers who are unable to construct a world view and
who lack the wisdom to know that they can't.
I found Kegan's "The mental demands of modern life" very useful.
>If you are poor you have fewer choices, lower morale and
>are housed with people who are all in the same fix.
Agreed
>Being poor in a Capitalist society may mean you have fallen
>into a cycle of bad luck, such as illness, where you have to
>pay hospital fees. In spite of denials, I have read of several
>types of situations where people drop down the financial scale
>as a result.
I don't doubt it for a moment. But you are talking in the main about
statistical exceptions.
>Better education may not matter if you belong to a group that
>is generally refused access to opportunity.
>Take for examples, the Afro-Caribbean peoples, the disabled,
>immigrants, people who follow paths in life not tailored to "win"
>in the capitalist world.
All this is true. But these minorities are not the focus of this
discussion. Nor are they the bulk of the ill-educated.
Nor, to be clear, is there any 'criticism' implied in my post. Merely
a description of reality. It is no more attractive to hold a whole
class in contempt than it is to act in such a contemptible way. Both
Uppers and Downers have work to do on themselves
DaveVH
hippo <hi...@southsudan.net> wrote in message
news:ntednR7TwMz...@giganews.com...
>
> "DaveVH" wrote in message
>
> > In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
> treated
> > our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>
> [.]
>
> Where to begin? The article is muddy, imprecise, leaves out more than it
> includes, and , not surprisingly, reaches an erroneous conclusion. It
reeks,
> too, of upper-class guilt looking for a painless way to assuage itself and
> for that reason it is condescending.
>
> First the writer doesn't define 'class', only laments that it has many
> meanings.
I'd agree with that. But in his defence he's trying to pin down categories
of people that we don't have a fixed definition for - he's dividing them by
attitude and behaviour more than income. Having said that, his feral people
are likely to fall into a certain income bracket, and we all know which one
that would be.
> In the feudal sense of class-by-birth modern western society is
> classless which makes it far more 'classless' than any society in history
> since perhaps the Mesolithic when the social unit was too small to be
> classed much beyond Og-who-finds-game is made chief. A meritocratic
> structure is *not* rigid which means any child with ambition, energy,
> brains, creativity, a little direction in youth, and hard work can make
the
> passage from the very bottom to the top with few impediments imposed on
him
> by the society.
A lot of people would disagree. Personally, I haven't made my mind up.
There's evidence that people aren't rising through the classes. By your
analysis, this means they lack ambition, energy, brains, creativity, etc.
Is this true? I dunno, but I see a lot of things cancelling out the
incentives to get ahead at the most important time in someone's life - an
education by which kids are kept ignorant of their possibilities and aren't
given the basic tools to land jobs with prospects, peer pressure which
derides peoples' efforts to progress, the negative incentive of benefits,
crappy diet and lack of encouragement by parents to live a reasonably
disciplined life, and so on.
Sure, there are people with the gumption to rise above all this, but we're
talking about the majority of people with average ambition and energy here.
Personally, I don't care about or have any particular fellow-feeling towards
these people as a category. But enlightened self-interest tells me I'm
better off living in a society without permanent and cyclical divisions.
>
> The generalizations he makes about fears, disrespect by achievers for
> non-achievers, and geographic separation and exclusivity have been ongoing
> since recorded history and have nothing unique to do with modern society.
Yes, I think you're right. This would mean that Mount has a rose-tinted
view of our solid *good* working class.
DaveVH
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
<Chr...@postmaster.co.uk> wrote:
>>>You, Mathew Robb, and all the other phony PC multi culti bigots get far
>>>more contempt from me, than you could imagine. You are scum.
>>
>> Proof that the answer, whatever it may be, will not come from you
>
>You neo-cons have never given a damn about the people.
[Sigh] Why do you think I am a neo-con?
>All that matters to you is cheerleading for Moronica and "Israel"
News to me that I am a supporter of Israel...
>and making sure your mates in
>big business have a plentiful supply of dirt cheap, dumbed-down labour.
The last thing I want is dumb labour.
>Unfortunately for you, your reign is coming to an end.
Yeah, right. The BNP will soon govern...
Borderline Genius
news:cgte0m$v2p$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk:
> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
> treated our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>
> I think he's identified something important. But my first thoughts
> are that he doesn't seem to know what the working class is. They're
> people who work, not people on benefits. And I think the contempt -
> which certainly exists - is for the huge welfare class rather than
> workers who don't earn much. Comments welcome.
I read it yesterday. Interesting article, but he should really be more
precise about his targets. The people who would probably evolve into
'Morlocks' are the never-employed underclass. Indeed, they have gone some
way into becoming Morlock-like creatures.
> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2766-1236734,00.html
--
Borderline Genius
http://www.universityofnigeria.com/
Borderline Genius
news:21u5j0dec1hhjbie1...@4ax.com:
> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 09:20:25 +0100, "Chris X"
> <Chr...@postmaster.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>>>You, Mathew Robb, and all the other phony PC multi culti bigots get
far
>>>>more contempt from me, than you could imagine. You are scum.
>>>
>>> Proof that the answer, whatever it may be, will not come from you
>>
>>You neo-cons have never given a damn about the people.
>
> [Sigh] Why do you think I am a neo-con?
>
>>All that matters to you is cheerleading for Moronica and "Israel"
>
> News to me that I am a supporter of Israel...
If you disagreed with Chav X over the price of butter, he'd say you were
a supporter of Israel.
M. J. Powell
<hi...@southsudan.net> writes
>
snip
>
>What *are* unique is that talent is being sought through all 'classes' and
>now finally through all races and that an artificial social system is no
>longer in place to protect the offspring of the plutocrats from their own
>folly, or in other words instead of taking ten generations for an old
>upper-class house to fall into obscurity by mismanagement, now it will only
>take one or two which is until the inherited money is squandered. -the Troll
Ten? Have you not heard of 'Clogs to clogs in three generations'?
In my youth - the late 40's and the 50's - the local technical colleges
were offering courses in carpentry, welding, metal work, plumbing,
domestic electrical work, brick laying etc. They were attended by
apprentices on 'day-release' from their employers. There were also
evening classes in the same subjects for those who couldn't attend by
day.
Now, my local 'College of Further Education' sends everyone a booklet
once a year detailing the classes available:- Pottery, tango dancing
(advanced), embroidery, dress-making, remedial classes for those who
failed their 'O' levels, etc. And something called IT, which is
apparently on how to use the various WP programmes.
Why not the old subjects? 'Lack of demand'.
The old 'Workers Institutes; have closed for the same reason.
Mike
John Cartmell
Please let me know if you find *any* of the last. AFAIK they all train you
how to use one specific foreign word processor. Any that show you how to
use *various* WP programs would be revolutionary.
> Why not the old subjects? 'Lack of demand'.
> The old 'Workers Institutes; have closed for the same reason.
--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527
Qercus magazine & FD Games www.finnybank.com www.acornuser.com
Qercus - a fusion of Acorn Publisher & Acorn User magazines
Thur
There will always be those who have less academic
achievement.
"ill educated" sounded to me like a subjective description.
Our world, in spite of the ever increasing visual content
in information, is text based. If reading is a difficulty, or
a chore, then access to information is going to be poor.
Worse still, their children are deprived of a culture of
reading which is at the basis of why schools for these
families have so little success.
Therefore measures of education which define levels
which are socially handicapping, might well be grouped
into a phrase such as "ill educated".
In a future world where all people who can are educated
above these levels, but where there are still layers of education,
there might well be a social improvement, where there is
the required evenness of opportunity, a better level of
understanding of society, and much better access to
information.
Today, people rely upon newspaper and tv news reports
to inform them, and the poorer educated you are, then
there is a newspaper for you, with larger print, bigger pictures,
and less words.
Much of the "news" in these newspapers is designed
to manipulate their readers' thoughts, entertain, titillate, feed the basest
desires, promote hypocrisy, and has very little to do with
engaging the mind in the questions of life and of the affairs
of the day, and are deliberately biased in the selection of
news to one political agenda or another.
Radio and tv media are better but still like newspapers,
never providing their viewers or listeners with questions, but
seeking always to feed them with their own selection of answers.
No wonder people at the bottom of the educational ladder
are so badly informed, this being all they have to work with.
There was a time when libraries were thought of as the key
to "escaping" from one's working class prison.
Too bad that our culture seems to be moving away from reading.
Our libraries are poorly attended, books on the shelves are fewer,
and educational establishments and business are forever
complaining about standards of spelling, grammar, and general
language skills.
On the brighter side, I note that something is happening in schools,
where ever better standards in examination marks are causing problems
for Universities who have to select from them.
I hope that this rise in expectations and achievements is broadly spread,
so that our lowest standards are rising, too.
Thur
<libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:08o5j0tqfqsgrerod...@4ax.com...
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>Education like wealth is never evenly distributed.
>There will always be those who have less academic
>achievement.
Agreed
>"ill educated" sounded to me like a subjective description.
Not really. Though there are endless definitions of good and bad
education, in general it's pretty clear who is an who is not well
educated
>Our world, in spite of the ever increasing visual content
>in information, is text based. If reading is a difficulty, or
>a chore, then access to information is going to be poor.
Agreed
>Worse still, their children are deprived of a culture of
>reading which is at the basis of why schools for these
>families have so little success.
