![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm reading the next book I picked from the Cultural Theory list, and it's winding me right up. It starts with a chapter on 'National Identity' that seems to accept uncritically the theory that the British used to be gentlemanly and chivalric and now the 60s counterculture and the culture of selfishness has made them over into violent yobs. It keeps making statements that I know from all the research-with-numbers in my Sociology textbook are simply not true. I mean if I know more about it from Access level sociology than this idiot does I don't see why I should keep on reading. Perhaps the sections about specific films are more useful. One can only hope.
Example of stuff that makes me wonder if he's going to go 'psych' and say it was all a demonstration of the ridiculous: He refers to marriage as 'since the Middle Ages has been one of the primary agencies for taming young men'; presumably this is why he's all woeful that there's all this living together and divorce going on. (I quoted it from memory, the book is in the other room and I can't be bothered to go pick it up. Especially since I put it down as an alternative to throwing it.)(okay, actually I went back and corrected the quote. anyways.) Earlier he said that the primary role models for youth 'today' were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. It says in the front it was written in 1997. I don't recall them being the teenage role models of the nineties. Plus, where's the women in this story? Nowhere! He's spent the entire chapter talking about 'John Bull' and the British gentleman and every now and then dropping in a line about how it all applies to women too. Just like he says this is a classlesscliche character.
It's one of those sections where, when you encounter a line that you would otherwise agree with, you quickly re-examine why you hold that opinion and wonder if you could possibly be as wildly off base and unsupported as the rest of it.
He's comparing middle class 'gentlemen' writers of yesteryear - Empire Victorians - with unemployed working class youths of 'today'. He's careful to specify that some working class are respectable, he's only complaining about the 'rough' ones. They've been complained about since Victorian times, you know, so clearly that categorisation has to be true.
It's useful as a description of one narrow and *bloody annoying* set of cliches, the common sense of the bleating classes, but it leaves me wanting to run back to my big book of Sociology for comfort. See, there's more than one viewpoint! And lots and lots of numbers! And a rise in reported crime doesn't actually mean we has all the violence and they didn't used to! Has a big book that says so!
... Oh I really hope I'm not as blind as this guys assumptions.
(PS British = English you know, except of you're Welsh or Scots, and they're quite happy to join in with being British. This guy says so. Hasn't mentioned the Irish yet outside of one line that mentions most of Ireland going back to being Ireland somewhere in the middle of his Rule Brittania story.)
(I am English, yet this is exactly the kind of thinking that makes me wish I weren't.)
I read to start with a book on 'British Identities'. That's what's missing here, big time - the plural. This is one of those dudes who thinks it all started to go wrong after the war (when we pulled together in perfect harmony). I've no idea how old he was when he wrote this, but my mental image here is getting older by the page. And he's writing all these opinions up as 'National Identity'. Grr, arrgh. Bring back the s!
*reads some more*
oh for goodness sake...
"the corollary of a dominant consumerist ethic is burglary, mugging, car theft and shop lifting on a grand scale. It is significant that during the great recession of the 1930s there was nothing like the crime rate there is now. Why? Because there was no dominant consumerist ethic."
and not, perchance, because they didn't have cars to steal?
Or half so many police to report the crimes to!
... I tried to google to check that one, and the first thing google pointed me to says There are, of course, serious problems with official statistics of crime. How far might they be massaged by the police forces that collect and collate them? We know, for example, that it was practice in the Metropolitan Police until the 1930s to list many reported thefts as lost property. How can we account for the 'dark figure' of crime that is never reported?
But nowhere in this stupid chapter has there been any hint that statistics can't be taken at face value.
... earlier he praises the values of chivalry, and now he's talking about Thatcherism he's all down on it for glorying in combat. Is he not seeing a slight tiny contradiction there?
"systematically undermining, emasculating, and destroying those embodiments of the older ethic of public service: the BBC, the universities" ... becaue having more channels, more programs, more universities and more people going to university is clearly due to Thatcher undermining them.
... oh god, he's so annoying I'm defending Thatcher. I feel dirty...
... now he's just said that the pit bull terrier was virtually unknown before the 60s. I admit dog breed history isn't my strong point, but this seems unlikely.
