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Ethan Hawke
13:26 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Rain:

Which I think is a distinctor. There are certainly criminals outside the "criminal underclass". They may previosuly have been ascribed to "the criminal element". But the criminal element is an element *of* something, whereas the criminal underclass is a class of itself, cut adrift from any community with the other inhabitant of the society (who are non-criminal).

This, like most attempts at sociological profundity, seems reasonable at first read and increasingly meaningless upon subsequent reads. You attempt to differentiate between "the criminal element" and "the criminal underclass" by sundering the two around their relationship to society as a whole, with the criminal "element" being a part of society and a criminal "underclass" outside of society(as Patti Smith would say) with no social connection to the non-criminal society. But what sense does it make to call something a "class" if it is a unitary entity, and not a part of a larger whole?

Furthermore, if this "class" were somehow to live and develop separate from all other classes (though if the two types of classes aren't part of the same whole it makes little sense to call them the same thing), this would invalidate the previously advanced definition of the criminal underclass as a waste product integral to the consumer society. (incidentally, isn't theft just another type of consumption?)
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
13:35 / 14.01.02
You're still bitter about that whole Pashtun thing, aren't you.

Hey ho.

The point was nomenclature, and the way that it shapes perceptions. Try again.

Oh, and your second point is absurd. Toxic waste is a byproduct of industrial society which is kept separate from other elements of that society. Doesn't stop it being part of the process.

Ye Gods....
 
 
The Planet of Sound
13:37 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
They're a superstitious, cowardly lot, aren't they?

<squeezes into latex-nippled batsuit and slides down greasy pole>

...and that was the secret origin of ELEPHANT-GOD-MAN, scourge of evildoers in Gotham City...

This thread has made very stimulating reading; particularly the term 'criminal overclass'. The Hatfield disaster and Rail Track fatcats spring to mind. I'm going to start dropping that into everyday conversation in the hope of its receiving wider attention; can we all do the same, and get some kind of crazy meme thing going?

I'm fascinated by socio-economic groupings, and I really do feel that they are all inherently wrong, but as is obvious from my initial posting, I find it impossible to think about society in any other terms. They stereotype, they force you to make presumptions, they force you to be disrespectful to any notion of individuality, they limit imagination ('I'm working class, so there's no way I'll get that job/write that book/make that movie')... and yet, I'd still describe myself as coming from a working class background, when I was mugged last year, I couldn't help but visualise the mugger as 'criminal scum', I am guilty of the 'don't be so bloody middle-class' type comments that have been raised in this thread. A kind of double-think thing forced upon me by upbringing? Would it be possible for any of us enlightened souls to really drop this kind of thinking? And as has been raised, what about poor old market researchers etc? These stereotypes are the tools of their trade.

It's a tricky one aint'it?

[Comic (?) tangent: have you heard the term 'Lombard', used in advertising? An acronym for 'Lots Of Money But A Real Dickhead'. Ferrari drivers and so forth.]

I'm sometimes tempted to think in terms of 'the intelligentsia' (sp?) as one class, and 'everyone else' as the other. Does this seem at all realistic, being that thinking that way wouldn't stop people stealing cars or awarding themselves million pound bonuses while laying off workers?
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
13:43 / 14.01.02
I don't follow - the intellegentsia are surely not the same people as the "ruling class" - otherwise nothing would get done. Or is this a way to cut the cake to legitimise a distrust of education? What do you mean by "intelligentsia"?
 
 
Ethan Hawke
13:50 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Rain:
You're still bitter about that whole Pashtun thing, aren't you.

Naw, I don't hold grudges and I am generally a good tempered purrson. I just wonder sometimes what it would take for you to concede a point.

quote:
The point was nomenclature, and the way that it shapes perceptions. Try again.

This is a little too pointy-headed for me. Do you think people whose cars are stolen care whether the "criminal element" or the "criminal underclass" did it? Do you think the person who stole the car wonders whether or not they are an "element" of society or part of a paralell society comprised of waste elements?
quote:
Oh, and your second point is absurd. Toxic waste is a byproduct of industrial society which is kept separate from other elements of that society. Doesn't stop it being part of the process.