Agreed - at least this is one part of it
>Therefore measures of education which define levels
>which are socially handicapping, might well be grouped
>into a phrase such as "ill educated".
Think I can see what you mean here
>In a future world where all people who can are educated
>above these levels, but where there are still layers of education,
>there might well be a social improvement, where there is
>the required evenness of opportunity, a better level of
>understanding of society, and much better access to
>information.
This isn't easy to understand. You need fewer clauses per sentence for
me to parse it correctly - or use semi colons
>Today, people rely upon newspaper and tv news reports
>to inform them, and the poorer educated you are, then
>there is a newspaper for you, with larger print, bigger pictures,
>and less words.
>Much of the "news" in these newspapers is designed
>to manipulate their readers' thoughts, entertain, titillate, feed the basest
>desires, promote hypocrisy, and has very little to do with
>engaging the mind in the questions of life and of the affairs
>of the day, and are deliberately biased in the selection of
>news to one political agenda or another.
Agreed
>Radio and tv media are better but still like newspapers,
>never providing their viewers or listeners with questions, but
>seeking always to feed them with their own selection of answers.
>
>No wonder people at the bottom of the educational ladder
>are so badly informed, this being all they have to work with.
You are looking very late in life. Most people's educational fate is
determined by age 5
>There was a time when libraries were thought of as the key
>to "escaping" from one's working class prison.
>Too bad that our culture seems to be moving away from reading.
>Our libraries are poorly attended, books on the shelves are fewer,
>and educational establishments and business are forever
>complaining about standards of spelling, grammar, and general
>language skills.
Agreed
>On the brighter side, I note that something is happening in schools,
>where ever better standards in examination marks are causing problems
>for Universities who have to select from them.
>I hope that this rise in expectations and achievements is broadly spread,
>so that our lowest standards are rising, too.
There is generally good news coming from the teaching world, though
the low level of basic skills is stills a problem
M. J. Powell
<jo...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> writes
>> snip
>> >
>> Ten? Have you not heard of 'Clogs to clogs in three generations'?
>
>> In my youth - the late 40's and the 50's - the local technical colleges
>> were offering courses in carpentry, welding, metal work, plumbing,
>> domestic electrical work, brick laying etc. They were attended by
>> apprentices on 'day-release' from their employers. There were also
>> evening classes in the same subjects for those who couldn't attend by
>> day.
>
>> Now, my local 'College of Further Education' sends everyone a booklet
>> once a year detailing the classes available:- Pottery, tango dancing
>> (advanced), embroidery, dress-making, remedial classes for those who
>> failed their 'O' levels, etc. And something called IT, which is
>> apparently on how to use the various WP programmes.
>
>Please let me know if you find *any* of the last. AFAIK they all train you
>how to use one specific foreign word processor. Any that show you how to
>use *various* WP programs would be revolutionary.
Right! I will.
Mike
William Black
"M. J. Powell" <mi...@DeLeTe.pickmere.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:lFte6EGi...@pickmere.demon.co.uk...
> In my youth - the late 40's and the 50's - the local technical colleges
> were offering courses in carpentry, welding, metal work, plumbing,
> domestic electrical work, brick laying etc. They were attended by
> apprentices on 'day-release' from their employers. There were also
> evening classes in the same subjects for those who couldn't attend by
> day.
I think you'll find that most of these trade courses are still available,
but under new names.
They're also buried deep in the prospectus because they really only want
people working in the various jobs and paid for by their employers to turn
up. A keen DIY'er who does a course in 'real' electrical engineering is
asking for a lot of wasted time, and could become a lethal, but qualified,
menace.
What were the GCLI 'day release' courses that I did have evolved into BTEC
courses with posh names (Building technology, electrical engineering,
fabrication and welding technology, CORGI technician and etc) The course
content is very similar except there's now a huge safety element.
However the kids that finish the courses seem a sight more switched on to
the various technologies than I was when I finished my apprenticeship almost
thirty years ago.
--
William Black
------------------
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government
David Platt
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 17:59:27 -0700, David Platt <pl...@mail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>>Much of the problem, and it is well evidenced on this newsgroup, is
>>>that wildly incompetent people believe that they
>>>
>>>1) Have useful opinions (as opposed to legitimate opinions)
>>>2) Are entitled to [insert whatever you like]
>>
>>
>>YOu are the most ignorant and useless poster here, everything you write
>>is cut and pasted straight out of the economist, any moron could do
>>that, this particular article shows you up for what you are, and coming
>
>>from one of Thatcher';s inner circle, only hi-lites your out moded
>
>>philosophy for the utter failure it was.
>>
>>No wonder you are all overt this thread, weazle's don't like the light
>>shined directly onto them, but it's great to watch you squirm.
>
>
> More contentless rubbish. The wail of the impotent
Says a 'man' who tags a single contentless line onto a content filled
post. Glutton for punishment? Or simply not very clever?
David Platt
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
> It is a pity you can not see how pointless your comments are
Remind me, which one of the nazi war criminals said that again?
hippo
"DaveVH" wrote in message
> hippo wrote in message
> > "DaveVH" wrote in message
> > > In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
> > treated
> > > our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
> >
> > [.]
> >
> > Where to begin? The article is muddy, imprecise, leaves out more than it
> > includes, and , not surprisingly, reaches an erroneous conclusion. It
> reeks,
> > too, of upper-class guilt looking for a painless way to assuage itself
and
> > for that reason it is condescending.
> >
> > First the writer doesn't define 'class', only laments that it has many
> > meanings.
>
> I'd agree with that. But in his defence he's trying to pin down
categories
> of people that we don't have a fixed definition for - he's dividing them
by
> attitude and behaviour more than income. Having said that, his feral
people
> are likely to fall into a certain income bracket, and we all know which
one
> that would be.
We do but any argument must first be fixed by parameters which Mount does
not do here which leaves his argument open ended and open to interpretation
to order.
> > In the feudal sense of class-by-birth modern western society is
> > classless which makes it far more 'classless' than any society in
history
> > since perhaps the Mesolithic when the social unit was too small to be
> > classed much beyond Og-who-finds-game is made chief. A meritocratic
> > structure is *not* rigid which means any child with ambition, energy,
> > brains, creativity, a little direction in youth, and hard work can make
> the
> > passage from the very bottom to the top with few impediments imposed on
> him
> > by the society.
>
> A lot of people would disagree. Personally, I haven't made my mind up.
> There's evidence that people aren't rising through the classes. By your
> analysis, this means they lack ambition, energy, brains, creativity, etc.
> Is this true?
Any failings in these are not personal decisions and therefore beyond
criticism to my mind. The idea is there are no longer *artificial* barriers
to true capability, or put another way, the best can get to the top, the
less capable falling somewhere in between into a place commensurate with
their capabilities. My lawyer, and driving force in the fastest growing firm
in the area, is the son of a sharecropper and off-season door-to-door
cooking pot salesman. His firm is inexorably putting down the 'old' firms
where sons follow fathers as a sinecure with nothing to do with merit
playing a part. It is a good system that prevents talented artists from
having to mine coal in the Urals and geniuses from having to deal with their
frustration with nightly quarts of vodka. It also has the social advantage
of keeping the gifted from becoming social malcontents and leading social
revolutions, much to the dismay of the social revolutionaries.
I dunno, but I see a lot of things cancelling out the
> incentives to get ahead at the most important time in someone's life - an
> education by which kids are kept ignorant of their possibilities and
aren't
> given the basic tools to land jobs with prospects, peer pressure which
> derides peoples' efforts to progress, the negative incentive of benefits,
> crappy diet and lack of encouragement by parents to live a reasonably
> disciplined life, and so on.
>
> Sure, there are people with the gumption to rise above all this, but we're
> talking about the majority of people with average ambition and energy
here.
>
> Personally, I don't care about or have any particular fellow-feeling
towards
> these people as a category. But enlightened self-interest tells me I'm
> better off living in a society without permanent and cyclical divisions.
You bet. -the Troll
hippo
"M. J. Powell" wrote in message
> In message hippo
There isn't the sense of trained professionals these days. Most training is
now on the job which means it is no longer translatable from one area to
another in the old journeyman in the crafts guilds sense. Engraving, for
example, is no longer done by hand. The old hand engravers have mostly died
with no-one to take their place. -the Troll
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>> It is a pity you can not see how pointless your comments are
>
>Remind me, which one of the nazi war criminals said that again?
You're the expert...
David Platt
The content being a synopsis of your usenet career.
David Platt
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:41:49 -0700, David Platt <pl...@mail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>>It is a pity you can not see how pointless your comments are
>>
>>Remind me, which one of the nazi war criminals said that again?
>
>
> You're the expert...
Actually you are.
You are far too stupid to see the parallels however.
Havirrion
This is because craftsmen and women do not fit into the new Labour model
of British success, it just isn't trendy enough. Now young people get a
business studies degree and 'manage' the local chippy.
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>>>No wonder you are all overt this thread, weazle's don't like the light
>>>>>shined directly onto them, but it's great to watch you squirm.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>More contentless rubbish. The wail of the impotent
>>>
>>>
>>>Says a 'man' who tags a single contentless line onto a content filled
>>>post. Glutton for punishment? Or simply not very clever?
>>
>>
>> The content being?
>
>
>The content being a synopsis of your usenet career.