... Wiki provides. There's lots of breeds referred to as pit bulls, some of them from the early 20th century, but "The now extinct breeds Old English Bulldog and Old English Terrier were crossed to form a new breed of dog called the Bull and Terrier. In around 1860, the Bull and Terrier breed split into two branches, the pure white Bull Terrier and the coloured forms."
The American Pit Bull Terrier is of similar vintage. Developed after 1835 when bull-baiting and bear-baiting were abolished, so people switched to dog fighting.
1860. Well, yes, technically the 60s, but not quite the same 60s as the ghetto blaster in the same paragraph.
two more pages... just two to finish the chapter... *shudders*
... "one in three young men under thirty in Britain has a criminal record"
W.T.F.?
How do I check that one?
... okay, this is odd - it's turning up as true, but various sources give it as men between the ages of 16 and 25, 30, 35, 40 and 45. While that's possible if it remained really consistent for a really long time, I'm just... slightly worried at the variability. Also I can find it cited as 'Home office statistics' but not a specific link.
this one's interesting - According to the statistics, 1 in 3 men in Britain have a criminal record. And this excludes motoring offences. Clearly a third of the adult population is not a menace to society, so how did this astonishing figure come about?
The answer is: they probably picked up a conviction or a caution as a teenager.
Last year the Home Office estimated 43% of indictable crime - i.e. offences that have to heard by a crown court - was committed by people under 21. And half of those crimes were committed by people under 17.
... but still no link to this Home Office thingy.
There was a thing the other... possibly year, oops, mental filing failure... ANYway, there was a thing which pointed out that most people don't understand what a caution is. It's thought of as 'letting someone off with a caution', when in fact accepting a caution is the same a admitting guilt.
Wiki again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_caution
http://www.cjsonline.gov.uk/glossary/#c
Simple Caution – non-statutory warning given to adults (18+) by the police, following admission of guilt, as an alternative to prosecution, which though not a conviction forms part of a person’s criminal record
Okay, this whole thing is a bit of a tangent. File it as provisionally true, and a consequence of the world being weird.
He has this idea that there is a national character that people learn to fit. The idea that there is a national character represented in the media that might not in fact fit any better or worse than it ever has just doesn't seem to occur to him.
Ah, talking about films there's suddenly that thing where there's more than one meaning going on:
"an analysis of groups of key films, assessing how they change over time and how they relate to the dominant image outlined above. In each case, there is an alternative to the dominant image, a minority image constructed of different styles, values and beliefs, and the dialogue between these dominant and alternative images is one of the continuing strands of British cultural history."
... oh, and just when he sounds like he's making a bit of sense, he comes up with
"An examination of the changing face of the English/British dominant image is followed by an examination of Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Lancastrian cinematic images, which underline the ethnci and cultural diversity of Britain. Such images of diversity, while they may enrich and reinforce the Union when Britain is a major world power, are potentially divisive at a time of national decline when pride in the whole is dented and distinct alternatives are sought to replace the tarnished whole."
Is it just me, or is there a whole 'so they should shut up and join in' subtext there? Polish up the old Empire spirit, what?
:eyeroll:
*reads*
*boggles*
"While I have called this last section 'Region', I am aware that Wales, Scotland and Ireland would all insist on themselves as countries and nations. Nevertheless, I am here concerned to examine them in their relation to - how they negotiate with and construct themselves against - the perceived dominant Anglocentric vision of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and its Empire. In that context, region seems a more appropriate term, particularly since the majority of Scots, Welsh and Lancastrians have been for much of this century as wholeheartedly British as they have been Scots, Welsh and Lancastrian."
... that's just kinda creepy. Is that creepy? I'm feeling creeped.
It's that whole unquestioned he's right and everyone else should pull their socks up feel, really.
"I hope that the result will illuminate some of the complexities, ambiguities and continuities involved in the ongoing process of the creation, evolution and promotion of Britain's national identity."
... S, Identities.
I'm understanding now why that other book stressed that so in its introduction.
Okay, I made it through the chapter!
... buggered if I'm sticking around for the rest of the book. This is going back to the library with extreme ick face. I'll get it out again if and only if I finish the rest of the list. Eeew.
