Paulie Tandoori said:
I think that, as well as relative poverty and inequality across classes, the effect of poverty of ambition, confidence and aspiration are what need to be focused on. Insofar as cultural conditions are influenced by the economic conditions under which people produce and consume, it has to be said that the nature of the latter has changed so much over the last 20-odd years that a confusion of place and perception in much of society must be almost inevitable.
I 'd agree that this is so, especially in the less economically-stable reaches of the non property-owning classes, where a sense of place and of
security of place, of "roots", is still often tied to a local community. When this security becomes mediated almost entirely by an ability to afford rents, rather than by a complex of social and economic factors, then not only will this, imho, foster a nihilistic attitude toward the concept of geographical "community", it having become something for the "haves" rather than the "have nots", but it undermines the other facets of "community"
such as co-operation, solidarity and a shared sense of identity.
We do, if we are cynical, also have to take into account that our machinery of state, with the assistance of its' master, Capital, prefers an emotionally-destabilised "lower order". Such a mass is easier to manipulate, as well as easier to appease, especially within a culture where consumption and consumption decisions form such a significant part of many peoples' participation in the social.
From "bread and circuses" to "chips and Xbox" in 2 millenia.
Industrialistion and its bastard child capitalism have grossly distorted production and consumption, in many ways for unhappy results. But it also served a purpose for the new "working" class, who previously would have been considered serfs or peasants - whereas there are, of course, examples of organisation in these classes throughout years preceding the 18th/19th C, the systematic nature of the industrial age did create maybe the most powerful and effective political organisation of the working class in the history of the planet.
I agree.
Unfortunately, almost from the get-go, it also created opportunies for opportunists, as well as an organised body for Capital to react to and legislate against.
It's a sad fact that the history of labour legislation is a history of circumscription of rights and practices more than it is a history of an expansion of them.
However, Thatcher destroyed any real power of unions, and whilst the dying embers of her policies ignited all kinds of radical politics that offered opportunities to organise differently, now a complacency or an apathy appears to dull the thinking of many. And why not if, for eg, you have ~3m people marching against a war that goes ahead anyway and is rapidly turning into an extraordinarly extreme example of just why hegemony built on lies, deceit and force, rather than at least on morals and cultural respect, is doomed to failure? Is this a state of false conciousness or rather a fatigued one?
It's a difficult problem to address, not least IMHO because of the complexity of defining the causes(s) of such apathy. If we then add to this the very obvious problems of cognitive dissonance affecting the way that individuals might be able to personally analyse and confront that apathy, then I'd personally venture that the state in which people might reside is one that encompasses false
and fatigued consciousness.
To take up Bernie's point, in terms of organising on common issues, i think the relative comfort of uk society mitigates against identification of common issues and concerns with other societies and other people of relatively similar status/class (and indeed the issue is definitely played out as "FEAR
of the other" in the media and much of mainstream politicking to boot), even though they share fundamental inequities.
It
is probably the case that if more people, of whichever social class, realised or acknowledged in themselves their closeness to instability (the old saw about only being 6 meals from social dosorder), then Capital would have a much harder job in activating that "fear of other" in people, if only because some people would realise that whatever their accumulation of possessions, they actually have less to actually lose than Capital tells them.
On the "relative comfort" issue, again, it's "bread and circuses/chips and Xboxes", isn't it? Keep people "content" in relative terms, even if that "contentment"
is derived from eating poor quality food and being the recipient of mediated forms of entertainment, and you make the work of any exercise of social concern external to that sanctioned by the state far more difficult.
Apologies for length but i've contributed to co-operative life & work for many years now and i sometimes feel frustrated at the difficulty in maintaining interest and enthusiasm, both personally and in others. How to encourage autonomous self-determination that seeks to serve the whole community primarily, whilst also supporting individuals equally in status and stature, is what i struggle with. When it works, it can be fantastically empowering and enjoyable, ime. Enough for now.
No apologies necessary. My OP was long because I needed that much space to explain myself as well as I could. I can hardly castigate anyone else for doing likewise.