Oh. And does my usenet biographer know how long I've been posting?
a.spencer3
My traditional printer/father seriously thought that all my aims in life
could be met by training and joining the elite of his trade -
compositors!!!!!!!!!
Surreyman
a.spencer3
"Havirrion" <havi...@NOblueDAMNyonderSPAM.co.uk> wrote in message
news:a5UYc.2135$EK6.24...@news-text.cableinet.net...
And my still out-of-work microbiology PhD son is currently not doing badly
in the interim trading on Ebay in computer parts!
Surreyman
Joe Hutcheon
news:cgte0m$v2p$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once
treated
> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
I think Mount is talking rubbish, in that he dons the rosy-coloured specs
and looks back to a non-existent past when the working class was regarded
with 'respect'. For most of history, it has been regarded with suspicion by
the ruling class, and with fear and loathing by the middle class. There
may have been some 'feudal' fondness between the aristocracy and the rural
peasantry, but that never extended to the urban proletariat.
M. J. Powell
<havi...@NOblueDAMNyonderSPAM.co.uk> writes
I think 'media studies' is the favourite.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
M. J. Powell
<a.spe...@ntlworld.com> writes
>
snip
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>The old 'Workers Institutes; have closed for the same reason.
>> >
>> >
>> > There isn't the sense of trained professionals these days. Most training
>is
>> > now on the job which means it is no longer translatable from one area to
>> > another in the old journeyman in the crafts guilds sense. Engraving, for
>> > example, is no longer done by hand. The old hand engravers have mostly
>died
>> > with no-one to take their place. -the Troll
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> This is because craftsmen and women do not fit into the new Labour model
>> of British success, it just isn't trendy enough. Now young people get a
>> business studies degree and 'manage' the local chippy.
>
>And my still out-of-work microbiology PhD son is currently not doing badly
>in the interim trading on Ebay in computer parts!
Does he read 'New Scientist'? There are usually loads of jobs in such
fields at the back.
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
a.spencer3
a.spencer3
"M. J. Powell" <mi...@DeLeTe.pickmere.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:RhpTzVC3...@pickmere.demon.co.uk...
Yeh, thanks for the thought, but he's caning all those, plus the internet,
plus the specialist agencies, etc., etc.
It's just that he's a mite specialist and, without staying in academia (he
could get a uni post-Doc position tomorrow), wants to stay broadly within
his field rather than manage a chippy - an almost unheard of wish,
apparently!
Surreyman
hippo
"a.spencer3" wrote in message
> "hippo" wrote in message
snip
> > There isn't the sense of trained professionals these days. Most training
> is
> > now on the job which means it is no longer translatable from one area to
> > another in the old journeyman in the crafts guilds sense. Engraving, for
> > example, is no longer done by hand. The old hand engravers have mostly
> died
> > with no-one to take their place. -the Troll
> >
> >
> I should be pleased!
> My traditional printer/father seriously thought that all my aims in life
> could be met by training and joining the elite of his trade -
> compositors!!!!!!!!!
You'd have been in trouble except for crafts but the few skilled hand
engravers remaining can demand fortunes doing fine firearms (20,000 on one
shotgun alone) and silver. -the Troll
a.spencer3
Now you tell me.
Surreyman
hippo
"a.spencer3" wrote in message
> "M. J. Powell" wrote in message
> > snip
> Yeh, thanks for the thought, but he's caning all those, plus the internet,
> plus the specialist agencies, etc., etc.
> It's just that he's a mite specialist and, without staying in academia (he
> could get a uni post-Doc position tomorrow), wants to stay broadly within
> his field rather than manage a chippy - an almost unheard of wish,
> apparently!
Make sure he has posted his resume to monster.com. and remembered to put in
all the possible keywords (including the ones in American English). The
specialty job market is international. -the Troll
David Platt
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:53:06 -0700, David Platt <pl...@mail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>>>>>No wonder you are all overt this thread, weazle's don't like the light
>>>>>>shined directly onto them, but it's great to watch you squirm.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>More contentless rubbish. The wail of the impotent
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Says a 'man' who tags a single contentless line onto a content filled
>>>>post. Glutton for punishment? Or simply not very clever?
>>>
>>>
>>>The content being?
>>
>>
>>The content being a synopsis of your usenet career.
>
>
> Oh. And does my usenet biographer know how long I've been posting?
Too long.
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
>On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:43:00 -0700, David Platt <pl...@mail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once treated
>>> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>>
>>
>>I've been saying it on here for years, glad to see that these no talent
>>bastards at the times are finally taking notice.
>
>I think most people do treat you with contempt. Why do you think that
>is?
i've only just found time to catch up with this....
i read the article quickly...and i see the ludicrous...but oh so
stereotypical response of the pratt.....
i have worked much with such people and i think mount doesn't
have the first idea....he misses the absolute essential core....
the pratts of this world make a fetish and defensive 'pride' out of
being thik....
they actually *like* it...
the posture absolves them from any responsibility or need to work
or think.....
it is quite wrong to see them as underprivileged....
there are clear and available routes out of their problems....
some few take those routes....but it is very rare for the underlying
self-indulgent resentment ever to change.....
the ignorant resentment is who they are...
it is even who they want to be.....
the problem with the middle classes and the mount's is they try to
project....they can never ever face the reality that the pratts
freely *choose* to be pratts....
the pratts resent (there central cultural position) being told there is
escape...*because* they regard that as 'patronising'...it means they'd
have to work
the real response of the pratts is...'how dare they tell me there is a way
out'...then sub vocally and unconsciously...'this is my chosen
life...how dare others suggest their ways are better'!
that is the very heart of the problem...pratts want to be pratts...
you are supposed to 'respect them for being pratts!!
after all...their 'teachers' told them everyone is 'equal'...that
everyone's 'opinions were 'valid'...
these people are what society made them...and they are too sheep
like to escape or even want to escape.....
after all....irresponsibility and make work is a 'nice' lazy lifestyle....
they can laze around while others provide their cheap cars or even their
dole....
it is a life of ease in fact....
shaw captures it well enuf in pygmalion.....and even that is sugar covered
starring hepburn and harrison!
in a sense the workers and even the would be upper classes have a sneaking
resentment for the empty headed lotus eaters like pratt.....
mount's shallow!!
regards...
--
web site at www.abelard.org - news and comment service, logic,
energy, education, politics, etc >850,000 document calls yearly
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
all that is necessary for [] walk quietly and carry
the triumph of evil is that [] a big stick.
good people do nothing [] trust actions not words
only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once treated
>>>> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>>>
>>>
>>>I've been saying it on here for years, glad to see that these no talent
>>>bastards at the times are finally taking notice.
>>
>>I think most people do treat you with contempt. Why do you think that
>>is?
>
>i've only just found time to catch up with this....
>i read the article quickly...and i see the ludicrous...but oh so
> stereotypical response of the pratt.....
>
>i have worked much with such people and i think mount doesn't
> have the first idea....he misses the absolute essential core....
>the pratts of this world make a fetish and defensive 'pride' out of
> being thik....
>they actually *like* it...
>the posture absolves them from any responsibility or need to work
> or think.....
Perhaps then the Mount solutions - effectively forcing responsibility
onto the feckless - would work anyway?
DaveVH
abelard <abel...@abelard.org> wrote in message
news:al0qj011frrol4lva...@4ax.com...
The basis for New Labour's reform of the welfare state is an acknowledgement
of the fact that some pratts choose to be pratts and need a kick (or their
benefits taken away) before they'll actually do anything. That's a start at
attempting to face reality by the middle classes.
> the pratts resent (there central cultural position) being told there is
> escape...*because* they regard that as 'patronising'...it means they'd
> have to work
This may be true. But although Library's talking about the Pratts here, I
don't see anything in the article to suggest that Mount's talking *only*
about them. A major part of the problem with the article is that Mount
doesn't define what he means by working class - looking at the issues he
raised I suggested he might mean the Welfare Class (the people who are
weaned and dependent on welfare, and who can't conceive of any other way of
life). But on reflection, his argument is that there are fewer
opportunities for the working class, so he must also be talking about people
who *do* want to get ahead - not just the people who've chosen to be pratts.
>
> the real response of the pratts is...'how dare they tell me there is a way
> out'...then sub vocally and unconsciously...'this is my chosen
> life...how dare others suggest their ways are better'!
>
> that is the very heart of the problem...
> pratts want to be pratts...
Again, it's only the heart of the problem if you limit the debate to the
category of people you've chosen to limit it to. Mount says there are
people among the Downers who'd benefit from greater opportunity - people who
*don't* want to be pratts.
The heart of the problem is something Mount touches on, briefly: The
creation of opportunity. The middle classes have more opportunities than
the lower classes - they can afford to move home in order to send their kids
to a nicer school, they rush around ferrying them from ballet school to
horse-riding, they have internet connections, houses in Italy, and a lot of
books. How is a pratt who doesn't want to be a pratt (whether an adult or a
juvenile pratt) to learn about the possibilities the world offers if all
these lovely things are out of reach?
You say elsewhere "there are clear and available routes out of their
problems". This is true. It's also true that an abelard has a clear and
available opportunity to become a billionaire or the Pope. You may say you
don't want to, but it's also true that you can't - there are too many
obstacles, it involves too much work, and so on. It takes someone of
exceptional talent and enterprise to become a billionaire Pope. Likewise,
if a society doesn't offer opportunities in equal amounts to all, it takes
someone of exceptional talent and enterprise to rise out of their class into
the one above. No wonder few pratts take the clear and available routes
available to them.
