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I don't know how many other people saw what passed for a documentary on Monday at 9pm on Sky 1 in the UK, a Times journalist called Julie Burchill who wants to live in Tel Aviv, deep fry the Palestinians, earns £250K P/A and identifies herself with the "people" went on an uninformed rampage in an attempt to defend the rise of the chavs. For the uninitiated, chavs are the heirs to the skinheads, as one of her guests described them "feckless, ill-educated white people with no style". I have a subtle disagreement with the more hostile definitions which I hope my piece will describe. I sent a copy of this to the Times "letters to the editor" section, one to Burchill herself and one to the webmaster of chavscum.co.uk.
I had no sleep and I thought it might pass the time. Enjoy!
***
Having seen a few adverts for the programme, I was curious to see Burchill’s defence of Chavs and their apparent rise. Expecting a reasonable, cogent use of logic in an intelligent discussion, I was sadly disappointed to see instead an unprofessional display of ad hominems, strawmen and other fallacies, not to mention poor research and a biased choice of guests that is unbecoming of a journalist at the Times, the Guardian, or any respectable newspaper that would supposedly employ writers of the highest integrity.
I have been inspired to write by offensively flawed logic and a display of amateur sociology that frankly I think rather dangerous. On the other hand, when presenting a documentary I would start by being unbiased, not by wearing a Burberry miniskirt. Burchill and I have one thing in common there; neither of us are slim enough to pull that one off!
Firstly, in Burchill’s piece we note that her definition of Chav is peculiar; to her it seems that it would include the likes of Mozart, the teddy boys, and various other historical sub-cultures. Furthermore, she uses the term Chav and working class interchangeably, which suggests that to her, if you are working class, you are automatically a Chav. Indeed, if you are a teddy boy, a Victorian vegetable merchant or an 18th century composer, or more relevantly; any member of a subculture of working class origin, then you are also a Chav. This is absurd for two reasons. Firstly is that groups such as Skinheads, Mods, and the like were all self-identifying, that is to say that these groups identified themselves by those terms, so to sit back in 2005 and call them Chav seems somewhat revisionist. Further to this is the second problem, which is that the wider you make a term, the less meaning it has. If we were to say that Chav = working class, which I think is primarily Burchill’s contention, then any possibility of dealing with Chavs within the context of the working class is disrupted, and presumably she would argue that any member of the working class that does not demonstrate Chav attributes is an anomaly.
This is self-contradictory if you consider other working class subcultures, historical and current, to have their own identity separate from Burberry-clad, Platypus hatted, petty-crime associated Chavs. I contend that the likes of punks, skaters and whatever the modern beatniks might call themselves would certainly take issue with being defined as such
In this regard she also fails to account for the factors that most people undoubtedly see as synonymous with Chavdom – petty violence, loutish behaviour and thuggery, vandalism, disruptive students and a poor aptitude for the spoken word (the written word naturally takes the form of spray paint and brick walls). This she seems to confirm herself with a reference to the aspirations of Chavs being not education, work and self-betterment, but simply having fun.
So now Burchill has constructed her argument to be a defence of the working class against… what exactly? It seems to me that she is not presenting a defence against any specific attack rather than a reassurance against the perception of one; hence the chaotic jumble of axioms she has used in the documentary and articles including “sluttish, money-grubbing, middle-class hacks”, “sterile white bourgeoisie”, and the rest that seem to convey an image of an oppressive plagiaristic middle class denigrating the working classes whenever they have money and stealing their style. Where is the evidence for this? I would surely be forgiven for ignoring the anecdotal evidence of her own subjective opinion, that of a star on “Wife Swap” and a 4’9” female MC (can’t remember her name but I’m sure it was asinine and pretentious) who sounds like a prepubescent Rod Stewart. Rapping. Badly.
It would of course be foolish to deny that middle class elitism exists, but is this really surprising considering the gangs of youths in Burberry caps vandalising and terrorising otherwise peaceful areas? I live close to an old-people’s home and the damage to the buildings is apparently rising year on year – with such mindless acts in mind it is understandable that hostility would be created. I see no evidence presented by Burchill that this is representative, or a necessary consequence of the meeting of working class and middle class that she needs to prove in order to make her argument. Put simply, there is nothing to universalise her claim, we cannot take it seriously until she rectifies this or concedes.