People are equivalent to toxic waste? Ye gods indeed.

[/QB][/QUOTE]
 
 
The Planet of Sound
14:02 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Rain:
I don't follow - the intellegentsia are surely not the same people as the "ruling class" - otherwise nothing would get done. Or is this a way to cut the cake to legitimise a distrust of education? What do you mean by "intelligentsia"?

Well, a/ I'm not sure if I'm even spelling it correctly and I'm more than aware of that irony and b/ not the ruling class, no, no, no...

Just an attempt to switch modes from my primordial 'upper/middle/lower class' mindset to another based on using intelligence as a heirarchical principle instead of wealth/property/'breeding' and so on. Not entirely serious though, Haus; please don't go having one of your little tizzies.

Maybe 'emotional intelligence' might be a better distinguishing factor. 'Hey, let's build a society where nice people are rewarded for their actions... It's a crazy idea but it might just work'. (gets nailed to tree.)
 
 
Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?
14:19 / 14.01.02
[b]I just wonder sometimes what it would take for you to concede a point.[b]

Well...somebody disproving it. It happens fairly frequently. But it generally takes a refutation or counterargument of some kind, rather than a claim that something is "too pointy-headed". That's not a failing in the argument, you see.

You're looking at it in too linear and synchronic a fashion. There are not two clubs - the Criminal Element Club and the Criminal Underclass Club. They are different ways of *looking* at the idea of "criminality", or of "criminal people". "Criminal underclass" is a comparatively recent coining, suggesting a separation - people who are defined by their criminality whether or not, in fact, they have committed a crime, by...well, by attitudes like Kasaru's - that people who look poor in a certain way are inevitably members of this "underclass". "Criminal element" is a parallel and older way of looking at a similar situation. The question raise, or one of them, was how this affects *perception*.
 
 
The Planet of Sound
14:35 / 14.01.02
I don't think the idea of a criminal underclass is any way a relatively recent phenomenon. Look at the disproved science of phrenology in the 19th century; developed initially so that the 'criminal classes' could be easily identified.

This:
http://www.worldfederalistscanada.org/olivetree.html

is interesting, by the by.
 
 
Ethan Hawke
14:39 / 14.01.02
My answer to that was this (expanded on a little):

Outside of the rarefied air of academia (indeed, some of the members of that club seem to be getting too little oxygen) and other members of the chattering classes, does one who gets his or her car stolen necessarily differentiate between whether or not the perpetrator of the crime was a member of the criminal element, or a member of the criminal underclass? The victim is simply the victim. And again, does the perpetrator of that crime spend a lot of time ruminating about whether he's part of a criminal element or criminal underclass?

Put another way, if this is, as you say, a question of perception, whose perception are we talking about, the people involved in the commission of a crime (the commission of which is necessary to differentiate between criminal and non-criminal members of society) or the perception of a privileged observer who might write a newspaper op-ed about it? If the perception of the op-ed writer is what you're talking about, then I fully concede your point. If the perception of people actually involved in the mode of social interaction known as a "crime" count, then I suspect your differentiation is meaningless.
 
 
The Planet of Sound
14:39 / 14.01.02
I don't think the idea of a criminal underclass is any way a relatively recent phenomenon. Look at the disproved science of phrenology in the 19th century; developed initially so that the 'criminal classes' could be easily identified.

This:
http://www.worldfederalistscanada.org/olivetree.html

is interesting for what it has to say about criminality and globalisation, by the by.
 
 
The Planet of Sound
14:40 / 14.01.02
Just to make that clear...
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:09 / 14.01.02
todd: the term 'criminal underclass' is not in the slightest dependent on Marxism. It is frequently deployed by the right. My proposed analysis was a structural one, which means it shares that basic feature with Marx's, but the conclusions I would draw are rather different and I don't have the baggage he did about the historical process or the nature of humanity. What I suspect you mean is that this is a hostile analysis of the situation, and it is. It's also genealogical in a rudimentary way. You can arrive at this conclusion with 'ordinary' (politically right) economics, but most people who practice those doctrines are paid not to uphold this kind of thinking. Not in a sinister way, just because that's their job.