(By the way, the billionaire pope thing was nothing personal, just an
example - I expect to see you on the balcony in Rome throwing money to the
crowds in future years).
> you are supposed to 'respect them for being pratts!!
> after all...their 'teachers' told them everyone is 'equal'...that
> everyone's 'opinions were 'valid'...
>
> these people are what society made them
This is having your cake and eating it. Do "pratts want to be pratts", or
are "these people are what society made them"? These two possibilities
aren't mutually exclusive, of course. In large measure, I think pratts want
to be pratts, one reason being that they've never been shown how not to be
pratts. They've never even been presented with the idea of not being
pratts. They've never been to the gymkhanas, travelled the world and been
told that vandalising somebody's car is bad.
>...and they are too sheep
> like to escape or even want to escape.....
>
> after all....irresponsibility and make work is a 'nice' lazy lifestyle....
> they can laze around while others provide their cheap cars or even their
> dole....
> it is a life of ease in fact....
>
> shaw captures it well enuf in pygmalion.....and even that is sugar covered
> starring hepburn and harrison!
>
> in a sense the workers and even the would be upper classes have a sneaking
> resentment for the empty headed lotus eaters like pratt.....
>
> mount's shallow!!
Interesting you should say so in the context of this argument. Here's a
nice middle class chap called Ferdinand Mount, who by enterprise and
intelligence rose to the top of his profession (editing the Times), and now
spends his time doing exactly what he wants - writing dilettante articles
about the working class and wandering around the TLS offices in Smithfield.
And what's he achieved? Shallowness. Perhaps his opportunities should have
been give to somebody more deserving?
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
i'm all for that!
regards....
abelard
typed:
>abelard <abel...@abelard.org> wrote in message
>> i have worked much with such people and i think mount doesn't
>> have the first idea....he misses the absolute essential core....
>> the pratts of this world make a fetish and defensive 'pride' out of
>> being thik....
>> they actually *like* it...
>> the posture absolves them from any responsibility or need to work
>> or think.....
>>
>> it is quite wrong to see them as underprivileged....
>> there are clear and available routes out of their problems....
>> some few take those routes....but it is very rare for the underlying
>> self-indulgent resentment ever to change.....
>> the ignorant resentment is who they are...
>> it is even who they want to be.....
>>
>> the problem with the middle classes and the mount's is they try to
>> project....they can never ever face the reality that the pratts
>> freely *choose* to be pratts....
>
>The basis for New Labour's reform of the welfare state is an acknowledgement
>of the fact that some pratts choose to be pratts and need a kick (or their
>benefits taken away) before they'll actually do anything. That's a start at
>attempting to face reality by the middle classes.
i think you are not taking my full message...i shall repeat...and
fill out a little....
re opportunities...
first read...
http://www.abelard.org/briefings/citizens_wage.htm
now i am still claiming the opportunities are there in sufficient numbers
for those who seriously want them....
a *great deal* of the reason for this is that most people do *not*
seriously want those opportunities...the vast mass of the ineffectual
*choose* and prefer that way of life
now in view of your comments on 'society makes the pratts what they are'
read this bit
http://www.abelard.org/ethics.htm#ccc
the world interacts...the pratts respond to their environments....but they
also react to that environment as passive sheep....
some others fight it and climb from *far* worse beginnings than others
who stay contentedly in the herd chewing the cud..and who resent any
move to stop them *choosing* that lifestyle....
as i have said above....i have worked much with such people....
even when most of them are 'encouraged' to dig themselves out....
the resentment tends to remain with most of them...
the want someone/s or something/s to blame for their inadequacies...
further....they tend to relapse given any relaxation of the pressure to
achieve....
pratts are (in part) natural ruminants!
now to your comments on mount...i have some sympathy with what you
express...however, the mount's of this world also mainly do not matter
if it wasn't them in the position...it would be someone else retailing the
same nostrums....
going back to the citizen's wage thingy above....
there is not enuf 'work' for the mass of the mediocre....
some of the problem is the puritanical mindset....that mindset can be
observed in bill willis (hi bill! i think greg may have a bit of it
also..hi greg!)...
'work as an 'abstract' is not 'a good thing'....as the old saying has it..
work is the curse of the drinking classes'......
there is plenty to do...but if you bring up, not very bright people' to
believe they 'have rights' or they are 'important'....you generate
much of the problems....
unfortunately the human monkey also suffers genetically based
status problems....
the answers are not easy...and they will not be solved or even much
mitigated by mediocre teachers or politicians....
especially while ostrichism is so much in fashion....
(one group added...)
>> the pratts resent (there central cultural position) being told there is
>> escape...*because* they regard that as 'patronising'...it means they'd
>> have to work
>
>This may be true. But although Library's talking about the Pratts here, I
>don't see anything in the article to suggest that Mount's talking *only*
>about them. A major part of the problem with the article is that Mount
>doesn't define what he means by working class - looking at the issues he
>raised I suggested he might mean the Welfare Class (the people who are
>weaned and dependent on welfare, and who can't conceive of any other way of
>life). But on reflection, his argument is that there are fewer
>opportunities for the working class, so he must also be talking about people
>who *do* want to get ahead - not just the people who've chosen to be pratts.
i'm content with mount's vague and perhaps broader categories....
i don't think the problems are confined to the blatant scratchers....
i have some sympathy for the pratts who insist on living off others
rather than' working' in a government office shifting useless paper
around in a pretend substitute for real work.....
working for government is not much different than working in school...
let's make a snowman out of bog roll holders school of education...
'that's very nice johnny....oh janitor, throw that out with the rest
of the trash'
you live in a seedy, dishonest and hypocritical society that prefers to
ignore problems in the vain hope they will go away (they
won't...they'll just keep getting worse, when the clear up costs will be
much greater)
this seedy behaviour goes into the behaviour of every school child that
is not educated at home to resist it....it then contaminates even the
real employers who actually make sommat...after they've been ripped
off the 50th or 100th time by irresponsible employees and others....
and so the social diseases spread...
regards...
i'll leave the rest in..in case you think i haven't covered sommat
adequately....
--
abelard
typed:
>
>
>libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>
>> I think most people do treat you with contempt. Why do you think that
>> is?
>
>
>I treat you with contempt in just the same way as this article blows
>your phony thaterite dogma tight out of the water, you are all washed up
>you phony scumbag.
if you were less arrogant and more intelligent you would
realise that your 'contempt' is every bit as irrelevant as all your
empty posturing...
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
I've disagreed on this before... just registering it again
>some of the problem is the puritanical mindset....that mindset can be
> observed in bill willis (hi bill! i think greg may have a bit of it
> also..hi greg!)...
>'work as an 'abstract' is not 'a good thing'....as the old saying has it..
> work is the curse of the drinking classes'......
I disagree. Work can be purpose and meaning
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
noted...
btw....i should have expanded further....i have *never* known anyone
who could not get a 'job' when they actually wanted one...and they
had some fairly rudimentary basic advice.....
that is not the same as saying that *if* all the unemployed (including
government makeworkers) suddenly decided they wanted *real*
jobs there would be enuf 'work' to go around....
if you want to argue this you will surely need to start establishing some
useful definitions...
are the 5 billion at below western standards 'working' because they
scratch a small plot that could be ploughed in 3 minutes with a
tractor 'working'?
are the 25%+ of the french population 'employed' by the government
'working'....or the ~13% in the uk....
what of the 15 yos sitting bored in schools with no serious liklihood
of learning or listening for the next year?
how many people does it take to provide the food consumption of the uk?
how many to provide the cars?
i'm confused how you imagine most of the able bodies of the modern
world could be kept busy without makework at the current std of
living...
nor do i see where you will get the oil to run the same std for the
remaining 5 billion or projected 8 billion....
just what is all this 'work' going to be doing? what with?
most western societies are now producing far above necessities and
not employing vast numbers of persons....
even those employed are often 'working' 35 hour weeks and swanning
around in suvs....lying around on beaches or shooting at clay pigeons.
your simple 'disagreement' is not convincing me.....
start putting real numbers to it.....
>>some of the problem is the puritanical mindset....that mindset can be
>> observed in bill willis (hi bill! i think greg may have a bit of it
>> also..hi greg!)...
>>'work as an 'abstract' is not 'a good thing'....as the old saying has it..
>> work is the curse of the drinking classes'......
>
>I disagree. Work can be purpose and meaning
people can get meaning and 'purpose' from just about anything....
as is often clear with the jihadis.....
regards...
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>now to your comments on mount...i have some sympathy with what you
>>> express...however, the mount's of this world also mainly do not matter
>>>if it wasn't them in the position...it would be someone else retailing the
>>> same nostrums....
>>>going back to the citizen's wage thingy above....
>>>there is not enuf 'work' for the mass of the mediocre....
>>
>>I've disagreed on this before... just registering it again
>
>noted...
>
>btw....i should have expanded further....i have *never* known anyone
> who could not get a 'job' when they actually wanted one...and they
> had some fairly rudimentary basic advice.....
OK
>that is not the same as saying that *if* all the unemployed (including
> government makeworkers) suddenly decided they wanted *real*
> jobs there would be enuf 'work' to go around....