This brings us on to another point. While youth subcultures may have their beginnings in a particular socio-economic group they often spread and transcend class and economy. What of working class Goths, or middle class Chavs? What of embourgeoisment blurring the lines between the classes, such that sociologists since the 1950’s and 1960’s have been able to make the argument that class in this respect no longer exists? It is becoming increasingly difficult to speak of middle class oppression of the working classes with a straight face.
Burchill’s inability to distinguish between the working class, whatever that may be, and Chavs as a specific youth subculture has a darker side to my mind, beyond conceptual masturbation and critical pedantry and it comes back to my observation earlier of her reference to the ambitions of Chavdom as “having fun”, as opposed to education, careers, employment. This attitude seems to be presented against supposed middle class virtues of intellectual enlightenment, successful careers and financial self-sufficiency, and then she proceeds to defend her working class idyll? To advance her own revisionist, nostalgic and woefully inadequate view of class struggle over the benefits of education and employment? Can she be serious? Perhaps she would do me the honour of clarifying her position; it seems a consequence of her argument so fantastically ludicrous that I feel I am risking the creation of a strawman simply by stating it!
To espouse “having fun” and not explore that further is another mistake. I see a generation of great abandon and suffering, we as a society are consuming more anti-depressants than ever, increasingly by young people. Sexual health is equally abysmal and behind it there is the dark, self-perpetuating backdrop of abuse, violence, and misery. Children learn not by reason and rationality, but by observation and rote; so it would more befit a writer of Burchill’s calibre if she were to expend the considerable journalistic resources at her disposal in exploring the suffering in young people’s lives that cause them to engage in criminal or intimidating behaviour. By defending this aspect of Chavdom and judging people on the basis of class instead of character and narrative, Burchill will do these people a great disservice.
I think the wisest course of action for Burchill herself would be to seriously rethink her own opinions. I will not fall to her level of ad hominem, such as claiming that the middle class are composed of “whores” and men who “download barnyard porn behind locked doors”, but on a personal level as I see her arguments, it speaks of a person perhaps felt excluded from her working class roots by the exercise of her intellectual talents. Certainly to be working for the Guardian, then the Times, and then speaking up for guests on her programme who ostensibly by their own admission can’t be bothered to work, seems to indicate an emotive incentive to make this argument.
To be excluded from a group one admires when young is a terrible trauma for anyone and may have the consequence of creating a stubborn exponent of that group or the concepts behind it when older; never mind the rights and wrongs, the harm and the good of the subject at hand. I would not be well placed to say that this definitely applies to her, but the quality of logic she has used is indicative of someone who needs to step back, take a deep breath, and a GNVQ in Media Studies.
I had no sleep and I thought it might pass the time. Enjoy!
***
Having seen a few adverts for the programme, I was curious to see Burchill’s defence of Chavs and their apparent rise. Expecting a reasonable, cogent use of logic in an intelligent discussion, I was sadly disappointed to see instead an unprofessional display of ad hominems, strawmen and other fallacies, not to mention poor research and a biased choice of guests that is unbecoming of a journalist at the Times, the Guardian, or any respectable newspaper that would supposedly employ writers of the highest integrity.
I have been inspired to write by offensively flawed logic and a display of amateur sociology that frankly I think rather dangerous. On the other hand, when presenting a documentary I would start by being unbiased, not by wearing a Burberry miniskirt. Burchill and I have one thing in common there; neither of us are slim enough to pull that one off!
Firstly, in Burchill’s piece we note that her definition of Chav is peculiar; to her it seems that it would include the likes of Mozart, the teddy boys, and various other historical sub-cultures. Furthermore, she uses the term Chav and working class interchangeably, which suggests that to her, if you are working class, you are automatically a Chav. Indeed, if you are a teddy boy, a Victorian vegetable merchant or an 18th century composer, or more relevantly; any member of a subculture of working class origin, then you are also a Chav. This is absurd for two reasons. Firstly is that groups such as Skinheads, Mods, and the like were all self-identifying, that is to say that these groups identified themselves by those terms, so to sit back in 2005 and call them Chav seems somewhat revisionist. Further to this is the second problem, which is that the wider you make a term, the less meaning it has. If we were to say that Chav = working class, which I think is primarily Burchill’s contention, then any possibility of dealing with Chavs within the context of the working class is disrupted, and presumably she would argue that any member of the working class that does not demonstrate Chav attributes is an anomaly.