A 'crime' is something society defines as a crime. Legal reality is controlled by consensus and control of armed force, the second theoretically derived from the first. If you re-read my proposal, you'll see that the 'crime' question is not strictly relevant. You'd do better to question the notion of class itself - which, increasingly, is hard to sustain - but unfortunately, this area is one of the few where it still makes sense.

And no, theft is not another form of comsumption. 'Theft' is an infraction of the rules of property (to stand Marx on his head). Money, consumption etc. all hinge on the notion of ownership and goods. Theft is the negation of normal (as defined) ownership relations.

The issue of what the victim (or the perpetrator) thinks is happening is not very important here. Structure is not necessarily immanent or open. In fact, perception generates the myths I was hoping we might diffuse.

karasu: like the man said, you need to think about the possibility that the society you live in creates the folks we're talking about. That's not to say they're not a bunch of dangerous hard-cases. It's just that there are reasons why they got that way, and the reason, ultimately, is that we put them in a situation where they didn't have mucy choice. So now we have to deal with them as they are.

It's a situation which applies from the impoverished areas of LA to Kabul and Somalia. They do lousy shit to us and we punish them for it; but we refuse to imagine that they exist in this state of anger and despite for what we are and how we live because that living creates the conditions in which they must survive.

Hint: it's going to get worse.
 
 
The Planet of Sound
15:28 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Nick:
todd:
It's just that there are reasons why they got that way, and the reason, ultimately, is that we put them in a situation where they didn't have mucy choice. So now we have to deal with them as they are.



I think there are also many other factors, nature as well as nurture. Some people simply are more inclined to violence, and thus violent crime, for example. Although, yes, I agree entirely with the argument that the number one cause of crime is poverty.

But... do some people bring about poverty on themselves through their habits/lack of imagination? I'm certainly skint at the moment, and my love of drink, drugs and eating out are no doubt contributing to that. Hmmmm...
 
 
autopilot disengaged
15:47 / 14.01.02
seems to me that, rather than dealing with distinct individuals who have committed proven acts, 'criminal underclass' applies to an entire strata of men, women and children - which is where it gets really extra objectionable - suddenly we are confronted with a breeding-ground for society's predetermined enemies.

i think the point about whether people who have just comitted a crime consider themselves part of an underclass or not misses the point that, by and large, they're not invited to the debate. the 'underclass' is, almost by definition, an entity posited - from above - by people who see themselves as very much part of society. it's not a badge anyone is choosing to wear. it's a diagnosis, and maybe, in some cases, as kids get institutionalized and neglected - a life sentence.

i guess my essential point is that, however problematic, 'criminal' is essentially a legal term. 'criminal underclass' takes this from the context of an individual's actions and damns them in advance.

the really creepy thing about it is that it takes the advances made in social sciences - exploring how the forces that work on an individual may shape their actions etc - and uses it against them. acknowledging that 'criminals', at least to some degree, are products of society - but rather than treating them as symptoms of a sick system, (purposefully) scapegoating them as the disease itself.

classic reactionary tactics.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:16 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by The Planet of Sound:
But... do some people bring about poverty on themselves through their habits/lack of imagination? I'm certainly skint at the moment, and my love of drink, drugs and eating out are no doubt contributing to that.

Jesus wept.

Please tell me that's some sort of idle jest and not a serious comment?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
16:39 / 14.01.02
Yes, my Pixies-addicted interlocutor, some people do indeed bring poverty, ill-fortune, and occasionally violent retaliation upon themselves through random acts of senseless spending and carelessness.

However, if you think about it for long enough to type this sentence, you will realise that that hardly accounts for a whole class. That's about a tiny percentage of the 'underclass' at any given time.

