The Pride of Being a Member of British Society - Research Paper Example

? Housing Regeneration Understanding Society: Are Chavs Really What They Appeared to Be Introduction Obelkevich and Catterall write that “society is not just a lump of clay to be given shape by the master hand of the policy maker” (1994, p.7), but an interests- and forces-brimmed whole, with a life and will of its own, which might just as well resist or deflect state policies aimed at influencing and changing the very same society. This statement rings especially true of British society, which, by common consent, is a complicated affair, with many loose ends and bits that don’t fit and couldn’t be taken in a single grand theory, although some ideologies have repeatedly tried to (Obelkevich and Catterall, 1994). Marxism, for example, whose influence is thought to have gone far beyond its natural audience a decade or two ago, despite some penetrating revelations, like the notion of society divisions, class differences, etc., generally failed to give a plausible explanation of what was actually happening in post-war Britain – whether in terms of the middle class growth, diversity and cultural fragmentation, or the change in the paradigm of working classes consciousness regarding their actual voting behaviour (having far too often voted for the Conservatives, rather than for Labour), as well as the relative failure of the welfare state, which fell well short of the high aims of the 1940s and 1950s (Obelkevich and Catterall, 1994). Even though many ideological cliches are still in circulation nowadays, at least in politicians’ minds and words, understanding society, with all its strands and meanders, has proved to be a hard case for ideology as a whole. Therefore, social sciences come into the equation, especially history and sociology, which, in spite sometimes being considered incompatible or even opposed ways of understanding society, are actually overlapping and complementary, and whose combined effort, according to both historians and sociologists, is supposed to produce a much better result (Obelkevich and Catterall, 1994). Historical and Statistical Background The social divide between rich and poor might as well be considered more or less as old as human civilization. For British society, however, some authors regard 1918 as a date of great significance, not only due to its political meaning, but also as a kind of watershed in working classes’ status, including their standard of living, quality of health and housing, political power of ordinary men and women, and their leisure pursuits (Hopkins, 1991). Others, like Royle, for instance, point out that many crucial developments occurred between the thirties and the fifties of the twentieth century, which are generally depicted as “an accelerating discontinuity with the past”, with the most significant of them, in terms of rapid social change, being in the post-war period, namely the 1950s (1994, p.9). Several aspects of that social change are considered particularly important in regard to the current discussion, as follows: the consumer ‘revolution’ and associated technological change, gender, class, and race, as well as education. Royle defines the consumer patterns of post-war British society as radically different from those of the pre-war years, with some twenty-five million people spending a few days on holiday each year in the early 1950s, seven million people taking their holidays abroad and a third of the population having been on holiday abroad in the 1970s, whereas in the late 1980s less than one third hadn’t done so (1994). The technologies boom, including electrical and other consumer commodities, motor cars, and most notably television with the targeting of programmes and products at the younger generation, appeared the development that have had extremely important impact on consumer culture in terms of the rise of consumerism as a widespread, if not domineering phenomenon within the society (Royle, 1994). On the other pole of the spectre, however, were those some 16 000 wage-stopped unemployed families with 56 000 children ‘with a weekly income below the level of their needs as measured by the normal scale rates” (Ministry of Social Security, 1967, as cited in Brown, 1994). Despite the relative success of the post-war anti-poverty policies aimed to endow people with rights and to cope with some pre-war patterns of discrimination against poor people, a study by Abel-Smith and Townsend, The Poor and the Poorest, had shown that income poverty had not been ended by the post-war reforms (Abel-Smith and Townsend, 1965). Yet another problem is seen as emerging by that period, namely the completion of a massive slum clearance accompanied by a council housing programme that produced some 300 000 affordable houses with the obvious aim to ease the acute housing shortage resulted from the war and to break the interrelationship between poverty and bad housing (Banting, 1979, cited in Brown, 1994). Notwithstanding then Conservative Government’s good intentions, the period of increased pressure on housing produced unwanted results, like rising rents, increased evictions, and as an inevitable corollary – a growing number of homeless people. The whys and wherefores of the situation, however, had something to do with the activities of some ‘slum landlords’ such as Perec Rachman, being described as practice of harassing, bullying and even violently treating tenants in order to drive them out of property so it could be sold or re-let for much higher rents (Brown, 1994). Both rising disposable family incomes and the number of relatively affluent, property- owning workers in the 1960s, as abundant evidence from the literature suggest, not