This is self-contradictory if you consider other working class subcultures, historical and current, to have their own identity separate from Burberry-clad, Platypus hatted, petty-crime associated Chavs. I contend that the likes of punks, skaters and whatever the modern beatniks might call themselves would certainly take issue with being defined as such
In this regard she also fails to account for the factors that most people undoubtedly see as synonymous with Chavdom – petty violence, loutish behaviour and thuggery, vandalism, disruptive students and a poor aptitude for the spoken word (the written word naturally takes the form of spray paint and brick walls). This she seems to confirm herself with a reference to the aspirations of Chavs being not education, work and self-betterment, but simply having fun.
So now Burchill has constructed her argument to be a defence of the working class against… what exactly? It seems to me that she is not presenting a defence against any specific attack rather than a reassurance against the perception of one; hence the chaotic jumble of axioms she has used in the documentary and articles including “sluttish, money-grubbing, middle-class hacks”, “sterile white bourgeoisie”, and the rest that seem to convey an image of an oppressive plagiaristic middle class denigrating the working classes whenever they have money and stealing their style. Where is the evidence for this? I would surely be forgiven for ignoring the anecdotal evidence of her own subjective opinion, that of a star on “Wife Swap” and a 4’9” female MC (can’t remember her name but I’m sure it was asinine and pretentious) who sounds like a prepubescent Rod Stewart. Rapping. Badly.
It would of course be foolish to deny that middle class elitism exists, but is this really surprising considering the gangs of youths in Burberry caps vandalising and terrorising otherwise peaceful areas? I live close to an old-people’s home and the damage to the buildings is apparently rising year on year – with such mindless acts in mind it is understandable that hostility would be created. I see no evidence presented by Burchill that this is representative, or a necessary consequence of the meeting of working class and middle class that she needs to prove in order to make her argument. Put simply, there is nothing to universalise her claim, we cannot take it seriously until she rectifies this or concedes.
This brings us on to another point. While youth subcultures may have their beginnings in a particular socio-economic group they often spread and transcend class and economy. What of working class Goths, or middle class Chavs? What of embourgeoisment blurring the lines between the classes, such that sociologists since the 1950’s and 1960’s have been able to make the argument that class in this respect no longer exists? It is becoming increasingly difficult to speak of middle class oppression of the working classes with a straight face.
Burchill’s inability to distinguish between the working class, whatever that may be, and Chavs as a specific youth subculture has a darker side to my mind, beyond conceptual masturbation and critical pedantry and it comes back to my observation earlier of her reference to the ambitions of Chavdom as “having fun”, as opposed to education, careers, employment. This attitude seems to be presented against supposed middle class virtues of intellectual enlightenment, successful careers and financial self-sufficiency, and then she proceeds to defend her working class idyll? To advance her own revisionist, nostalgic and woefully inadequate view of class struggle over the benefits of education and employment? Can she be serious? Perhaps she would do me the honour of clarifying her position; it seems a consequence of her argument so fantastically ludicrous that I feel I am risking the creation of a strawman simply by stating it!
To espouse “having fun” and not explore that further is another mistake. I see a generation of great abandon and suffering, we as a society are consuming more anti-depressants than ever, increasingly by young people. Sexual health is equally abysmal and behind it there is the dark, self-perpetuating backdrop of abuse, violence, and misery. Children learn not by reason and rationality, but by observation and rote; so it would more befit a writer of Burchill’s calibre if she were to expend the considerable journalistic resources at her disposal in exploring the suffering in young people’s lives that cause them to engage in criminal or intimidating behaviour. By defending this aspect of Chavdom and judging people on the basis of class instead of character and narrative, Burchill will do these people a great disservice.
I think the wisest course of action for Burchill herself would be to seriously rethink her own opinions. I will not fall to her level of ad hominem, such as claiming that the middle class are composed of “whores” and men who “download barnyard porn behind locked doors”, but on a personal level as I see her arguments, it speaks of a person perhaps felt excluded from her working class roots by the exercise of her intellectual talents. Certainly to be working for the Guardian, then the Times, and then speaking up for guests on her programme who ostensibly by their own admission can’t be bothered to work, seems to indicate an emotive incentive to make this argument.
To be excluded from a group one admires when young is a terrible trauma for anyone and may have the consequence of creating a stubborn exponent of that group or the concepts behind it when older; never mind the rights and wrongs, the harm and the good of the subject at hand. I would not be well placed to say that this definitely applies to her, but the quality of logic she has used is indicative of someone who needs to step back, take a deep breath, and a GNVQ in Media Studies.
My bad I was being indistinct... the skinheads in this area were apparently pretty awful during the 80's... nowadays they're all Chavs/townies.
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