OK
>if you want to argue this you will surely need to start establishing some
> useful definitions...
>are the 5 billion at below western standards 'working' because they
> scratch a small plot that could be ploughed in 3 minutes with a
> tractor 'working'?
For the sake of argument, yes. They are. That they may one day need to
find different things to do isn't a problem
>are the 25%+ of the french population 'employed' by the government
> 'working'....or the ~13% in the uk....
Some.
>what of the 15 yos sitting bored in schools with no serious liklihood
> of learning or listening for the next year?
>how many people does it take to provide the food consumption of the uk?
>how many to provide the cars?
There will never be enough manufacturing jobs to go around. The jobs
are in services.
>i'm confused how you imagine most of the able bodies of the modern
> world could be kept busy without makework at the current std of
> living...
Go to America. They're living this future in the main. Nail bars,
domestic help are big. But real work isn't hard to invent.
How many old folks would benefit from someone to shop for them?
How many to clean?
How many to support one more year of living independently rather than
in a home?
How many massages can one person have? How many
gym/buddhism/pottery/history classes?
How much football can people play?
How many shoes can a woman own?
All these things are almost boundless in demand.
>nor do i see where you will get the oil to run the same std for the
> remaining 5 billion or projected 8 billion....
Oil may be an issue, but none of the above need oil per se
>just what is all this 'work' going to be doing? what with?
>most western societies are now producing far above necessities and
> not employing vast numbers of persons....
Largely because we choose not to
>even those employed are often 'working' 35 hour weeks and swanning
> around in suvs....lying around on beaches or shooting at clay pigeons.
Which is fine. Work may be part time
>your simple 'disagreement' is not convincing me.....
>start putting real numbers to it.....
You can't put numbers to it. There are simply too many possibilities.
For example, my wife occasionally has her nails done. It takes about
an hour, and costs about 35 quid. Not as many as one in twenty women
in the UK have this I guess, and so that means the market growth
(assuming final penetration is ~25% of women) is easily a five-fold
increase. Given the prevalence of nail bars in Boston, I can see a
much larger increase feasible. How many people is that? Well, if each
nail girl does five people a day, or 20 a week, 800 a year. 25% market
share is ~7m women. That's not far short of 10,000 women polishing
nails. Add 10% to manage them, and you're there.
Do the same sums for waxing, pedicures, etc and there's a beauty
industry covering 100,000. And so on.
I suspect you don't see this because you don't consume much, and don't
want to consume much.
>>>some of the problem is the puritanical mindset....that mindset can be
>>> observed in bill willis (hi bill! i think greg may have a bit of it
>>> also..hi greg!)...
>>>'work as an 'abstract' is not 'a good thing'....as the old saying has it..
>>> work is the curse of the drinking classes'......
>>
>>I disagree. Work can be purpose and meaning
>
>people can get meaning and 'purpose' from just about anything....
>as is often clear with the jihadis.....
Work seems better
Bill Willis
> >> observed in bill willis (hi bill!
Hi abelard.
i think greg may have a bit of it
> >> also..hi greg!)...
> >>'work as an 'abstract' is not 'a good thing'....as the old saying has it..
> >> work is the curse of the drinking classes'......
Obviously you misuderstand my attitude towards work as you
consistently misunderstand my attitude towards many things. I haven't
been following this thread but since I heard my name mentioned I will
make two points here and a little more further down the thread.
Point one. I maintain that there is a virtual infinite supply of
"useful" work. You attempt (rather weakly IMV) to clarify what you
mean by work. I agree with you that some of what you describe is not
fairly called work but there is far more work that isn't currently
being done and could be done that vastly exceeds the man hours
available to accomplish the available work.
Point two. Work isn't valuable because it is virtuous but because it
is essential to the human psyche and sense of well being just as food
is essential for maintenance of the body. Denial of a sufficient
supply of either causes an insufficient human being which leads to all
kinds of other troubles.
> >
> >I disagree. Work can be purpose and meaning
Indeed work is essential to purpose and meaning.
>
> people can get meaning and 'purpose' from just about anything....
> as is often clear with the jihadis.....
I would say that it is more that because the jihadis are stymied from
making a productive contribution (work) that has caused their damaged
psyches and this in turn has led them to pathologically regard
jihadism as their work. They are suffering a disease as surely as if
you denied them any essential vitamin.
Bill
Bill Willis
It is indeed true that many people are employed in jobs where some
(sometimes a great deal) of their activity is not real work. I regard
this as an administrative detail and says little about the
availability of work. I agree with you that *you* need to start
establishing some useful definition of what *you* regard as work.
ISTM that you are looking at work very narrowly.
Work is any useful activity. The lowest level of work serves only the
self. A hunter who provides his own shelter and food and nothing
else. At this level the worker fulfills the basic human requirement
of self sufficiency but nothing more. A higher level of work is
activity that is useful not only to the individual but also to others.
A Mother or Father or Surrogate providing care or educating children
is working. Helping a disabled person is work. The billions plowing
the fields in underdeveloped countries for lack of tractors are indeed
working and when the tractors come to displace them there are
countless other activity to keep them working.
CW encourages people of modest ability to opt out of work. Opting out
of work is worse for their health than a steady diet of Big Macs.
Opting out of work over time destroys their souls and leaves them
vulnerable to all sorts of mischief. Allowing them to opt out of work
short changes the greater society by missing out on all the valuable
contributions these people are capable of making.
>
> i'm confused how you imagine most of the able bodies of the modern
> world could be kept busy without makework at the current std of
> living...
> nor do i see where you will get the oil to run the same std for the
> remaining 5 billion or projected 8 billion....
I'm confused as to why you think the current std of living is
apparently the be all of current human progress. I think that it is
quite possible that accepting a lower numerical std of living may well
increase the real std. of living from a qualitative standpoint. Some
of our current std. of living is killing us. Loading the world with
billions of idle non contributing people would be harmful to our
societal health even if it produced a numerically higher std. of
living.
>
> just what is all this 'work' going to be doing? what with?
> most western societies are now producing far above necessities and
> not employing vast numbers of persons....
> even those employed are often 'working' 35 hour weeks and swanning
> around in suvs....lying around on beaches or shooting at clay pigeons.
>
> your simple 'disagreement' is not convincing me.....
> start putting real numbers to it.....
That is because you are seeing the issue too narrowly. Work as it is
currently doled out is definitely less than perfect but that fact says
nothing about work itself.
Bill
Thur
<libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:060sj09m0iqns3kft...@4ax.com...
>
> www.libraryofalex.com
But for most it is a waste of a good life. Serving up fast food, answering
the telephone or cold-calling, assembly line repetition,
and many other thankless and unrewarding tasks are different than the
chosen paths of the educated, talented few.
The lack of secure employment for those people means the possibility
of falling into the poverty and humiliation of unemployment.
For the talented, it is nothing to worry about, because it is merely the
worry of moving to a place that provides the same or better remuneration,
while continuing to provide an interesting job.
Thur
abelard
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com
typed:
>On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 23:13:52 +0200, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
consider this a reply to all 3 posts (bw2, lib1)
are you equating 'finding sommat to do' with 'working'?
>>are the 25%+ of the french population 'employed' by the government
>> 'working'....or the ~13% in the uk....
>
>Some.
ok....will you accede to very few?
>>what of the 15 yos sitting bored in schools with no serious liklihood
>> of learning or listening for the next year?
>>how many people does it take to provide the food consumption of the uk?
>>how many to provide the cars?
>
>There will never be enough manufacturing jobs to go around. The jobs
>are in services.
o-o-o-o-o kkkkkk.....
so that leaves us with a definition of 'service'.....
>>i'm confused how you imagine most of the able bodies of the modern
>> world could be kept busy without makework at the current std of
>> living...
>
>Go to America. They're living this future in the main. Nail bars,
>domestic help are big. But real work isn't hard to invent.
point of order....does inventing it make it real...but let's plough onward
>How many old folks would benefit from someone to shop for them?
27
>How many to clean?
36
>How many to support one more year of living independently rather than
>in a home?
>How many massages can one person have? How many
>gym/buddhism/pottery/history classes?
>How much football can people play?
>How many shoes can a woman own?
