More often than not, I keep finding myself having to address ‘problems’ which are, essentially (predominantly white) middle class problems, aka diluted enough and devoid of nuance enough to be on a BBC radio discussion or for dinner party conversation. These are serious issues which are not given the consideration they deserve and, annoyingly, are starting to dominate my blog. As I would rather be, and am, writing about other stuff, to celebrate the (apparently) anniversary of my Blog (thank you WordPress for informing me) I am going to do something a little different. In 2015 Bob Dylan released his first ‘American Songbook’ album, followed by one the next year followed by a triple cd set (imaginatively called Triplicate) of individual albums released as one set. In that spirit, to celebrate (yeah, I don’t care either) I am going to do likewise and present a three-piece set of what all seem to be middle class problems (predominantly white). Enjoy!
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Bang Bang, You Shot Me Down
There are 4.8 million people in Ireland and that number keeps Dublin.
One very popular issue for the affluent white middle class is animal welfare and rights. I have previously spoken about how this issue is not as simplistic as it might seem given the complex economics realities, for example if one was to stop cold turkey (pun intended) then the economic fallout would be terrible throughout the world as many small economies are built around, for example, the procurement of leather for sale to the rich white middle classes. And as this previously highlighted, if people can’t care for the same species, what chance is there for those of different species?
A friend of mine likes to tell me about his guns and hunting and how different guns do different things. My initial response was Pavlovian ‘hunting…bad…’ but then I started thinking about it. Which is more unethical? Going out and killing a deer to cut up and feed someone for a few months (preserved by smoking, freezing, salting etc) or going to a supermarket and seeing a ton of chickens being thrown away as no one deemed their bodies worthy of being eaten? I noticed that some of my objections to hunting may be BS (pun, again, intended, sorry) for there are ethical ways to do almost all things including the slaughter of humans past their use-by date, euthanasia, which in the film Soylent Green led to a new form of food for a staving world (Ocean’s dying, plankton’s dying… it’s people. Soylent Green is made out of people)
Worse things happen to animals than hunting. One of my favourite childhood books was The Animals of Farthing Wood. It is the tale of animals which have to leave Farthing Wood as it is being concreted over to build house for the affluent white middle class. Luckily the animals know of a nature reserve where they can go (made by man) after a terrible long journey.
This highlights two problems. 1) the biggest danger to animals is their habitats and eco-systems being destroyed to give people somewhere to sit around and discuss the ethics of veganism and b) many animals have been domesticated either directly, such as cattle and pets or indirectly, in nature reserves simulating ‘real’ life.
The best thing for animals would be if we would shuffle off, make ourselves into soylent green to feed the animals but given as how far we have destroyed the wildness of the animals it will take many generations for them to adapt back anyway, as how most of their natural habitats have been destroyed they wouldn’t have a place to go.
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Serious Issues For Serious Minds
Upon the release of Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List, a film about a German saving Jewish workers from being sent to the concentration camps and, probably, death, he received a great deal of backlash from the likes of the critic Theodor Adorno who said, ‘After Auschwitz, to write a poem is barbaric.’ And went on to establish that such serious issues as the genocide of the Jews should not be part of popular culture, rather should be reserved for serious minded critics such as himself. Adorno, for those who do not know, was a prominent member of the so-called Frankfurt School, a school of social theory and philosophy which is part of Goethe University in Frankfurt. Adorno did not seem to grasp that popular culture is a good way for people to find out about serious issues and then go and find out more about them. For Adorno, such knowledge should be reserved for the elite who can ‘understand’ it better than those who indulge in popular culture.
Adorno is widely read and adored-no by critics and academics, all, seemingly people who consider themselves to be both anti-establishment and the elite, not seeing the oxymoronic notion of this, something Nietzsche took issue with, especially in the guise of his Zarathustra, and not realising that they are themselves the establishment!
Hermann Hesse, whose works seem to be, in most parts, rather savage studies of his self, wrote a novel, called The Glass Bead Game, in which people live in massive ‘ivory’ towers and play a game which has evolved from the study of science, psychology, philosophy etc. In the book Hesse warns of the dangers of making an elite of knowledge by those who become an establishment and cannot understand the real-life implications of their studies.
