[lbo-talk] Chavs

[Gar Lipow]

On 8/29/06, www.leninology. blogspot.com <leninology at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Can I stop you there?  Only, I notice that you are implicitly accepting that there is such a thing as the fabled "chav".  You are correct that it is a class insult, but your ensuing description confirms that the insult is based on a melange of media manufactured maledictions rather than a discernible social phenomenon.  There is no definition of 'chav' as a sociological category that is workable, so it can only be understand as an imaginary archetype.  More precisely still, it is a phantasmatic screen through which media yuppies, ever concerned with the sumptuary proclivities of the working class (drinking, smoking, drug-taking lardies that we all are), view us.  The insults that are entailed by the term are often openly class supremacist (oh, look, she's a single mum who bears the marks of constant stress and worry - let's call her a 'pramface').  It is the social resentment of the middle and upper classes, usually those with some educational achievements (and often those w!
>  ho live in the South East and worry about gypsies and asylum seekers), presented with the usual 'ironic' patina.  Stupid shows like 'Little Britain' coat this loathing of 'wheelchair layabouts' and 'chavs' and so on in the soothing unction of satire, but it is not the less obvious for it.   The stuff about 'Burberry' gear and 'Prada' shoes is really about people getting ideas above their station, and saving or borrowing for expensive clothing.  The stuff about the "American white trash" is indicative of another aspect of it: the 'chav' meme 'ethnicises' poverty.  The working class are Othered, not quite civilised, not even quite the same breed as the conscientious, altruistic, intelligent, fully-rounded human beings that populate the wealthier suburbs.  It is the sort of stereotype that must populate the imagination of New Labour hacks like David Aaronovitch, particularly when the latter supported New Labour's benefit cuts on the grounds that the poor would only spend it on!
>   the pubs, bookies and drug-dealers.
>
> I repeat and underline: there is nothing behind this stupid meme but class supremacism, the contempt, hostility and resentment toward the poor exhibited by those who would in darker times prove ready recruits to the master race.
>

I will say that the class  hatred in the site linked was frightening.
People were talking openly about concentration camps and "if Hitler
had killed Chavs instead of Jews he would have been the  most popular
man in history".  And one teenage girl who wrote in to protest that
she was a  Chav and had good manners  was told contemptuously that if
her manners were good then she could not be a Chav. She must be
"middle class".   While, along with class oppressions, there is plenty
of class prejudice in the U.S. (see "redneck" "trailer trash" "white
trash" as examples), I'm trying to remember if I've ever actually
heard for anyone calling for mass extermination of the white working
class here. Normally that particular fantasy (and on occasion reality)
is saved for racial and ethic groups rather than openly being aimed at
a class.