>All these things are almost boundless in demand.
i don't believe in boundless.....
is football to be regarded as 'work'?
does 'owning' objects that are never used require 'work'?
how many spare cows and alligators are to be translated in shoes to
decorate the shelves....
i have serious purpose....it seems this 'work' thingy is confusing....
i talked for an hour or more to two females this day who accosted me
on my way through life...35yo and 23....by their own reports they
have no interests beyond sex, lying on the beach, drinking, shopping
....it is a bit difficult to suss just what they do to live....
at least one of them had a typical grot frog car and fancy cell 'phone...
they were presentable and civilised.....a toy i have never found any
use for and can not therefore operate!
but the point is they appear at least reasonably happy....
puritan bill suggest sommat about should being missing....maybe he's got
a point....but maybe i'll get to his post soon....
atm i'm sort of combining what i remember from the 3 posts after reading
them earlier and being distracted since....
there seems to be some sort of separation between working for yourself and
working for otthers....not sure i can really see it...i live in a
seamless zen space....
then there is another separation implied between monetarised 'work' and
non-monetarised 'work'....probably more a matter for the tax
collectors/thieves than for sane real people
then there is your service/non-service binary....that seems to relate to
how much resources are 'wasted' in the process....between alligator
skins and time painting nails...
sub text...i know rather a lot of people who paint their nails....
several of them with considerable artistry and variety....
well...it uses their time and make the world a might prettier....
i wonder if out puritan would call that work....
do your nail bars do artistry of just a bit of preening, polishing and
varnishing?...i'm aware of manicurists but not this nail bar stuff...
so, where am i at....i wanna know what you're calling work...and why...
btw some of my friends paint each others nails doubtless to the chagrin
of the hatstand tendency....
you know full well that the hatstands steal vast quantities of the
wherewithal off the plutocrats of the world....then by one slight of
hand or another...they pass it to the peasants who then 'buy' the
cars at hugely inflated prices (to pat the plutocrats taxes) with huge
extra taxes such as fuel duty....
which the parasites like hatstand then once more redistribute to
themselves, paper wasters, 'retireds and doleys like pratt....so's
they also can 'buy' the cars.....
i suppose the real price of new 150mph cars would be £200 or £300 pounds
if we abolished the hatstands and other socialists...
how would the hatstands then buy them....we can't give them away because
the puritanical tendency don't like people having fun...
the people i met today seem neither to reap much neither do they spin....
and my firm impression is they are there by the millions....
it seems to me millions more could be also living like that ...not much
getting in the way...probably happier than the mount's of this
world...and about as useful...
we have a batch of them posting here....and they ain't even happy!
what you wanto do bill...force them to have a soul?
so, here am i still asking, just what do you mean by 'work'?
why do you think it relevant?
especially you lib....why on earth do you think there is some unlimited
supply...
do you really want to classify millions chasing around after pig's
bladders as 'work'?
a particularly that concerns me if the conversation is to be useful or
meaningful....
do you really think chopping up trillions of alligators to make shoes for
the 'soul-less' is a sane behaviour with the current environmental
pressure...and that's without considering the pov of the alligators!
this is 'work'.....
if i'm to assume you two think it is....
then i will start to get the heebies about just what you are willing to do
to my planet just in order to generate the stuff (work!)
>>nor do i see where you will get the oil to run the same std for the
>> remaining 5 billion or projected 8 billion....
>
>Oil may be an issue, but none of the above need oil per se
currently your food supply seems to depend upon oil....
you ain't gonna do much work is the goes ass up.....
>>just what is all this 'work' going to be doing? what with?
>>most western societies are now producing far above necessities and
>> not employing vast numbers of persons....
>
>Largely because we choose not to
ok...so you sanely introduce 'choice'.....
see above...
why not choose to seek to eliminate 'work'?
>>even those employed are often 'working' 35 hour weeks and swanning
>> around in suvs....lying around on beaches or shooting at clay pigeons.
>
>Which is fine. Work may be part time
1 hour a week?
>>your simple 'disagreement' is not convincing me.....
>>start putting real numbers to it.....
>
>You can't put numbers to it.
total dissent...you can put numbers on anything...*once you define 'it'*
>There are simply too many possibilities.
>For example, my wife occasionally has her nails done. It takes about
>an hour, and costs about 35 quid. Not as many as one in twenty women
>in the UK have this I guess, and so that means the market growth
>(assuming final penetration is ~25% of women) is easily a five-fold
>increase. Given the prevalence of nail bars in Boston, I can see a
>much larger increase feasible. How many people is that? Well, if each
>nail girl does five people a day, or 20 a week, 800 a year. 25% market
>share is ~7m women. That's not far short of 10,000 women polishing
>nails. Add 10% to manage them, and you're there.
>
>Do the same sums for waxing, pedicures, etc and there's a beauty
>industry covering 100,000. And so on.
see above..
>I suspect you don't see this because you don't consume much, and don't
>want to consume much.
ok....an excellent point....
so why on earth do all those 6 billion want to 'consume' so much...
it seems to me that a great deal of this 'consumption' could, without any
great stretch, be termed 'waste' rather than 'work'....
and.....here is one of my central issues with your thesis.....
waste of most valuable time....the only real capital you possess.....
i wonder if many of the layabouts aren't a damned sight less of a pain in
the side of society than the pols (and other puritans) who wish to
organise and skin the sheep....
>>>>some of the problem is the puritanical mindset....that mindset can be
>>>> observed in bill willis (hi bill! i think greg may have a bit of it
>>>> also..hi greg!)...
>>>>'work as an 'abstract' is not 'a good thing'....as the old saying has it..
>>>> work is the curse of the drinking classes'......
>>>
>>>I disagree. Work can be purpose and meaning
>>
>>people can get meaning and 'purpose' from just about anything....
>>as is often clear with the jihadis.....
>
>Work seems better
indeed...but why have they chosen (inasmuch as they are conscious)
their current line of 'work'....
are they bored?
are the seeking to live in a world where they can skin alligators in order
to 'own' some useless gewgaws....
are they in fact aping western civilisation
hey, maria...if you see this how about putting your oar in....
regards....
abelard
typed:
don't get your cast of mind....you appear to be mentioning 'jobs'
that are more of less useful....
>and many other thankless and unrewarding tasks are different than the
so i'm unsure why they are 'thankless and unrewarding'....
>chosen paths of the educated, talented few.
name some....
>The lack of secure employment for those people
you mean the 'educated, talented'?
>means the possibility
>of falling into the poverty and humiliation of unemployment.
why is 'unemployment' to be associated with 'humiliation'
large numbers i have met who are 'unemployed' don't act 'humiliated'....
take the surfies....they seem delighted with their life styles in the
summer....and just 'work' long enuf to keep their semi van wrecks on
the road...
they often go do the jobs you above called 'thankless and unrewarded'...
they seem very happy with their free lives....most of the time....
they don't seem to have an great yen for better bigger trucks though
some even seem to end up that way in time....
>For the talented, it is nothing to worry about, because it is merely the
>worry of moving to a place that provides the same or better remuneration,
>while continuing to provide an interesting job.
i am finding it most strange this assumption that it is the work that
is 'rewarding'....instead of the surfing.....
i speak from much close observation.....
i declare myself as a workaholic with a clear star to follow....not
a surfee btw!
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
>>>some of the problem is the puritanical mindset....that mindset can be
>>> observed in bill willis (hi bill! i think greg may have a bit of it
>>> also..hi greg!)...
>>>'work as an 'abstract' is not 'a good thing'....as the old saying has it..
>>> work is the curse of the drinking classes'......
>>
>> I disagree. Work can be purpose and meaning
>> cheers
>>
>> www.libraryofalex.com
>
>But for most it is a waste of a good life. Serving up fast food, answering
>the telephone or cold-calling, assembly line repetition,
>and many other thankless and unrewarding tasks are different than the
>chosen paths of the educated, talented few.
>The lack of secure employment for those people means the possibility
>of falling into the poverty and humiliation of unemployment.
>For the talented, it is nothing to worry about, because it is merely the
>worry of moving to a place that provides the same or better remuneration,
>while continuing to provide an interesting job.
>Thur
Largely agreed
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>means the possibility
>>of falling into the poverty and humiliation of unemployment.
>
>why is 'unemployment' to be associated with 'humiliation'
>large numbers i have met who are 'unemployed' don't act 'humiliated'....
Lots are though. There have always been unemployed who like it, and
those who do not. I think we used to call them 'deserving' and
'undeserving'
>take the surfies....they seem delighted with their life styles in the
> summer....and just 'work' long enuf to keep their semi van wrecks on
> the road...
>they often go do the jobs you above called 'thankless and unrewarded'...
>they seem very happy with their free lives....most of the time....
That's because they find meaning in surfing and that world, and they
work to sustain it. Hence the work has meaning - it provides the money
to surf. Many people seek meaning in work itself though.
>they don't seem to have an great yen for better bigger trucks though
> some even seem to end up that way in time....
>
>>For the talented, it is nothing to worry about, because it is merely the
>>worry of moving to a place that provides the same or better remuneration,
>>while continuing to provide an interesting job.
>
>i am finding it most strange this assumption that it is the work that
> is 'rewarding'....instead of the surfing.....
>i speak from much close observation.....
For some people, it's surfing/drinking/whatever. For some it is work
itself
>i declare myself as a workaholic with a clear star to follow....not
> a surfee btw!
You're in group 2!
librar...@*nospam*btinternet.com
wrote:
>>>if you want to argue this you will surely need to start establishing some
>>> useful definitions...
>>>are the 5 billion at below western standards 'working' because they
>>> scratch a small plot that could be ploughed in 3 minutes with a
>>> tractor 'working'?
>>
>>For the sake of argument, yes. They are. That they may one day need to
>>find different things to do isn't a problem
>
>consider this a reply to all 3 posts (bw2, lib1)
>
>are you equating 'finding sommat to do' with 'working'?
No. 'Working' means providing a service that someone will pay for. You
can refine this a little, because the govt 'will pay for' useless
stuff, but, assuming that the democratic process is somewhat
effective, I am inclined to gloss over this
>>>are the 25%+ of the french population 'employed' by the government
>>> 'working'....or the ~13% in the uk....
>>
>>Some.
>
>ok....will you accede to very few?
No, I don't think so. My sense of the numbers (and I haven't got real
data) is that, most of the govt employees are in teaching, health,
road sweeping etc. These services are performed poorly, but I don't
think that it's make-work. Much of the civil service is nonsense, but
it's relatively small numbers.
