This list is going to kill me. I've got a wee bit of catching up to do now I'm properly back in the sociological game, so I've made a list of works I need to thoroughly acquaint myself with. It's a monster with some proper beasties on it. Both volumes of Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action? Yup. Robert K Merton's Social Theory and Social Structure? He's there. It's not an exhaustive list by any means. After all, I would like to try and read every single one. And it's less than comprehensive because I might have read a great deal of a certain thinkers' outputs already. Like Bourdieu's, for instance. Lastly, I've missed off my more specialist interests in Marxism and social movements because, well, I can. And I will get round to reading Capital eventually.
Are there any stunning works of modern(ish) social theory missing? Any more feminist suggestions than those listed? Anything here you definitely would not recommend?
Alexander
Neofunctionalism and After (1998)
The Civil Sphere (2006)
The Dark Side of Modernity (2013)
Althusser
Althusser: The Detour of Theory – Gregory Elliott (1987)
Althusser: A Critical Reader – Gregory Elliott (1994)
Reading Capital (1970)
Lenin and Philosophy (1971)
Essays in Self Criticism (1976)
Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists (1990)
Philosophy of the Encounter (2006)
Baudrillard
Baudrillard Now – Ryan Bishop (2009)
Symbolic Exchange and Death (1976)
Seduction (1990)
The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995)
Bauman
The Contemporary Bauman - Anthony Elliott (2007)
Modernity and the Holocaust (1989)
Liquid Modernity (2000)
Berman
All that is Solid Melts Into Air (1982)
Bourdieu
Bourdieu: A Critical Reader – Richard Shusterman (1999)
Distinction (1979)
Homo Academicus (1984)
The Field of Cultural Production (1993)
Masculine Domination (1998)
On Television and Journalism (1998)
Acts of Resistance (2001)
The Social Structures of the Economy (2003)
Brennan
Between Feminism and Psychoanalysis (1989)
Butler
Understanding Judith Butler – Anita Brady (2011)
Gender Trouble (1990)
Bodies that Matter (1993)
Excitable Speech (1997)
Undoing Gender (2004)
Castells
Manuel Castells – Felix Stalder (2005)
Networks of Outrage and Hope (2012)
Debord
Society of the Spectacle (1973)
Foucault
Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics - Dreyfus and Rabinow (1982)
Foucault, Health and Medicine – Petersen and Bunton (1997)
The Birth of the Clinic (1972)
The Order of Things (1969)
The Archaeology of Knowledge (1970)
Discipline and Punish (1976)
Fraser
Unruly Practices (1989)
Fortunes of Feminism (2013)
Giddens
A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism (2nd ed, 1995)
The Constitution of Society (1984)
Nation States and Violence (1985)
Social Theory and Modern Sociology (1987)
Beyond Left and Right (1994)
In Defence of Sociology (1996)
Conversations with Anthony Giddens (1998)
Goffman
Erving Goffman – Greg Smith (2006)
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
Asylums (1961)
Stigma (1963)
Strategic Interaction (1969)
Frame Analysis (1974)
Forms of Talk (1981)
Habermas
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962)
Knowledge and Human Interests (1968)
Legitimation Crisis (1973)
Theory of Communicative Action Vols 1 and 2 (1981)
Philosophical and Political Profiles (1983)
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity (1985)
Postmetaphysical Thinking (1992)
Between Facts and Norms (1996)
Inclusion of the Other (1999)
The Liberating Power of Symbols (2001)
Future of Human Nature (2003)
Between Naturalism and Religion (2008)
Europe (2009)
Kuhn
On the Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)
Luhmann
Social Systems (1984)
Mackinnon
Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989)
Mannheim
Ideology and Utopia (1936)
Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism – Douglas Kellner (1984)
Negations (1972)
The Aesthetic Dimension (1979)
A Study on Authority (2008)
Merton
Social Theory and Social Structure (1949)
The Sociology of Science (1973)
On the Shoulders of Giants (1985)
On Social Structure and Science (1996)
Negri
Antonio Negri – Timothy Murphy (2012)
Marx Beyond Marx (1979)
Empire (2000)
Multitude (2004)
Parsons
Talcott Parsons: Theorist of Modernity – Turner and Robertson (1991)
Talcott Parsons: An Intellectual Biography – Uta Gerhardt (2002)
The Social System (1951)
Schutz
The Phenomenology of the Social World (1967)
Spivak
In Other Worlds (1987)
Thompson
The Poverty of Theory (1978)
Walby
Theorising Patriarchy (1990)
The Future for Feminism (2011)