Example of stuff that makes me wonder if he's going to go 'psych' and say it was all a demonstration of the ridiculous: He refers to marriage as 'since the Middle Ages has been one of the primary agencies for taming young men'; presumably this is why he's all woeful that there's all this living together and divorce going on. (I quoted it from memory, the book is in the other room and I can't be bothered to go pick it up. Especially since I put it down as an alternative to throwing it.)(okay, actually I went back and corrected the quote. anyways.) Earlier he said that the primary role models for youth 'today' were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. It says in the front it was written in 1997. I don't recall them being the teenage role models of the nineties. Plus, where's the women in this story? Nowhere! He's spent the entire chapter talking about 'John Bull' and the British gentleman and every now and then dropping in a line about how it all applies to women too. Just like he says this is a classless
It's one of those sections where, when you encounter a line that you would otherwise agree with, you quickly re-examine why you hold that opinion and wonder if you could possibly be as wildly off base and unsupported as the rest of it.
He's comparing middle class 'gentlemen' writers of yesteryear - Empire Victorians - with unemployed working class youths of 'today'. He's careful to specify that some working class are respectable, he's only complaining about the 'rough' ones. They've been complained about since Victorian times, you know, so clearly that categorisation has to be true.
It's useful as a description of one narrow and *bloody annoying* set of cliches, the common sense of the bleating classes, but it leaves me wanting to run back to my big book of Sociology for comfort. See, there's more than one viewpoint! And lots and lots of numbers! And a rise in reported crime doesn't actually mean we has all the violence and they didn't used to! Has a big book that says so!
... Oh I really hope I'm not as blind as this guys assumptions.
(PS British = English you know, except of you're Welsh or Scots, and they're quite happy to join in with being British. This guy says so. Hasn't mentioned the Irish yet outside of one line that mentions most of Ireland going back to being Ireland somewhere in the middle of his Rule Brittania story.)
(I am English, yet this is exactly the kind of thinking that makes me wish I weren't.)
I read to start with a book on 'British Identities'. That's what's missing here, big time - the plural. This is one of those dudes who thinks it all started to go wrong after the war (when we pulled together in perfect harmony). I've no idea how old he was when he wrote this, but my mental image here is getting older by the page. And he's writing all these opinions up as 'National Identity'. Grr, arrgh. Bring back the s!
*reads some more*
oh for goodness sake...
"the corollary of a dominant consumerist ethic is burglary, mugging, car theft and shop lifting on a grand scale. It is significant that during the great recession of the 1930s there was nothing like the crime rate there is now. Why? Because there was no dominant consumerist ethic."
and not, perchance, because they didn't have cars to steal?
Or half so many police to report the crimes to!
... I tried to google to check that one, and the first thing google pointed me to says There are, of course, serious problems with official statistics of crime. How far might they be massaged by the police forces that collect and collate them? We know, for example, that it was practice in the Metropolitan Police until the 1930s to list many reported thefts as lost property. How can we account for the 'dark figure' of crime that is never reported?
But nowhere in this stupid chapter has there been any hint that statistics can't be taken at face value.
... earlier he praises the values of chivalry, and now he's talking about Thatcherism he's all down on it for glorying in combat. Is he not seeing a slight tiny contradiction there?
"systematically undermining, emasculating, and destroying those embodiments of the older ethic of public service: the BBC, the universities" ... becaue having more channels, more programs, more universities and more people going to university is clearly due to Thatcher undermining them.
... oh god, he's so annoying I'm defending Thatcher. I feel dirty...
... now he's just said that the pit bull terrier was virtually unknown before the 60s. I admit dog breed history isn't my strong point, but this seems unlikely.
... Wiki provides. There's lots of breeds referred to as pit bulls, some of them from the early 20th century, but "The now extinct breeds Old English Bulldog and Old English Terrier were crossed to form a new breed of dog called the Bull and Terrier. In around 1860, the Bull and Terrier breed split into two branches, the pure white Bull Terrier and the coloured forms."
The American Pit Bull Terrier is of similar vintage. Developed after 1835 when bull-baiting and bear-baiting were abolished, so people switched to dog fighting.
1860. Well, yes, technically the 60s, but not quite the same 60s as the ghetto blaster in the same paragraph.
two more pages... just two to finish the chapter... *shudders*
... "one in three young men under thirty in Britain has a criminal record"
W.T.F.?
How do I check that one?