A back of envelope check. 13% of a workforce of, say, 40million, is
~5m. The NHS is a million or more, teaching is half a million or more
- education as a whole probably a million with universities etc.
>>How many to support one more year of living independently rather than
>>in a home?
>>How many massages can one person have? How many
>>gym/buddhism/pottery/history classes?
>>How much football can people play?
>>How many shoes can a woman own?
>>All these things are almost boundless in demand.
>
>i don't believe in boundless.....
>is football to be regarded as 'work'?
If people will pay to play, be coached,
>does 'owning' objects that are never used require 'work'?
Yes, if people will pay for them
>how many spare cows and alligators are to be translated in shoes to
> decorate the shelves....
Plenty.
>i have serious purpose....it seems this 'work' thingy is confusing....
>i talked for an hour or more to two females this day who accosted me
> on my way through life...35yo and 23....by their own reports they
> have no interests beyond sex, lying on the beach, drinking, shopping
> ....it is a bit difficult to suss just what they do to live....
>at least one of them had a typical grot frog car and fancy cell 'phone...
> they were presentable and civilised.....a toy i have never found any
> use for and can not therefore operate!
>but the point is they appear at least reasonably happy....
OK.
>puritan bill suggest sommat about should being missing....maybe he's got
> a point....but maybe i'll get to his post soon....
>atm i'm sort of combining what i remember from the 3 posts after reading
> them earlier and being distracted since....
I don't doubt (from your description) that something is missing. But
if they don't know, they may not miss it
>there seems to be some sort of separation between working for yourself and
> working for otthers....not sure i can really see it...i live in a
> seamless zen space....
>then there is another separation implied between monetarised 'work' and
> non-monetarised 'work'....probably more a matter for the tax
> collectors/thieves than for sane real people
Agreed
>then there is your service/non-service binary....that seems to relate to
> how much resources are 'wasted' in the process....between alligator
> skins and time painting nails...
> sub text...i know rather a lot of people who paint their nails....
> several of them with considerable artistry and variety....
>well...it uses their time and make the world a might prettier....
>i wonder if out puritan would call that work....
>do your nail bars do artistry of just a bit of preening, polishing and
> varnishing?...i'm aware of manicurists but not this nail bar stuff...
Different nail bars presumably charge different prices for different
levels of service
>so, where am i at....i wanna know what you're calling work...and why...
As above. If someone will pay, I will call it work
>btw some of my friends paint each others nails doubtless to the chagrin
> of the hatstand tendency....
>
>you know full well that the hatstands steal vast quantities of the
> wherewithal off the plutocrats of the world....then by one slight of
> hand or another...they pass it to the peasants who then 'buy' the
> cars at hugely inflated prices (to pat the plutocrats taxes) with huge
> extra taxes such as fuel duty....
>which the parasites like hatstand then once more redistribute to
> themselves, paper wasters, 'retireds and doleys like pratt....so's
> they also can 'buy' the cars.....
>i suppose the real price of new 150mph cars would be £200 or £300 pounds
> if we abolished the hatstands and other socialists...
>
>how would the hatstands then buy them....we can't give them away because
> the puritanical tendency don't like people having fun...
Also, if you give them away, they're 'free' and so they're abused.
Make people 'pay', means people behave more responsibly
>the people i met today seem neither to reap much neither do they spin....
> and my firm impression is they are there by the millions....
>it seems to me millions more could be also living like that ...not much
> getting in the way...probably happier than the mount's of this
> world...and about as useful...
>
>we have a batch of them posting here....and they ain't even happy!
>
>what you wanto do bill...force them to have a soul?
I want them to work. I want them to clean wards, carry old ladies'
shopping, paint nails, plant trees, whatever they have the skills and
appetite for. As we get richer, the demand for low-skilled workers
will not fall off. But people may have to change their views of what a
'job' is.
>so, here am i still asking, just what do you mean by 'work'?
>why do you think it relevant?
>
>especially you lib....why on earth do you think there is some unlimited
> supply...
>do you really want to classify millions chasing around after pig's
> bladders as 'work'?
No, if they're playing football, they're playing. But for everyone
playing football, there's coaches, clubs etc. As people get richer,
these jobs become paid, and more professional
>a particularly that concerns me if the conversation is to be useful or
> meaningful....
>do you really think chopping up trillions of alligators to make shoes for
> the 'soul-less' is a sane behaviour with the current environmental
> pressure...and that's without considering the pov of the alligators!
>this is 'work'.....
Two separate issues: Doing something that you and I regard as soulless
is still work. Doing something environmentally unsustainable may not
be work we can allow to continue indefinitely. But there is a lot of
work that doesn't require environmental degradation. For example, if
everyone in the UK had a massage once a week, that would have very
little environmental impact, and yet be real work that is beneficial
to the recipient.
>>>nor do i see where you will get the oil to run the same std for the
>>> remaining 5 billion or projected 8 billion....
>>
>>Oil may be an issue, but none of the above need oil per se
>
>currently your food supply seems to depend upon oil....
>you ain't gonna do much work is the goes ass up.....
This is a separate issue. Nothing to do with work, but with resources
>>>just what is all this 'work' going to be doing? what with?
>>>most western societies are now producing far above necessities and
>>> not employing vast numbers of persons....
>>
>>Largely because we choose not to
>
>ok...so you sanely introduce 'choice'.....
>see above...
>why not choose to seek to eliminate 'work'?
Because 'work' is interesting to many people. Filling time is not easy
for many - and they drink and vomit on the streets.
>>>even those employed are often 'working' 35 hour weeks and swanning
>>> around in suvs....lying around on beaches or shooting at clay pigeons.
>>
>>Which is fine. Work may be part time
>
>1 hour a week?
I doubt anyone would bother
>>>your simple 'disagreement' is not convincing me.....
>>>start putting real numbers to it.....
>>
>>You can't put numbers to it.
>
>total dissent...you can put numbers on anything...*once you define 'it'*
OK, see below.
>>There are simply too many possibilities.
>>For example, my wife occasionally has her nails done. It takes about
>>an hour, and costs about 35 quid. Not as many as one in twenty women
>>in the UK have this I guess, and so that means the market growth
>>(assuming final penetration is ~25% of women) is easily a five-fold
>>increase. Given the prevalence of nail bars in Boston, I can see a
>>much larger increase feasible. How many people is that? Well, if each
>>nail girl does five people a day, or 20 a week, 800 a year. 25% market
>>share is ~7m women. That's not far short of 10,000 women polishing
>>nails. Add 10% to manage them, and you're there.
>>
>>Do the same sums for waxing, pedicures, etc and there's a beauty
>>industry covering 100,000. And so on.
>
>see above..
OK, that's the industry for nails. I don't know what fashion or taste
people will have in future. Is the UK all had a massage each week,
that would be another 100,000 and so on
>>I suspect you don't see this because you don't consume much, and don't
>>want to consume much.
>
>ok....an excellent point....
>so why on earth do all those 6 billion want to 'consume' so much...
>it seems to me that a great deal of this 'consumption' could, without any
> great stretch, be termed 'waste' rather than 'work'....
Agreed. But if the world were dependent on you and I for consumption
we'd have a big industries in books, ICT and CDs. That's not the world
we're living in, for better or for worse
>and.....here is one of my central issues with your thesis.....
>waste of most valuable time....the only real capital you possess.....
>
>i wonder if many of the layabouts aren't a damned sight less of a pain in
> the side of society than the pols (and other puritans) who wish to
> organise and skin the sheep....
Maybe.
>>>>I disagree. Work can be purpose and meaning
>>>
>>>people can get meaning and 'purpose' from just about anything....
>>>as is often clear with the jihadis.....
>>
>>Work seems better
>
>indeed...but why have they chosen (inasmuch as they are conscious)
> their current line of 'work'....
>are they bored?
>are the seeking to live in a world where they can skin alligators in order
> to 'own' some useless gewgaws....
>are they in fact aping western civilisation
I think jihadis join because it offers them meaning. If you're a
Palestinian, for example, and you have a choice between a meaningless
struggle for land and money as the PLA extorts money from you and the
Israelis rip up your orchards, or going out in a blaze of glory, I can
see why young, family-less men and women find more meaning in revenge
than in growth
I also think that they share your view that a lot of western 'work' is
in pursuit of things that are of little value. So they do not rate
'work'
>hey, maria...if you see this how about putting your oar in....
Greg Hennessy
libraryofalex@*nospam*btinternet.com wrote:
>On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 22:17:52 +0200, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>wrote:
>
>>>means the possibility
>>>of falling into the poverty and humiliation of unemployment.
>>
>>why is 'unemployment' to be associated with 'humiliation'
>>large numbers i have met who are 'unemployed' don't act 'humiliated'....
>
>Lots are though. There have always been unemployed who like it, and
>those who do not. I think we used to call them 'deserving' and
>'undeserving'
We cant call them that anymore, it hurts their feelings.
--
Felicitations, malefactors! I am endeavoring to misappropriate
the formulary for the preparation of affordable comestibles.
Who will join me?!
Thur
The humiliation I refer to is the feeling of being forgotten, cast aside,
of impotence in that one cannot contribute to what is called "society",
and the (feeling of) loss of position within a family group.
This may well be a feeling that is inappropriate, or unsupported by
the facts, but it is a real, and I observe, not unusual one.