The first sociological theory thrown at me during A-Levels was jolly old Functionalism: the perspective that established social institutions and social behaviours exist because they're functional from the point of view of the social whole. Just as lungs, stomachs and hearts maintain biological organisms, the division of labour, the state, the family work to reproduce society according to established norms. It is tautological - the social order exists because it produces social order - but that is it in a nutshell. As you might expect, oriented as it is toward 'the now' Functionalism can be read conservatively and evoked to justify the conservation of institutions. Indeed, for many an A-Level class it is deliberately set up as a straw man to hone critical thinking skills. Yet at the same time, Functionalism is useful as it invites us to think through the consequences institutions and components of the social system have on other parts. It is also possible to avoid conservatism. Noting that the traditional nuclear family fulfills a number of functions through the roles it inculcates does not require its endorsement, nor necessarily blind one to its latent dysfunctions. It could, potentially, be value-free.
Value-free sociology has been something of a holy grail for a long time, and it's one that has come apart time and again - not least because sociological perspectives condense, in theory, the outlooks of classes, fractions of classes, social movements and so on. This is where Niklas Luhmann comes in with his own attempt to introduce a properly scientific approach to the study of social systems. His 'Systems Theory' is something I've only recently encountered (yes, I'm terrible - so shoot me), so indulge me thinking aloud about it.
Luhmann's starting point are with the functions, or how social structures serve certain functions. Under the influence of the German conservative philosopher Arnold Gehlen, Luhmann took his concept of Entlastung, which refers to relieving/unburdening. Alone among the animals, Gehlen believed we can act intentionally and make decisions about our actions. But rather than live in a state of permanent, radical contingency we conscious creatures crave the stability of security and routine. Habits, rituals, traditions, and institutions meet this inescapable ontological lack in a variety of ways, but function to help us cope with having free will.
Institutionally speaking, structures works to reduce contingency, to narrow the range of freedom. Hence when we go to work, regardless of our levels of responsibility and salaries, our jobs tend toward routine. The possibility of contingency, of random accidents and unexpected disruptions, are minimised as much as possible through organisation design. As far as Luhmann was concerned, this foreclosing performs the crucial task of reducing social complexity for the individuals who occupy certain roles. A chief executive of a local authority, for example, is not embedded in the minutiae of day-to-day operations. Their lot is sitting in meetings and making decisions. They do not have to do detail, because the complexity of the organisation is carved up into areas of competency. However, Luhmann notes that the more an organisational system is divided up for the benefit of the limited human minds that inhabit it, the greater the overall complexity of the system becomes. As simplicity begets complexity, the system gets more unwieldy and the possibility one can make causal statements about social processes is reduced.
In addition to the primary functional observation about social systems, Luhmann rejects Talcott Parsons view that goals, or norms, are guides to social behaviour. It appears common sense to assume that that organisations, like individuals, appear to be guided by certain intentions that can explain their actions. For instance, a couple of weeks ago our vice chancellor came to talk with the newest cadre of lecturers. His remarks about an upcoming restructure were prefaced with an overview of the institution's values. There was mention of local roots, commitment to graduate employability, partnering up with local businesses, maintaining scholarly standards, developing research excellence, and so on. Exactly the sorts of objectives common to each and every university. Yet the behaviour of few, if any of the university's employees can be explained by these objectives. Motives for my cohort take in the usual reasons - good salaries and conditions, freedom to teach, freedom to research, etc. What drives the institutional mechanism is system momentum. Or, the continued performance of duties irrespective of the officially sanctioned values and objectives charter. By focusing on small, controllable aspects of their worlds, individuals, departments, faculties and the institution itself keeps on ticking over.
