Monday, January 30, 2006

apologize or else

apologize or else

So I just read "Is it just me or is everything s**t" by a couple
of Working Class Neros called Lowe and Mcarthur. Quite a musing and a few gems, but it does harp on every now and then about toffs - a couple of comments on rich rock stars gives away the fact that these blokes (contributers to Q magazine and ex _students_) suffer from inverse snobbery and working-class-cred-envy problems

so I read the history of the english working classes and other romantic writings of EP Thompson as much as the next middleclass overeducated geek-class-warrior, but frankly, since the begining of the 20th century, I don't buy that the working class has achieved a whole lot on behalf of anyone else in Blighty - in fact, there's precious little of it left since 60 years of decent free education and healthcare - sure there's an underclass, but pretty much anyone else from Builder to barworker has some aspirations and stuff that simply don't fit the mould.

And what else?

A list of things actually middleclass kids (like the sex pistols are really) did for us:
Rock Music (aside from bits stolen from african-american liberated slaves
Logevity
Anti-racism
Women's liberation
Decent rock festivals and raves

stuff I think is destructive, hypocritical, rubbish and is white english trash product:
Class war/crass
racism
oppression of women and violence
street death
poor personal hygiene

I come from a mixed bag of yorkshire working class and posh - I don't have pride in either class - only in indovidual ancestors who were admirable. I think that people that do have class loyalty are tantamount to people with race loyalty - they have one big problem, and I would happily throw then in the river and drop all my old bicycles on top of them.