Joe Higgins on Seoige & Seoige (re: poppies)

[Papa C.]

Although I still believe Joe Higgins to be reactionary for taking part in Government, I was pleased to see him on this show.

He was making the point that the poppy is an emblem of war and that by purchasing it we are supporting wars in General.

I must say, the poppy is a difficult issue, especially for those who parents or Grandparents fought in wars (either wilfully or if forced to). I had family members who fought in the British army also as I'm sure many have but I would never wear a poppy.

I see it as another way for the British Government to get their message that Imperialist wars and Governments are okay - especially if they're the lesser of two evils.

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Nice how they cut Joe short

I would be very against wearing the poppy. I think it serves to reinforce and legitimate the state. You can actually see that from that programme where the journalist repeatedly says "those soldiers died to preserve our right to wear the poppy". This is dangerous as it seeks to reinforce the idea that we live in a 'free' society. The journalist is an idiot drone, frankly. He's replenishing the dominant ideology. The fact is - the working class did not command events, did not decide to go to war and had no choice but to go to war.

The entire precident for the war was illegitimate as it was the various capitalist states which asserted the violence. Their violence is always illegitimate - it is never legitimate as it seeks to assert private property rights rather than collective.

It is also the case that the general comments and phone in's on the programme were based upon Ireland being "proud". Maybe im not nationalist enough but I dont think thats a valid reason at all. It seeks to divorce the issue from its class foundation, particularly when there is reference to "our" and "british people" - as if they were some sort of monolith.

You can watch the programme here its about 30minuites in...

www.rte.ie/tv/seoige/watch.html


The presenters are typical of those middle class goons who take positions within the media - repeated here too...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOV7Zd-zjxo

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Is it just me or do you notice how only very rarely you hear, say, inner city accents, finglas accents or working class accents in general on TV or radio?

I come across these accents everyday - yet it almost sounds odd when I hear it on the media. There's a cultural domination going on. Here's an interesting passage form a book im reading...


"Culture has been commodified and this makes culture central to exploitation and surplus value creation. Culture is now a vital part of advertising. For example, the fashion group Benetton's advertising has made extensive use of 'racial signifiers' to generate a 'multicultural appeal'. In this process, the cultures of different classes are valued differently, with working class culture being seen as particularly lacking in value. Although always devalued, working class culture is seen as even more morally worthless than in the past and is identified with 'waste', and is seen as lacking in taste, as un-modern, backward, as escapist, as dangerous, as unruly and without shame. Even the bodies of the working class are seen negatively as representing such characteristics. Skeggs uses several examples to illustrate this process.

1. Skeggs discusses a survey conducted in the daily mirror in 1997 in which readers were invited to classify themselves through filling in a questionnaire containing twenty questions. Only three were about economic issues, with the rest about culture. Readers were asked to tick statements they strongly agreed with, including 'I have sex too much', 'I go to Tuscany for my holidays', 'I never read books' and 'I take bottles, papers and cans to be recycled'. according to Skeggs, the scoring system inferred that working class practices (such as having too much sex, owning big dogs, not reading and going on cheap holidays in the sun) were less morally good than middle-class practices (such as recycling, excercising sexual restraint and taking physical excercise).

2. Skeggs discusses work by Tasker (1998) which examines film portrayal od working class women. According to Tasker and Skeggs, films such as pretty woman, working girl and Up close and personal are concerned with how morally worthless working class women can be transformed by changing their appearence and the way they speak to pass as middle class. In these examples, class diferences are embodied - they are part of the physical characteristics of the girls concerned...........

......4. Finally, Skeggs refers to research by Haylett (2001) which examines Tony Blair's choice of a run down council estate in south London in 1997 to make an announcement about social inclusion. Skeggs says that Hayett.."shows how this announcement used the white working class poor as symbols of a generalized backwardness and specifically a culturally burdonsome whiteness. The white working class become represented as the blockage not just to social inclusion, but to the development of a modern nation."...........

......Behaviour which is seen as pathological in the working class (such as too much sex) is glamorized in the middle class. In the television programme Sex and the City the sexual desires of the lead characters are sympathetically treated because the characters have enough volumes of other cultural capital to offset connotations of pathology and degeneration.........


.........Skeggs concludes that just as cultural factors have become increasingly important to differentiating between classes so culture is increasingly important to the class struggle ......Struggles over the moral worth of different cultures therefore becomes struggles over economic capital aswell."

