Sport and class and stuff

Social mobility has been declining, most people would admit for some time.

. The interesting thing is, as class divisions have been re-entrenched, our collective ability to recognise class, especially class-for-itself, for what it is has taken a battering. When Nick Clegg is considered a communist, David Cameron says he's middle-class, and Ed Miliband stands for the squeezed middle (whatever that is, perhaps it’s something to do with toothpaste) then you know we’re in trouble.

We’ve talked a lot about how the popular culture industry, especially pop music, is increasingly becoming an upper-class paid vacation, and the worse for it. An interesting article in today’s Graun: though only 7% of the population attend private, fee-paying schools, roughly one quarter of the British Olympic team is drawn from those schools   . Further:

It is the same with many non-Olympic sports. Of the England cricket squad chosen to play this week's Test match, all seven batsmen, including two reared in South Africa, and one of the six bowlers (who do the harder work and are, therefore, traditionally drawn from plebeian backgrounds) were privately educated.

The writer’s reasoning?

Cricket, rugby and most Olympic sports, have been professionalised beyond recognition. All sports now aim to identify talent early, give it intensive practice and coaching, eradicate technical deficiencies, and encourage (not always successfully) the right diet, lifestyle and mental discipline. Sport has become an industry, using scientific techniques to enhance performance. The opportunities for raw, untutored talent are correspondingly fewer. The fee-charging schools, with their lavish facilities and full-time professional coaches (many schools employ former first-class county cricket players), were in pole position to prepare their pupils for the new era.

There is a significant paradox here. As sports became more professional – and no longer the preserve of those who could afford to play for fun – the social base of the top performers was expected to widen.

It is similar to the contradictory fact that as university places expanded, the fee system and the compartmentalisation of subjects (turning universities into sausage factories of knowledge) led to fewer education opportunities and less social mobility. This is the seeming paradox of meritocracy. The word and the concept behind it was invented by the Labour philosopher Michael Young , who used the word in a pejorative sense. Merit in a class society is a retrospective judgment. Opportunities to succeed in a career or vocation etc tend to fall to those best placed to receive them. Money, class, power, however you want to put it, is capable of opening or closing doors to you. David Cameron described himself as “sharp-elbowed middle-class”, suggesting he had to struggle to get to where he is today, which is a gross insult to those who actually struggle in life. The idea that bankers should receive bonuses because they deserve them, while teachers, nurses and dustbin men should tighten their belts is offensive to many, but this is where so-called meritocracy gets you, the idea that financial reward is the same as just desert. Put in athletic terms, in the context of our society: You and I were born on the starting blocks, while David Cameron was born in the home straight. 

Sport, like all other aspects of culture, needs to be rescued from the bourgeoisie. 

More thoughts for the brain...

Marshall McLuhan noted that teeangers use(d) the radio to create a wall of sound, allowing them privacy, vital and prized at their stage of development. The modern urban working class in Britain faces long commutes on public transport, especially in London and especially this summer. As digital sound devices have become cheaper and more portable, more and more commuters have resorted to using them while they travel. It creates the same effect. The commuter is sealed off, aurally at least, from the rest of the world. Notes:

1) There is no such thing as music for music's sake, all music is ambience or soundtrack.
2) This is another expression of alienation. You cannot get more insulated from the world, millions of people together alone, short of people travelling to work in a personal plastic bubble.
3) This bodes ill for democracy, however one might define it. Cities are the home of democracy. Democracy relies on large-scale interchange of people, items, ideas, languages, religions, races. In dealing with the shock to the system delivered by late capitalism on a purely personal level, people are shutting down an aspect of themselves and of their society that makes it liveable and enjoyable. Without conscious intervention this process is self-reinforcing. Have you ever tried petitioning a tired worker with a headset on and eight hours of work ahead of them?

What's the bloody matter with everyone?

More impressionistic twaddle about the subject of class and fascism, from someone who should know MUCH better. There is something deeply wrong in our society when almost no one can seem to talk about class in a remotely objective way. The EDL reckon they're working class, lots of liberals think they are too. David Cameron reckons he's middle-class. Copyright law is socialist. The police reclaim the streets. White people have gone black. Privatisation is reform. Cats are dogs, up is down and that big pile of shit over there is actually ice cream - take a bite, no, I insist, luv your government.

But seriously folks, fascism is a middle class movement. The illusion that is is a working class movement comes in part from liberal fear/fantasies about the violent potency of the underclass; if anything the typical EDL member is not a rippling Ubermensch but a spotty lad. Fascism is middle class because (1) it dovetails philosophically and psychologically with the deranged small-property owner and (2) the practical committment it requires suits the middle class. Think about typical EDL activity today...

Which honest to goodness prole has the time, let alone the money, to hop on a bus or train most weekends to attempt mass-ultra violence in town centres? Committing to street fascism in the long run is committing to a criminal record. Who can just afford to do that? The EDL is in part built out of football firms. These firms have money.

This should all be obvious, but it seems not.