Equally, yes, some people may be more predisposed to violence. That also has no bearing on the argument - if you're not in the underclass, your violent tendencies are more likely to get sublimated or suppressed, or even just not actualised. Any borderline sociopathic behaviour is likely to be rewarded if you are, for example, a lawyer or city trader. (Recent research bears that out, by the way).
 
 
Ethan Hawke
17:44 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Nick:
todd: the term 'criminal underclass' is not in the slightest dependent on Marxism. It is frequently deployed by the right. My proposed analysis was a structural one, which means it shares that basic feature with Marx's, but the conclusions I would draw are rather different and I don't have the baggage he did about the historical process or the nature of humanity.

First,I would suggest that the "right" has appropriated the terminology and indeed methodology of Marxist inspired sociology to come up with perjorative labels for behavior they wish to censure, so "criminal underclass" indeed has a Marxist Legacy. This is recuperation at its most basic, where tools to subvert ruling power arrangements are appropriated by the powers themselves.

Second, I think it is disingenuous for you to claim that your analysis of the situation has nothing to do with Marx when, as you admit, it shares with him a (broadly) structural explanation of economic stratification and the institutions built around it to sustain that stratification. Isn't that political economy in a nutshell? The language of culture wars that you use in your original post notwithstanding, what you've essentially invented is isomorphic with Marx.

Coupled with Haus's dumbing down of your thesis into...

quote:would suggest that you look at Nick's suggestion that the "Criminal Underclass" are a waste product of the consumer society - a necessary and sustainable consequence of western capitalism.

...which positively reeks of Marxism.

I feel the need to take issue, as I've developed an aversion to Marxist social theory, though I will not deny it's effectiveness as one of many tools in an analytical toolbox. However, when using this tool is it easy to see that, like most pseudoscience, aspects of it are overdetermined and not falsifiable.
quote:
A 'crime' is something society defines as a crime. Legal reality is controlled by consensus and control of armed force, the second theoretically derived from the first. If you re-read my proposal, you'll see that the 'crime' question is not strictly relevant. You'd do better to question the notion of class itself - which, increasingly, is hard to sustain - but unfortunately, this area is one of the few where it still makes sense.

So,um, perhaps to oversimplify, what you are trying to say is that anything done by this "criminal underclass" is a crime, and nothing not done by them is a crime? Am I almost following this?

[ 14-01-2002: Message edited by: just todd ]
 
 
The Planet of Sound
18:09 / 14.01.02
quote:Originally posted by autopilot disengaged:

i think the point about whether people who have just comitted a crime consider themselves part of an underclass or not misses the point that, by and large, they're not invited to the debate. the 'underclass' is, almost by definition, an entity posited - from above - by people who see themselves as very much part of society. it's not a badge anyone is choosing to wear.

classic reactionary tactics.

Mordant: yes, I am an idle jester. And I am also skint because I've spent too much money in the last month.

Autopilot: I absolutely agree that a stereotypical member of the 'underclass' would not be invited to the debate (and probably wouldn't wish to come; talking's for cissys and toffs, after all), but badges, badges... If I overhear a man in a puffer jacket and baseball cap bragging about the beating he's given someone recently, is he not endorsing a set of values, in the same way that a man wearing a monocle and a cravat and talking about Oscar Wilde might be endorsing other values? You only need to explore 'gangster' culture slightly to realise that many confirmed criminals do hold counter-cultural values dear; theft, extortion, violent crime. They posit their own position as members of a 'culture' with distinct codes (the words 'cosa nostra' spring to mind) of which they are often, in fact, intensely proud. How do you explain gangsta rap lyrics in your world where nobody is proud to wear badges of criminality?
 
 
The Planet of Sound
18:14 / 14.01.02
And Nick, yes, read the same stuff about sociopathic behaviour in city boys (one of my pet hates) and have mentioned my support for the term criminal overclass earlier. I've also worked with a number of psychopathic managing directors over the years.
 
