[lbo-talk] Another Bernard Manning obit

[Russell Grinker]

This certainly raises some interesting questions. Although I never saw much
of Manning when I lived in the UK, I suspect there's no easy parallel
between what he did and bigoted US redneck comedians. I think Manning's
origins were much more in the working men's club tradition which I don't
believe has a real parallel in the US. It was a mixture of racism, sexism,
and homophobia, but combined with strong working class/labourist (sometimes
also working class Tory) self-consciousness.  

So what's all the current nostalgic sentiment about then? I could posit a
few ideas:
* Nostalgia on what remains of the UK left the for a bygone era of Brit
politics when labour still mattered and there was still a distinctive
working class culture, albeit one that was largely backward 
* What we used to call 'workerism' on the left i.e. glorifying (often
backward) working class culture in a misguided attempt at ingratiating
oneself
* Nostalgia for a less pathetic, less grey, less offensively soft-repressive
British society, an era which ironically, is for some symbolised by
Manning's humour and iconoclastic outlook
* Many of his jokes were genuinely hilarious and offensive to the
establishment above all - notice that even Murdoch's arch-reactionary Sun
takes the moral high-ground on his racism; and his overt bigotry maybe
doesn't wholly negate that
*Some left wing Brits have a strange blind spot when it comes to
soccer-induced chauvinism and a few bigoted comedians. The condition appears
to be otherwise harmless.

Russell

-----Original Message-----
From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
On Behalf Of B.
Sent: 20 June 2007 05:47 PM
To: LBO Talk
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Another Bernard Manning obit

The Manning thing has really confounded me.