Your experiences, as quoted seems to be rather selective. Have you
never met someone who had been made redundant in an are where
there was no alternative employment? Never met someone who had
failed in business, being left with no money, high debt, and at an age
where jobs are very scarce indeed? I have.
The idea that the unemployed are those who prefer it is a piece of
political propaganda.
The "waste of a good life" quote refers to the fact that humans are so
talented and capable of such great things, and to have one's life
dominated by such drudgery, such unchallenging tasks, is a waste of
human resource. I suppose you could say that between sessions of work
a motivated human can escape, and develop the mind, but in practice,
it seems that this does not happen.
>>chosen paths of the educated, talented few.
>
> name some....
e.g. Medicine, Law, Academia, Scientific Research, Journalism, Literature,
positions of power within large organisations, including Government.
If you have the right education and the talent, then it is impossible not to
have
a number of paths in life to follow, most sufficiently rewarding
financially, and
sufficiently challenging to be a satisfying job.
> i am finding it most strange this assumption that it is the work that
> is 'rewarding'....instead of the surfing.....
> i speak from much close observation.....
What a waste of a life it would be, to spend it wholly in time-passing,
dwelling only in satisfying the nearest emotion or the shallowest urges.
What about human capability? Is there nothing more we can do than
spend time comfortably between birth and death?
I note you are different. :-)
Thur
Diversity Isn't A Codeword
> In the Sunday Times today, Ferdinant Mount argues that where we once treated
> our working class with respect, we now treat it with contempt.
>
> he doesn't seem to know what the working class is. They're people who work,
> not people on benefits. And I think the contempt - which certainly exists -
> is for the huge welfare class rather than workers who don't earn much.
> Comments welcome.
why should we respect people who drink, smoke and swear like no
tomorrow and pissed everybody off or bullied everybody at school and
were just plain annoying?
they also have a huge chip on their shoulder about 'ow it's not da
bosses that run everything it's da workers, even though it's clearly
not.
abelard
typed:
>The humiliation I refer to is the feeling of being forgotten, cast aside,
>of impotence in that one cannot contribute to what is called "society",
again i'm going to try to respond to the four posts in one....
i'm not sure how clear i am being but i think there is sommat
seriously amiss in society's present reaction/definition of 'work.....
it seems i'll need to refine expression of the situation iteratively so...
here we go...
....
i don't accept that....the culture cultivates such attitudes instead of
valuing individuals in terms of their real place in the community
a previous generation was raised upon
"The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
He made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate."
not on a view that serving others was 'demeaning'....
>and the (feeling of) loss of position within a family group.
in that previous society people maintained their places within
the family....in fact it was often those who got 'ideas above
their station' who were rejected
>This may well be a feeling that is inappropriate, or unsupported by
>the facts, but it is a real, and I observe, not unusual one.
with that i would not contend....
>Your experiences, as quoted seems to be rather selective.
all experiences of humans are 'selective'
> Have you
>never met someone who had been made redundant in an are where
>there was no alternative employment? Never met someone who had
>failed in business, being left with no money, high debt, and at an age
>where jobs are very scarce indeed? I have.
i have met many like that....and there is always a way out or through...
i know one woman of over 70 who was in that sort of position....
she got a job by claiming she was 55 and held it for many years....
i repeat...i have never met a person who could not get a job if that
were their serious desire....sometimes they need a little common
sense advice....but that is the worst of it.....
as for debt....for entrepreneurs such experiences are common....
and even for individuals bankruptcy is now reasonable painless....
>The idea that the unemployed are those who prefer it is a piece of
>political propaganda.
in my view...and in much experience in the real world i dissent from
your claim....
i think it is your claim that is propaganda....
>The "waste of a good life" quote refers to the fact that humans are so
>talented and capable of such great things, and to have one's life
>dominated by such drudgery, such unchallenging tasks, is a waste of
>human resource.
why....when you wash dishes and the you have time to think....
you may also be fit and often out in the open instead of cooped in
an office...often with dullards...
> I suppose you could say that between sessions of work
>a motivated human can escape, and develop the mind, but in practice,
>it seems that this does not happen.
and i will claim that is their own choice....and that ever more the
facilities are available to make that a free choice....
>>>chosen paths of the educated, talented few.
>>
>> name some....
>
>e.g. Medicine, Law, Academia, Scientific Research, Journalism, Literature,
>positions of power within large organisations, including Government.
no-one of reasonable intelligence cannot aspire to such activities....
universities are open as never before....food is cheaper than ever before
...wages are higher at the basic levels than ever before....working
hours are shorter than ever before....grants and dole are fairly
easily available...alliances with other are not out of reach where
one gains income where another studies at least part of the time...
i am aware of many people who get degree in their 40s and later....
and there are some into their 60s and 70s.......
one recent case i am aware of was on the d-day landings.....
>If you have the right education and the talent, then it is impossible not to
>have
>a number of paths in life to follow, most sufficiently rewarding
>financially, and
>sufficiently challenging to be a satisfying job.
i am most unconvinced by this categorisation.....it suggest some pressure
to work in and 'unrewarding' job.....
humans tend to work for 'reward'....i know hair cutters who regularly fly
off to ibiza and further....not my idea of fun but they seem all for
it!
iow they are rewarded and they seem to regard hair cutting as a good
way to go....they get tips...they go and do the odd customer at home..
some even offer 'extras'!
most such people i know would hate to work in an office...would blanche
at the responsibility of even a gp...
many i know when urged to think rapidly come up with expression like
(i kid you not!) 'my head hurts'....
>> i am finding it most strange this assumption that it is the work that
>> is 'rewarding'....instead of the surfing.....
>> i speak from much close observation.....
>
>What a waste of a life it would be, to spend it wholly in time-passing,
but that is *not* the way they see it....
many of them think it's mad to stay on the tread mill....
they made a choice against the standard paradigm being 'offered' to them
in conforming society....and comprehensively rejected it....
ie...they acted independently...far more so often than those that
'conform'
you also mentioned 'power in large organisations'...i read a few years
back that of 20 richest people in britain...6 had completed university
many i know who have made 'small' businesses do not come trailing
bags of 'certificates'...mind you, many who work for them do.....
>dwelling only in satisfying the nearest emotion or the shallowest urges.
why do you think you're in a position to define and 'urge' as 'shallow?
>What about human capability?
what about it?
many people are not very 'capable' in the sense i think you mean...
imv many are even taught systematically to become incapable by
the society and the education machine....
> Is there nothing more we can do than
>spend time comfortably between birth and death?
for great numbers that seems to me (as an observer) a thing that
many do in fact aspire to...or at least drift into.....
>I note you are different. :-)
indeed....but i bang my head on the walls at times....
i write.....
i have been banging my head for the past 2 or 3 weeks.....
i know the symptoms and the process....
'i'll never write again'...'i'm doing nothing' etc etc...
yesterday i wrote a 2000 plus paper on what i was banging my head about...
am i any more confident today....no-way....
i've done all the writing i'll ever do.....i can't think what to write
next....
i know full well it is the most unutterable bollox...
i know full well how 'good' i am....but i never ever believe it!
almost every really able person i know is like this....
the seriously rich ones are constantly insecure about their businesses
and the invariable hordes of parasites that circle them....
the surfees look a great deal happier and well adjusted to me....
would i want to be a surfee...no way....all that wet sticky stuff...
getting cold...yuk....i'd rather wash the dishes or sweep the roads...
what am i trying to communicate?
i think this society is selling false values and false dreams...
and i think it is ruining the future in the process...
i know what i wish to do....i've known since i could first think.....
i watch 8 yos who know what they want to do...sat in desks and forced
to waste their time instead of going after their stars....
i don't know how many would have stars if teacher just left those kids
alone....at least rather more...
my experience tells me that it is a very great deal more of them than at
present....
i also see young people who are refused places at medical schools...
i'd just let them go in...and find out whether they sink or swim...
and let them have another go whenever they wished....
you see i do think the problem is in society....
a fear of 'failure'
a rigid and foolish definition of what 'failure' means.....
further....i don't want more consumption...i want a quieter more pleasant
world.....not this noise machine rushing world...
i think there will be plenty of medics and road sweepers if everyone calms
down....
i don't think the public definitions of 'work' are productive....
regards...
Bill Willis
> On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 10:25:30 GMT, "Thur" <a@nospam.z>
> i'd just let them go in...and find out whether they sink or swim...
> and let them have another go whenever they wished....
>
> you see i do think the problem is in society....
> a fear of 'failure'
> a rigid and foolish definition of what 'failure' means.....
>
> further....i don't want more consumption...i want a quieter more pleasant
> world.....not this noise machine rushing world...
> i think there will be plenty of medics and road sweepers if everyone calms
> down....
> i don't think the public definitions of 'work' are productive....
FWIW, I generally agree with what you have written quoted above though
I would like you to explain how (if) it relates to CW. ISTM there is
less fear of failure and less stigma to failure in the US then in
Europe. Life is a work in progress and hardly anyone can expect to
succeed in everything.
As for consumption, America is much worse then anywhere. Though to be
honest I must observe that I rather like those aspects of consumption
which I personally enjoy and can be dimissive of that which my
neighbor enjoys. I don't think I am alone in this. What *you* want
isn't the be all and end all and *you* must seek your quieter life as
best you can realizing that others seek a more dynamic life
experience.
Bill