 
Ierne
18:31 / 14.01.02
...in the same way that a man wearing a monocle and a cravat and talking about Oscar Wilde might be endorsing other values? – The Planet of Sound

Must we bring bohemians into this? My head's already spinning...
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:55 / 14.01.02
Sorry, sorry, P.o.S. and people- went off half-cocked back there (just for a change ) Just felt that the post in question suggested an extrapolation too far.

[ 14-01-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
19:06 / 14.01.02
Ah, I dunno Mordant, I thought you were well within your rights meself. I'm going to have to go and have to lie down again myself until the urge to break into Planet of Sound's house and shit in his front room (wearing a baseball cap, naturally) subsides.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
19:06 / 14.01.02
todd, your dislike of Marxism does not give you the right to chuck out anything with a similar toolbox. Structural analysis is fairly neutral, though incomplete, and dependent on how many factors you allow for.

Falsifiability is a nonsense in the context of social theory and politics. Lose it.

quote:what you are trying to say is that anything done by this "criminal underclass" is a crime, and nothing not done by them is a crime? Am I almost following this?No. You're not. I'll try again.

Crime is a term of law. So anything defined by those with power to make laws is a crime, whether that is just or not. Take the poll tax here as an example: non-payment was a crime, though the tax was unjust, and a criminal group was created overnight. That group was violently suppressed more than once.

'crime' means 'action stigmatised by political action backed by force' or something along those lines.
 
 
alas
19:16 / 14.01.02
quote:You only need to explore 'gangster' culture
slightly to realise that many confirmed criminals do hold counter-cultural values dear

I'm probably a fool for trying to enter this debate (which strikes me as masculine dominated, but I'm just guessing, working from outdated gender-stereotypes, but whatever . . . )

First, surely the appeal of the bandit is old, and pretty culturally widespread--pulling one over on a corrupt regime: think of Robin Hood, the tales of the Underground Railroad, facilitating the illegal escapes of fugitive slaves from the US South, the illegal actions of persons opposed to the fascist/nazi regimes in Europe . . . to name just a few. Along with less clearly "moral" resistence to laws--the appeal of Jesse James, Butch Cassady and the Sundance Kid as fictional characters, the ability to avoid paying your full amount of tax by working a loophole that clearly goes against the spirit of the tax. These all have "counter cultural" criminal appeal, for a variety of differing groups. So one central question here is: do you think the culture, as a whole, is generally moral or do you think it's generally fucked? And what does its relative stated of fucked-upedness mean for ethical behavior?

I don't condone acts of violence, by the Taliban or the hoods, but I know that it's not because my "nature" is so superior to those folks that I didn't become a criminal. It's because I have the color of skin and the ethnic background that virtually every part of society is trained to view with respect, and in a positive light. I walk into a grocery store, even with a long trenchcoat and backpack on, and people don't think: hmmm, better keep an eye on that one ....

And, yes, I'm coming at this question from the US, and as someone who is an academic--but please don't write off my ideas just yet. And whose life has been relatively "free" of violent crime--the odd bicycle stolen, etc. Ok, I'm privileged.

But I've worked a great deal on 19th century social history--especially the roots of social services--foster care, etc. The term underclass did arrive in the late nineteenth century (although I note that the OED's first entry dates to 1918). I trace the term more to social Darwinism--Spencerianism than to Marxism. In fact, I'd almost put money that it came out of a kind of pseudo eugenics approach to criminality (which I'm hearing strains of here) than a structural analysis of social and economic forces.

quote: ... theft, extortion, violent crime. They posit their own position as members of a 'culture' with distinct codes (the words 'cosa nostra' spring to mind) of which they are often, in fact, intensely proud. How do you explain gangsta rap lyrics in your world
where nobody is proud to wear badges of criminality?