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

I can never but look at programmes like the above, or like "Expose" and a whole series of other progremmes and think its promoting "middle class values". Not just by their posh accents, but the dress sense they are promoting too. They are creating attitudes. You never see them dressing people up in tracksuits etc - its always a particular "look" - divorced from the way many working class people dress. This creates the situation where due to status denigration, working class women seek to adopt the "middle class look".

The media constantly reproduce the dominant ideas in society (as the middle class dominate media positions) - even down to how "we should look". They make mockery of the working class to the point where working class people seek to imitate middle class values.

I see Seoige herself as the embodyment of "middle classness". Sickening so it is. ;D

Anyway, thats the end of my rant.

[RedFlag32]

Really interesting points comrade. Its a subject i am ver interested in also. You made the point about not hearing working class accents in the media a while ago and it set my mind racing. Its an odd reality.

Is the media controlled by the middle class in Ireland or is it just that the working class elements are those which conform to middle class culture and accept it as "normal"?

They say that you cant have culture without a bourgeois class. You need to have people who have the time and money to spend on the arts, workers simply dont have the time. So is there such a thing as working class culture or do the working class just try to emulate what the middle class are representing as culture?

[Papa C.]

The media is controlled by the Government. At the end of the day they control who gets a licence to get on the telly. If you went on the telly and started critisizing the Government (and didn't sound like a nut job which would probably help the Government) you'd be gone fairly quicksharp.

On the point of culture, workers simply dont have the time BECAUSE OF the bourgeois class.

I think people get pulled into what the media portray as 'the norm'. Its safe and secure but if you go outside those boundaires or if you critisize the media people either start to ask themselves questions or just think of you as 'one of those mad people' imo.

[RedFlag32]

I wouldnt agree completely that the media in Ireland is controlled by the government comrade. To a degree, yes. Maybe even a large degree, but it certainly isnt a dictatorship we are living in. Wasn't RTE controlled by the stickies for years? Also Vincent browne is left of centre and usually has bad things to say about the governemnt yet he has his own show on TV3 every night. I myself have gotton letters printed in the Irish independent that were blatantly communist aswell so i dont think the irish media is a lost cause. What there failing in is that they tend to represent one side of the argument, but that seems to be an inhereted trait from the world media. To all of our journalists it just doesnt seem wrong that they very rarely open up debate to the wider opinion, its just how they have watched "media" operate alover the world and they assume it to be correct. To us journalism is showing the facts but to them it means something completely different. I dont think thats down to the controll of the government though, its just the affect of modern media culture on our home soil. Nobody tells them when they are studying what being a journalist actually means,maybe?

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Nov 16, 2008 14:54:05 GMT RedFlag32 said:

Really interesting points comrade. Its a subject i am ver interested in also. You made the point about not hearing working class accents in the media a while ago and it set my mind racing. Its an odd reality.

Is the media controlled by the middle class in Ireland or is it just that the working class elements are those which conform to middle class culture and accept it as "normal"?

They say that you cant have culture without a bourgeois class. You need to have people who have the time and money to spend on the arts, workers simply dont have the time. So is there such a thing as working class culture or do the working class just try to emulate what the middle class are representing as culture?

Good questions KFP.

The media, ultimately, are controlled by the ruling class, and serves to maintain the ruling class system. So from what iv seen from different places (like manufacturing consent) (this vid here.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pm7WwOn6kw)(and this blog has a few articles relating to it dublinopinion.com/2007/09/20/michael-zweig-class-the-media-and-ireland/) there are a number of ways they do this..

1) The middle class are "better off" than the working class (that could be a little outdated seeing as workers have much disposable income now). They therefore not only promote consumerist values, but are of the belief that the system "works" seeing as they are doing relatively well compared to the rest of society. Malcolm X puts it well - www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zUIjP4KWok

And not just in wealth, but also their work routine would be more self expressive, less alienated, greater job satisfaction and greater status attached than a working class job. Thats quite generalized, but its another reason which alters their consciousness towards being in favour of the status quo.

2) People who fill media positions have usually gone to college (Which is probably a prequisite in various ways, ie, working your way up from a researcher to a producer or presenter etc). They have, therefore, learned what is and what is not acceptable. They have adopted behaviours, mentalities and ways of thinking which allows them to get ahead within the education system, and society in general. In otherwords, they are more indoctrinated by ruling class ideology and ideas - seeing as an acceptance of them allows one to progress. Good vid on this here - www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSuaGIKTaEA and here www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug7Pkf2SsuA

The ruling class appoint newspaper and TV editors (who are to their suiting). The editors then appoint downwards from their position, creating a hierarchy, but one which maintains within it an acceptance of the dominant ideas.