only appeared one of the major causes for the Labour’s three successive electoral defeats in 1979, 1983, and 1987 respectively, but also a sign of deeper stratification within the working classes, insofar as the earnings gap between the highest and lowest paid had increased, and the distribution of disposable income had fallen for the poorest part of the population from 10 to 6 per cent, whereas had risen for the richest from 35 to 43 per cent (Brown, 1994). Another major division within the post-war British society was the racial one, which, although being anything but a new phenomenon, is deemed to have significantly deepened due to increased immigration in response to acute labour shortages at the time of post-war economic revival. Not less important trend, in terms of its impact on social divisions appeared the education issue, namely the post-compulsory education, which, regardless of the lower participation ratio in comparison with that of Germany, France and the United States, is thought to have undergone a revolution since the 1950s. The higher education had also experienced major expansion in both terms of participation and number of institutions, with an increase of over 60 and 120 per cent increase of the number of male and female students respectively, in full-time higher education (Royle, 1994). Views on Poverty and the Advent of Chavs There is abundant evidence that the introduction of various policies aimed to address the existing social problems in Britain, including changes in legislation such as the Rent Act of 1965, new pension legislation, employment protection legislation, etc., along with the new benefits for disabled people, increased access to National Insurance rights via the use of credits, and the Home Responsibilities Protection, taken together, generally bolstered the rights of many low income, elderly and disabled people (Brown, 1994). The Homeless persons Act of 1977 sought to offer rights to part of the homeless population, while the introduction of Family Income Supplement and housing benefits aimed to deal with low-pay poverty and rent rebates to poor council housing tenants; in housing, the then approach to tackle homelessness via building of high-rise estates later proved to have been more or less a bit of blunder with far-reaching consequences (Brown, 1994). Against the background of continued state’s effort to mitigate the social inadequacies through policy of solidarity and opportunities, there were harsh public attitudes towards the poor in the 1970s, in fact much harsher than in earlier years; with the view taken of unemployed as being lazy and lacking determination, which appeared the view of 43 per cent of UK respondents within a public opinion survey undertaken by EC – actually the highest percentage in Europe (Commission of the European Communities, 1977). On the other hand, the unemployed themselves, whose number had meanwhile reached 1.4 million people by then, regarded the government measures with a certain dose of dissatisfaction, insofar as they felt partly stripped of their dignity; while the long-term unemployed questioned policies’ adequacy (Brown, 1994). Even though there were many programmes aimed at delivering opportunities and offering support, and guidance in the 1980s, evidence suggest that the decade witnessed a return to coercion of the unemployed, as pointed out by Brown, in terms of benefit sanctions as key part of policy, with actively-seeking-work rules and virtually compulsory training for both adults and young people being brought back (1994). The government’s tactic of the early 1980s, or rather, instrument of policy, of blaming the poor for their own condition, appeared to match public opinion, and vice versa; being considered both hostile to unemployed and dismissive of the poor (Brown, 1994). In the beginning of the 1990s, however, a dramatic shift in public attitudes, engendered by public concern about homeless people sleeping on the streets, and hostility to policies that disadvantaged the elderly population, found expression in a new EC public opinion survey showing only 21 per cent of the UK respondents to answer that poverty is caused by laziness (Commission of the European Communities, 1990), as against 43 per cent in 1977 (Brown, 1994). By the end of the 1990s, the extreme inequalities between rich and poor neighbourhoods, in terms of incomes, deprivation, levels of crime and educational attainment had become a prominent feature of the British cities. Having won the 1997 general election, the New Labour came to power with an ambitious bid “to regenerate Britain’s cities by recourse to social inclusion, neighbourhood renewal and community involvement” (Imrie and Raco, 2003, p.4). According to Tony Blair - then Prime Minister - the local people’s involvement in “partnership for change” and “enabling communities to take a decisive role in their future” formed and represented the Labour policies, programmes and structures of governance. In other words, or as Imrie and Raco summarise, the governance mode favoured by the Labour government had represented active individuals’ citizenship through the community context, with the state’s role to lift them out of their difficulties (2003, p.4). On the other hand, the New Labour approach to dealing with social deprivation and exclusion, especially in the case of some ethnic groups, along with the neighbourhood inequalities, and the inner-city decline, is seen by some authors as being hindered by a bit more laudable rhetoric, perhaps as a consequence of idealised notion of community, rather than real response to particular communities’ needs (Imrie and Raco, 2003) – exemplified by the riots in Oldham, Bradford and Burnley in 2001. Each