Key for Luhmann here is differentiation. With echoes of Durkehim's division of labour, society itself is structured in a manner analogous to the institutional system, though Luhmann suggests society is best thought of as being distributed across a series of more or less discrete systems. In his 1984 book, Social Systems, he argued that the social comprises a gaggle of functionally differentiated systems that were self-referential and could only be grasped by understanding their internal logics. The elements of these systems are not human subjects as such but continuous acts of communication and the ceaseless production of meaning. Hence, systems theory allows for non-human actors. From a systems perspective, both computers and humans are media for the circulation of communications, and as this is the base element individuals are radically interchangeable. The person may be different but the messages they are expected to emit within a system remain the same.
Functionally differentiated systems are, funnily enough, discerned according to the functions they perform. Hence there are systems for economics, politics, science, religion, art, and so on. Putting a system under the slide of the analytical microscope reveals further layers of differentiation inside, of systems meeting functional needs specific to the overarching functional system. Increasing magnification peels away the layers until you come to the individual being or machine generating codes in their own simplified work space. However, internal differentiation is specific to each functionally separate system. There is no overlap between systems, nor is there a system standing apart, above and capable of corralling systems to behave in particular ways. Any attempt to regulate, or "irritate", as Luhmann puts it, a system from the outside will be responded to solely in terms of the logic of the irritated system. Politically-motivated attempts to tax profits, for example, might encourage systemic avoidance of tax through mass scale accountancy fiddles, offshoring of production, domiciling companies elsewhere, and so on. Another example - considered by Luhmann - was how our social systems are doomed to respond adequately to environmental crisis. The "logics" of natural processes are quite alien from the grammar of profits and votes, and so on. It follows from this that if a system is forced to perform tasks outside its competencies, the inevitable result will be social pathology.
Althusser fans might find this non-Marxist view of social formations as processes without a subject fascinating. I was also struck by the parallels this has with Bourdieu's work around social fields, albeit at a more abstract remove and without any appreciation of the constitutive spadework done by social conflict. Yet, despite this, Luhmann did not link his social theory to any politics. In his sociology, politics is one functionally differentiated field among many in a social space where no one predominates over another, where norms and values are the outcomes, not causes of functions, and where, therefore, sociologically grounded social critique of any kind cannot exist. All that does are free floating 'nice ideas'.
However, the implications are clear. If functionally differentiated systems are not commensurable, any politics seeking social change is utopian from the off. For instance, as politics is a different system to economics, it is the height of folly for the former to involve itself in economic matters - let alone start practising truly democratic socialism - unless one wishes to irritate and damage those systems. Where have I heard that argument before? Oh yes, it sounds mightily similar to the touchstone of neoclassical economics with its quaint belief that states cannot hope to understand the price-signalling information of millions of commodities, which dooms it to wrecking economies when it interferes with market mechanisms.
Has Luhmann provided the bare bones of that rarest of beasts, a conservative sociology? It can certainly be read that way. But then again, there is nothing essentially conservative about it. For example, the extension of economics into politics, a case of conditioning if not determining in the first instance where UK politics are concerned, can highlight dysfunctions coming the other way. Is the commodification of areas under the state's purview, like health and education, good for politics functional health? I would say not - hence Luhmann provides tools for a localised critique not dissimilar in character to Habermas taking up the cudgels against "subsystems" invading the "lifeworld".
This raises unanswered questions about the role of the state and struggle. Sure, the state (or rather, states - Luhmann believed the social system was global) can be treated as a functionally differentiated system too, which is rather extensively differentiated internally. But clearly, no amount of abstract systems theorising can escape the empirical fact that the state is the pre-eminent institution (or set of institutions) in advanced industrial societies, and that it guarantees the set of property relations upon which economic systems are built. It can and does have the power to intervene in other social systems through law and mandatory regulation. How can this real privilege sit within Luhmann's theory?