This is a complex topic. My advice: Read John Wideman's BROTHERS AND KEEPERS: Wideman is an award-winning novelist, former Rhodes scholar, his brother is serving a life sentence in a US prison. The book does a great job of showing the complexity of these issues. Again, in the US, black men are more likely to go to jail than to college. While it is possible in some social darwinistic world that they are just "more deviant" than white folks--and it holds true regardless of the amount of "genetic" "white" material they have, so long as they "look black." But why pay attention to those kinds of details, why pay attention to the history of colonialism and slavery that both Britain and the US profited enormously from--the way it set up the system as more immoral than acting against it, for certain members of the society? A slave was owned: stealing a loaf of bread was a weird way of keeping his owner's property in "repair."

Slavery and colonization were/are, for my money, "high class" forms of STEALING. The major theft in this world is the one that creates 10 billionaires who control more wealth than the 48 poorest countries combined. That system is so fucked up, that I simply find it hard to view terms like "underclass" as much more than a way to take our attention away from the real criminals, the criminal overclass I mentioned above, and keep all of us divided. Even if we're making $150,000/year were much closer to the most impoverished among us than we are to the people with real wealth and power. But its certainly in the interests of those who have wealth to keep us futilely identifying our interests with theirs, rather than with those "cockroaches" below us . . .

ok, this is turning into a rant. didn't mean to. I'm close to a good number of people who have done time or who have family members doing time--largely African American. It's an arbitrary and systemically racist system. I find it hard to blame the individuals for deciding "fuck the system: it's stacked against me; I don't want to be an Uncle Tom; they think I'm a criminal ANYWAY; why bother trying to play the man's game--no way I'll make it to the top, anyway. You can only go as high as they're holding the dog treat up for you to jump for." Sure, I'd rather they worked for political change, but our system is so owned by the Enron's of the world, it's hard for me not to despair . . .

sigh.
 
 
Ierne
19:29 / 14.01.02
The major theft in this world is the one that creates 10 billionaires who control more wealth than the 48 poorest countries combined. That system is so fucked up, that I simply find it hard to view terms like "underclass" as much more than a way to take our attention away from the real criminals...Even if we're making $150,000/year, we're much closer to the most impoverished among us than we are to the people with real wealth and power. But it's certainly in the interests of those who have wealth to keep us futilely identifying our interests with theirs, rather than with those "cockroaches" below us... – alas

Thank you.
 
 
MJ-12
20:20 / 14.01.02
Close, but the $150K thing is way off base. The crime isn't that wealth is concentrated, but that so many people live in real poverty. If one person controlled more than everyone else, but everyone else lived at the $150K level, fuck -- if everyone else was adequately clothed, sheltered, fed, educated and could live without fear of someone coming and hacking them up with a machete or dropping a bomb on them, and just maybe had the opportunity to advance towards that $150K, I'd say the people in charge were doing a pretty fucking good job and deserved every penny.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
20:40 / 14.01.02
Just wanted to say to alas and MJ-12:

Thanks.
 
 
The Planet of Sound
08:27 / 15.01.02
Yep, thanks for joining the debate Alas; good stuff on the rise of the term 'underclass'. Nice rant also. I would point you towards your own lack of experience with day-to-day violent crime, however, (and pray to God it never happens to you) and point out that individual's value systems really can be shaken by such experiences. 'There are no atheists in foxholes', and I'd be tempted to say that most people who have just been mugged, assaulted or raped will at least temporarily lose their liberal attitudes. A recent episode of 'The Sopranos' explored this dilemma extremely well, with the psychiatrist character considering having the man who raped her 'whacked' by Tony, even though it went against everything she believed in, and it exposed her hypocrisy (in that she was trying to 'cure' Tony of his violent lifestyle). Good old TV, always makes you think...
 
 
passer
12:36 / 15.01.02
quote:Originally posted by The Planet of Sound:
I would point you towards your own lack of experience with day-to-day violent crime, however, (and pray to God it never happens to you) and point out that individual's value systems really can be shaken by such experiences. 'There are no atheists in foxholes', and I'd be tempted to say that most people who have just been mugged, assaulted or raped will at least temporarily lose their liberal attitudes.