and every one of the aforementioned major developments in British society – from the rapid social change that started and gathered momentum since the immediate post-war years on, to the highly complicated New Labour public policies and community-focused programmes, which obviously produced rather ambiguous results – is considered more or less essential to the differentiation of a social stratum widely known as underclass. Quite paradoxically indeed, the pursuit for equal opportunities resulted in further stratification of society, in either terms of educational or income levels, which brought the working classes into different tiers of the society. Having originated from the Romany word for child, the term ‘chav’ came into circulation at some point in 2004, as a derogatory appellation used to denote that very underclass, or social group, generally seen as uneducated, uncultured, and likely to behave in an anti-social way, mostly consisted of teenagers and younger adults of the white working-class or lower middle-class backgrounds (Bok, 2006). While Owen Jones emotionally defines the term usage as obscuring the reality of the modern working class, generalising about all working class as being victimised, robbed of their dignity, political power and rights during Thatcher Governments (Jones, 2011), Michael Collins, author of The Like of Us, says that the middle class sneering at a bit affluent and showy working-class people is anything but a novelty, with the difference that much of the vitriol appear to be originating amongst people who consider themselves progressive (Wheeler, 2005). In fact, Collins’s thesis seems rather plausible, given previous images, or caricatures, like those of the 1918 worker, for example – as described by Hopkins – “in cap and muffler, his whippet by his side, dart- and domino-playing, football-match-attending, deferential to his superiors when not blind-drunk on a Saturday night” (1991, p. 276). Apart from ideological stereotypes and cliches, as well as mass media pursuit of sensation, the ‘chav’ phenomenon might just as well be considered an identity-centred two-way street with strong self-reinforcing currents – where those who labelled the others seek to distinguish themselves from that very portion of the population via usage of derogatory terms, implying that the latter had lower status, hence the former are identified with a superior one; on the other hand, those labelled as chav, or underclass, transformed the initially intended as an insulting word into a symbol of their identity, and, quite paradoxically however, a source of pride. A clear parallel could be drawn here between ‘chav’ culture and the so-called gang culture of the major urban centres, in terms of that very pride of affiliation, or identity, as well as use of symbolism. The chavs, with their jargon, clothing style, and to a degree – behaviour, whether violent or not, but rather shocking, could be seen as a younger persons’ way to undergo their revolution since most young people strive to challenge the established norms; or, in the more precarious variation, although not that plausible, the chav phenomenon might be regarded as a distorted, perhaps a bit harmless, copy of the gang culture in Britain and all around the world. Apart from imitation of fashionable clothing and behaviour, and political aspirations to ride a wave, both explanations, however, are inextricably linked with the social divide, which still convulse Britain nowadays. Conclusion Recent trends, like sustainable regeneration, or development, with the affordable housing and social interaction as central issues, are called upon to help the state, and society in coping with deprivation, inequalities and antisocial extremities, whether they come in the form of extravagant behaviour, or expressed in violent outbursts such as the 2011 rioting in London. If the pride of place, as projected onto the pride of being a member of British society as whole, succeeded in replacing the surrogate quasi-cultures and identities, like ‘chav’ one, social divisions would have less damaging effect upon both society and its members. References Abel-Smith, B. and Townsend, P., 1965, The Poor and the Poorest, London: Bell & Son. Print Bok, L., 2006, The Chav Guide to Life, Cheam, Surrey: Crombie Gardine Publishing Limited. Print Brown, J. C., 1994, Poverty in Post-War Britain. In Obelkevich, J. and Peter Catterall, eds., Understanding Post-War British Society, London: Routledge. Print Commission of the European Communities, 1977, The Perception of Poverty in Europe, Brussels: Commission of the European Communities. Print Commission of the European Communities, 1990, The Perception of Poverty in Europe, Brussels: Commission of the European Communities. Print Hopkins, E., 1991, The Rise and Decline of the English Working Classes 1918 – 1990: A Social History, London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. Print. p.276 Imrie R. and Raco M. eds., 2003. Urban Renaissance? New Labour, community and urban policy, Bristol: The Policy Press. Print. p.4 Jones, O., 2011, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class, London: Verso. Print Obelkevich, J. and Peter Catterall, 1994, Introduction: Understanding British Society. In Obelkevich, J. and Peter Catterall, eds., Understanding Post-War British Society, London: Routledge. Print. p. 7 Royle, E., 1994, Trends in Post-War British Social History. In Obelkevich, J. and Peter Catterall, eds., Understanding Post-War British Society, London: Routledge. Print. p.9 Wheeler, B., 30 June, 2005, Leave Chavs Alone, Say MPs, BBC News [online] Available at < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4077626.stm> [Accessed 15 December 2011] Read More