Going to college could also account for their accents too ;D

So, given that the media is owned by the ruling class, people who work within it must suit the dominant ideology. The middle class do this by being indoctrinated greater; seeing their own existence as "well off" compared to the rest of society in terms of wealth; Having better work and life conditions in general and well, thats the only things I can think of at the moment.

But anyway, given this, the middle class have a different culture and values (infact, being "better off in society", they seek to distance themselves from the "lesser beings", the working class, and see them in a different light) - such as consumerism, different tastes in art, music, fasion etc. This is propagated through the media, for which they take positions.

The working class, who have their own culture (music taste, fashion, spoken language, taste in art) cannot be propagated. The working class assume these differences, in a way, to distinguish themselves from the middle class (the snob, poshie D4 heads).

But many working class seek to imitate the middle class because they are seen as having more wealth (which is the apparent motivation in this society), and higher up the social ladder. Not just that, but because their cultural values are dominant (through the media), working class values are portrayed as lesser and inferior.

This has a particular effect on women, who's "working class values" are portrayed in a less dignified way. Sleeping around has very negative connotations for women in society, given the influence of things like religion over the centuries (though its progressing). Women are also less capable in society of gaining any other form of "capital". They are statistically less paid, have positions in fewer high powered jobs and more routine manual work. So they come to develop their self worth, dignity and "embodied capital" in a more bodily and sexual way.

Since working class women are portrayed in a promiscuos way (whether this is true or not is irrelevent, what matters is that the valuse are being set that this behaviour is negative), many working class women, in order to maintain their cultural capital (which is important to them), seek to distance themselves from working class culture and adopt middle class values, which are seen and propagated as superior. So for example, and personally speaking, I think many working class women seem to have adopted somewhat different accents than that of men from the same area - or even family (for sure). More attention is paid to fashion magazines and "embodied capital".

So lots of sweeping generalizations there yeah ;D

------------------

And yes, there is such a thing as working class culture - which has developed from the conditions of working class life (less money, less time) which then effect various things like the means and ways of meeting a partner. In many ways, even, the culture is being manufactured aswell - such as what rap music portrays, and the fashion. But many people within the working class, such as women, for various reasons, seek emulating the culture which is seen as superior and more dignified. And in this sense, im not talking about the Marxist way of looking at class (which is good for economics), but other ways which are useful such as concepts of symbolic, social, economic and embodied capital which this chap developed en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Nov 18, 2008 22:17:20 GMT RedFlag32 said:

Also Vincent browne is left of centre and usually has bad things to say about the governemnt yet he has his own show on TV3 every night.

I was at a public meeting yesterday where Vincent Browne was speaking, and I have to say, he's far more radical than I thought he was. I would even go as far as to say communist (though he didnt say that explicitly and whether he thinks it possible I dont know).

But he's very radical and mentioned how the working class should take power themselves and create an egalitarian, equal society. He siad this could not be done by taking power in the establishment institutions nad that it must be done without "leaders". He mentioned how in previous societies slavery was seen as 'normal', and mentioned that even Jesus accepted slavery as normal and legitimate. He said that in this society, having one sector of society rich, and the other poor, is seen as normal. He mentioned Gramsci and how the battle is for ideas and ideology.

So id plant him on the far-left ;D

[RedFlag32]

Yeah ive warmed to oul Vince i must say.

[voxpopuli]

Nov 13, 2008 8:26:24 GMT Papa C. said:

Although I still believe Joe Higgins to be reactionary for taking part in Government,

He didn't.

[Papa C.]

He didn't

Was he not paid by the Government? The problem with people like Joe Higgins being elected as TDs is that it creates confidence in the Governmental system by having 'people friendly' faces/ representatives in Government regardless of how much pay they accept, they still put a good face on a horrible institution = reactionary. This does nothing for the cause of the Socialist Republic.

People like Joe Higgins could do better by getting elected then leaving their seat empty and pay cheque at the door claiming Government is an insult to working people and it must be destroyed. The fact that he is elected shows his views are supported by the people. There is WAY too much support for the Governmental system in this country.

Take it from Comrade Seamus Costello:

'and I don't see why with a few TDs and a few MPs we can't destroy these institutions and bring them crumbling down in ruins'