... okay, this is odd - it's turning up as true, but various sources give it as men between the ages of 16 and 25, 30, 35, 40 and 45. While that's possible if it remained really consistent for a really long time, I'm just... slightly worried at the variability. Also I can find it cited as 'Home office statistics' but not a specific link.
this one's interesting - According to the statistics, 1 in 3 men in Britain have a criminal record. And this excludes motoring offences. Clearly a third of the adult population is not a menace to society, so how did this astonishing figure come about?
The answer is: they probably picked up a conviction or a caution as a teenager.
Last year the Home Office estimated 43% of indictable crime - i.e. offences that have to heard by a crown court - was committed by people under 21. And half of those crimes were committed by people under 17.
... but still no link to this Home Office thingy.
There was a thing the other... possibly year, oops, mental filing failure... ANYway, there was a thing which pointed out that most people don't understand what a caution is. It's thought of as 'letting someone off with a caution', when in fact accepting a caution is the same a admitting guilt.
Wiki again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_caution
http://www.cjsonline.gov.uk/glossary/#c
Simple Caution – non-statutory warning given to adults (18+) by the police, following admission of guilt, as an alternative to prosecution, which though not a conviction forms part of a person’s criminal record
Okay, this whole thing is a bit of a tangent. File it as provisionally true, and a consequence of the world being weird.
He has this idea that there is a national character that people learn to fit. The idea that there is a national character represented in the media that might not in fact fit any better or worse than it ever has just doesn't seem to occur to him.
Ah, talking about films there's suddenly that thing where there's more than one meaning going on:
"an analysis of groups of key films, assessing how they change over time and how they relate to the dominant image outlined above. In each case, there is an alternative to the dominant image, a minority image constructed of different styles, values and beliefs, and the dialogue between these dominant and alternative images is one of the continuing strands of British cultural history."
... oh, and just when he sounds like he's making a bit of sense, he comes up with
"An examination of the changing face of the English/British dominant image is followed by an examination of Scottish, Welsh, Irish and Lancastrian cinematic images, which underline the ethnci and cultural diversity of Britain. Such images of diversity, while they may enrich and reinforce the Union when Britain is a major world power, are potentially divisive at a time of national decline when pride in the whole is dented and distinct alternatives are sought to replace the tarnished whole."
Is it just me, or is there a whole 'so they should shut up and join in' subtext there? Polish up the old Empire spirit, what?
:eyeroll:
*reads*
*boggles*
"While I have called this last section 'Region', I am aware that Wales, Scotland and Ireland would all insist on themselves as countries and nations. Nevertheless, I am here concerned to examine them in their relation to - how they negotiate with and construct themselves against - the perceived dominant Anglocentric vision of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and its Empire. In that context, region seems a more appropriate term, particularly since the majority of Scots, Welsh and Lancastrians have been for much of this century as wholeheartedly British as they have been Scots, Welsh and Lancastrian."
... that's just kinda creepy. Is that creepy? I'm feeling creeped.
It's that whole unquestioned he's right and everyone else should pull their socks up feel, really.
"I hope that the result will illuminate some of the complexities, ambiguities and continuities involved in the ongoing process of the creation, evolution and promotion of Britain's national identity."
... S, Identities.
I'm understanding now why that other book stressed that so in its introduction.
Okay, I made it through the chapter!
... buggered if I'm sticking around for the rest of the book. This is going back to the library with extreme ick face. I'll get it out again if and only if I finish the rest of the list. Eeew.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 11:10 pm (UTC)From Dickens to Dad's Army
... I suppose that roughly means 'you have been warned'
no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 11:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-11 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-12 12:59 pm (UTC)You're getting quite an educational experience, be. I hope the next author is better grounded in the real world.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 05:17 pm (UTC)civilized behaviour has it's down side ;-)
I told the teacher it was a dumb book and I gave it back and he just grinned, so that works out. Apparently it's very much part of a tradition, some dude, erm, Hoggart? Anyway, that whole 'better before the war' thing wasn't just the one guy apparently. Yeesh.
I chose the next book on the basis it was the skinniest. So far it's packing a lot of useful into small spaces.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-12 11:56 pm (UTC)Uh, when he says Lancastrian - does he mean people from Lancaster? I thought that was part of England?
no subject
Date: 2007-10-13 05:15 pm (UTC)