I am loathe to think that experiencing a violent crime is in any way going to make you more of an expert on the subject matter of criminals. It's not exactly something any one would call educational. Traumatic experences do, however, provide a decent excuse for discrimination. Which is why I hate all white, rich, and straight people. Fuckers...
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:01 / 15.01.02
At the risk of reopening old wounds...

Flyboy - agree or disagree?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:16 / 15.01.02
With what? I'm writing a response to some of Planet's earlier stuff, but I definitely agree with this statement:

quote:Traumatic experences do, however, provide a decent excuse for discrimination.

You can't blame people for feeling nothing but angry with the individuals who cause them harm and/or grief. However, dubious mass generalisations which lump together a certain group of people with the perpetrators of this crime (or indeed often merely the alleged or suspected perpetrators of the crime) on the basis of entirely tangential, arbitray and circumstantial secondary characteristics that they may share (eg, being Muslims, or wearing baseball caps and puffa jackets) - that's something else entirely. You need look no further than some of the responses to September 11 for examples of this.

Oh, and Planet of Sound's "ever had your car stolen?" line of debate appeals only to our worst instincts, I think, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth to say the least.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:43 / 15.01.02
quote:You can't blame people for feeling nothing but angry with the individuals who cause them harm and/or grief. However, dubious mass generalisations which lump together a certain group of people with the perpetrators of this crime (or indeed often merely the alleged or suspected perpetrators of the crime) on the basis of entirely tangential, arbitray and circumstantial secondary characteristics that they may share (eg, being Muslims, or wearing baseball caps and puffa jackets) - that's something else entirely.Interesting. With that in mind, you might want to reread some of your statements about the Police in the aftermath of the demonstration you attended and the negative experiences you had there.

[ 15-01-2002: Message edited by: Nick ]
 
 
Ethan Hawke
14:46 / 15.01.02
quote:Originally posted by Flyboy:

Oh, and Planet of Sound's "ever had your car stolen?" line of debate appeals only to our worst instincts, I think, and leaves a bad taste in the mouth to say the least.

I don't know if I would quite say "worst" instincts. They are quite natural instincts, as human life, even for the more comfortable among us is "[too] nasty, brutish, and short," and whenever any of the commodities to fulfill our needs are somehow inexplicably taken away, as in a random car theft or an act of god (or god stealing your car), there is a human reaction to rail at the unjustness of the situation and try to find some narrative scheme into which it makes sense.

Which is the same process gone through, one might venture, by the members of "the criminal underclass." Ever meet a self-defined "rebel" or "criminal?" Being a criminal is the only narrative that makes sense in their lives. Whether or not this is because their situation is a byproduct of consumer society is irrelevant; it is a process of individuation that fits neatly into any sort of macro-theory you'd want to form, and indeed, I think is more responsive to the network of human desires that make up individual and ultimately group identity.

Now, structural analysis's like Nick's might used to point to a part of society that can be altered in someway in order to alleviate the suffering of the "criminal underclass"? But will this change the fact that these people are human, and therefore subject to same petty as well as major disappointments and tragedies in life? What I'm trying to say is, is their anyway of getting rid of these "worst" instincts?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:50 / 15.01.02
quote:it is a process of individuation that fits neatly into any sort of macro-theory you'd want to form, and indeed, I think is more responsive to the network of human desires that make up individual and ultimately group identity.
Now, structural analysis's like Nick's might used to point to a part of society that can be altered in someway in order to alleviate the suffering of the "criminal underclass"?How curious. You juxtapose these notions, yet I'm hard pressed to find a difference; 'network of human desires etc.' and 'structural forces' are probably differing perspectives on the same thing. I'd never characterise those forces as 'impersonal' - I think that's an idea from the early 1900s and I'm not about to propose it. Perhaps I should have emphasised that I'm not divorcing individual motivation from structure - neither exists without the other, in fact they are each other, seen at different magnifications.

quote:is their anyway of getting rid of these "worst" instincts?Perhaps not. But it is surely possible to take decisions which increase the degree to which they achieve prominence - such as by disenfranchising large chunks of a society. And it may be possible to discourage them, as well.