One famous example of ‘anti-establishment’ success is in the 1960s. with cinema in a decline, almost bankrupt, the B-movie directors Coppola, Lucas, Hopper etc tapped into something, that is the times or, less accurately, the spirit of the times much as Brando, Dean, Kazan etc had done in the 50s. The film Easy Rider became a success aka it made money. The counter culture filmmakers had won! They were allowed to make their films because…they made money for the studios! As Oppenheimer was co-opted into the army to lead the Manhattan Project, so Coppola, Peckinpah et al were co-opted into Hollywood, becoming the new elite or the new establishment.
The conceit of Adorno et al to think that they were anti-establishment, after they had become not only been eaten by the beast but part of the very beast is why real revolutionaries, Marx, Wittgenstein, Einstein, Blake etc, all of whom have become staple diets for the elite struggled so hard to not only be adopted by the elite but also to be heard and taken seriously by the elite whom now worship them.
Popular culture can play an import role in introducing people to concepts which they know little about and encourage them to find out more. They have wide reaching powers and can, genuinely, change lives and minds. As long as those ‘anti-establishment’ establishment figures continue to sit in their small circles sniping and slapping the back of each other the knowledge that they hold, whilst it may be valid, will never be able to bring about any real change. History has taught us that those who rebel against the system, once in the system become part of it and rather like its perks (money, fame etc, just look at the life of Alexander the Great who rebelled against Persian decadence and then, once he had won, essentially became a Persian decadent) and instead of only clinging to the same small circle of books and notions remember what is written in a chapter of the most popular book of all time ‘All is vanity’ (Ecclesiastes) and maybe then they can be the change they wish to see and bring about a real change.
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Boom And Bust
Our lives work in a circular manner. We eat too much and the diet, we drink too much for 11 months and then have a ‘dry’ month, we buy too much and then give it away. The post war generation worked hard to build up the world from the ruins of the war and to create a better future for their children. Their children then went on to earn more than their parents, live in bigger houses, have more technology, such as the internet and electric can openers, and rolled their eyes at their parents, unable to have amassed great fortunes and for living in relative small and simplistic houses littered with stuffed owls and china plates and not computers, TVs and other indulgences which have become the bear minimum to exist in this modern world. They lived fast, bought big houses, worked their way up the job ladder (‘when I was young I could get a job at 9, leave at 12, have another by supper’). Then 2008 happened. The excesses of the middle generation caught up with them, however, they were not the ones to suffer. With mortgages paid off on 2nd/3rd houses and a secure employment they could read about the story in the papers and sigh that times are hard in third world countries, and in terms of Brexit and the possible ramifications for future generations ‘it’s boring’. Meanwhile, their children were emerging into a world where the property ladder is dangled just out of reach and new business constraints meant that zero-hour contracts had become the norm meaning that one does not have a steady income, health care, paid holidays or job security.
These, so called (disparagingly) millennials retreated into virtual worlds as the ‘real’ world offered nothing but anxiety- can’t get a job, can’t buy a house, can’t get any thing which had been taken for granted until now. In American Universities homelessness is a reality even for students. Many sleep on friend’s couches or in the library, one university (I can’t recall the name) even has a shanty town on campus for its homeless students. Education used to be free and then those who got it for free started charging, the proverbial ‘pull up the ladder Jack, I’m alright’. Consequently, people are having children later as the stress and anxiety of just being able to ‘get by’ make one have to be hyper-focused on getting onto the ladder- health and family be damned!
Hardly anyone I spoke to under the age of 35 or over 35, if they are not already on the housing ladder, believes that they will ever own a house. Statistically, this is the first generation to earn less than its parents. Oak wardrobes have been replaced with sticks of plastic on wheels with a metal bar across. A holiday of a lifetime is now a cheap flight to a European city and two nights in a hostel, what was considered below the dignity of the middle generation and the wildest dreams of the first generation (flight! Holidays abroad!) is now the aspiration of the so-called millennials.
More often than not people have boxes of clothes or books in their parent’s houses as their parents have big houses for a family for one or two people who fill it with, to quote Dave Ramsey (I think he gave the original quote) ‘things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.’ As the third generation live in one or two rooms (sometimes all in one!) and have no room for a second chair let alone a library or oak wardrobe!
We are currently in the bust aftermath of boom and bust and it will correct itself (hopefully) and then repeat, it is human nature. If it does not correct itself then it will only get worse, the job market, the housing markets already stressful and soul destroying, will become even worse (if that is possible) and historians will fondly look at the middle generation as the last days of Rome.
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Happy Easter!
‘till next time
thegreaterfool2016 