Certainly, anyone wishing to make a claim to some form of social conscience needs to keep an eye on them...and on the structural forces which are derived from (and which form) individual motivations, which in turn create arenas and opportunities for good and bad practice.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
17:00 / 15.01.02
Should we perhaps begin again?

This thread posited certain questions about class. It’s been diverted into an argument abou the erm ‘criminal underclass’. If we can agree that we’re happy for the thread to continue so, then the point I’d resurrect is that the term ‘criminal underclass’ was coined by the same people who coined the term ‘political correctness’. And for the same reasons.

If you want to talk about the terms themselves, then that historical rendering of the argument is vital. In the ‘political correctness’ argument we had in the Conversation a few weeks ago, it was considered by many to be ‘QED’. However, if reclassifying a term is what you’re after, then this thread has more merit than simply differentiating between our separate and divisible experiences of said ‘criminal underclass’, whether those experiences lie along the lines of personal ‘my car got nicked/I got mugged’ post-trauma knee-jerking, or more erudite, but no more reflexive positioning over definitions of class, and bringing Marxism into it.

Just because Marx posited an argument around the notion of class, and came a large way towards contributing towards current Western idea of class (which I’m not entirely sure is not a juxtaposition of hilarious connotation), does not mean that he’s a sacred text in need of wooden defending or iconoclastic rendering. Like any theorist, the man had a few ideas, is all. We can mention them, or ignore them – but to iconise them from whichever standpoint is to fail to address the fact that ‘it was a long time ago, and in another country’. In other words, things change, and our way of addressing said things must also change in order to remain meaningful in a current context.

It’s the term ‘underclass’ which always pisses people off, whether it’s due to a ‘right-on’ standpoint, or an identifying standpoint (‘I feel constrained by such a term’ . The prefix of ‘under’ presupposes an ‘over’, and therefore, according to traditional and tabloid ways of viewing status, an inferior/superior relationship.

‘Criminals’ steal cars. Yes. As Nick says, the definition of the term ‘criminals’ is one created and maintained by those who create and maintain law. This is something that has changed over time and circumstance. And will continue to do so. War legitimises murder. This is something we’re so used to that, in many cases, we don’t even try to argue it anymore. It’s a matter of actual circumstance being refracted by legal circumstance, to become truth. Theft is wrong, unless it’s appropriation by right, in which case it’s legal? No. ‘Legal’ should not define ‘right’. It’s the same principle as ‘might’ defining’ ‘right’.

quote:Originally posted by Old Nick:
And no, theft is not another form of consumption. 'Theft' is an infraction of the rules of property (to stand Marx on his head). Money, consumption etc. all hinge on the notion of ownership and goods. Theft is the negation of normal (as defined) ownership relations…

The only rule of property that is in any way realistic is ‘possession is 9/10 of the matter’ (I won’t say 'the law'). In applying notions of ownership, you become a consumer. It doesn’t matter if those notions of ownership are backed up by legal title. Theft is not the negation of ownership relations, but the reapplication of previously applied ownership relations. What Was Yours Is Now Mine. A thief who has his stolen property stolen considers it theft as much as his original victim did.

And sleaze: to consider the idea that ‘most car theft is performed by car thieves’ as is to generalise on identity in a horribly twee manner…

I lied to my boss about the reason I wasn’t coming into work yesterday. Does that make me a liar?

I just broke my ex-girlfriend’s heart. Does that make me a heartbreaker?

I’m late to go see my girlfriend. Does that make me unreliable?

To say that most of anything is performed by most of anyone is a generalisation as worrying as the mindset that came up with the idea of a ‘criminal underclass’ as a means of segregating and criminalizing those that ‘they’ considered to be ‘lower class’. Hence my assertion that statistics were dreamed up by bastards to make bastards out of us all.
 
  

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