As someone who was interested in functions rather than structure, Luhmann was open to the idea that different societies would meet the same functional demands in different ways. But why? Is it purely accidental that Britain has a National Health Service and the USA does not, or do the shape structures take to meet functions differ because of the outcomes of popular struggles? If that is the case, then what role for collective actors and collective action? If they are creatures of the political social system, how can they occasionally restructure attitudes across supposedly non-commensurable social systems?
Clearly, Luhmann's systems theory has conservative implications, but it helpfully asks serious and searching sociological questions of itself as an abstract system, and how we theorise the interconnectedness of complex societies with or without it as a guiding framework. Perhaps Luhmann did try and address these issues - I don't know yet. But either way, his rethinking of Functionalism and transformation of it into systems theory is nevertheless fascinating, however flawed his project turned out to be.
Ideas are very hard to kill, especially if they're adhered to by a swathe of the population. Among other things, that's what political parties are (officially) about. There are certain principles or collections of ideas espoused by different organisations. Sometimes they're bundled up in coalitions of like-minds, like the Conservatives and Labour. Sometimes they're spotless and pure - step forward the sects on the far left and the far right. And, on occasion, a party can act as a lightning rod of discontent born of a variety of grumbles. That mantle, once the preserve of the Liberal Democrats, has seen that torch pass to the UK Independence Party. And as the fourth party in UK-wide politics, it would be churlish to deny that UKIP haven't done a good job running with it. Regularly outpolling the LibDems, coming second in a string of by-elections, picking up about 160 councillors in last year's county elections, and carving out third place in 2013's local authority by-elections, the party's done good. And on top of that it's received political sense that they will top this year's European elections. Ironic that UKIP's profile relies on electoral success for a body they avowedly hate.
Looking forward to a profitable year for them, why is it John Rentoul writes of its coming demise in today's Indy?
Here's John arguing why its flush will be truly busted after May 2015:
Whoever wins the election, Ukip's habitat will change. If Cameron wins, he will hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU. Ukip would be prominent in the "No" campaign, but after the referendum – even if it's a No victory, which seems unlikely – the party would no longer have a purpose. If Ed Miliband wins the election, a referendum is not so certain, but a Conservative Party in opposition would be freed from the constraint of office and might become so anti-EU that Ukip would, again, become unnecessary.
John might well be proven right if political parties were about ideas. But they're not just about ideas. UKIP, like all political parties, speak to the lives of those who are attracted to them. They appeal to habit, emotions, traditions, aspirations, interests, concerns, and world views not because they have ultra-coherent outlooks, but because they have something about them that can allow for the projection of some or all of these things onto them by members, supporters and voters. Needless to say, the movement and flows of people and politics are not utterly random. They are patterned. On social scales, similar life experiences tend to produce regularities among outlooks and probable inclinations toward certain parties and social movements. Simplistically put, it's why big business and the affluent are more likely to support conservative parties, and why working class people - blue and white collar - incline towards labour and social democratic parties.
UKIP's support can be explained in more or less the same way. Its core vote is middle-aged-to-elderly white men, working class and (small business-owing) middle class. The membership and voter base built up recently is mainly drawn from the Tories. But last decade the party did well too, especially in the 2004 and 2009 European elections. The disproportionate three-to-one ration from former Conservatives vs former Labour masks its appeal to the anti-politics brigade, that disenchanted layer of, yes, mainly middle-aged and elderly people for whom modern Britain is an anxiety-inducing, unfamiliar place on the fast track to Sodom. Or something like that. Having grown up in a more secure and certain period, the economic precarity of neoliberalism's 30 years has torn at a social fabric simultaneously coming to terms with rapid technological change, mass immigration, important victories for women and BME and sexual minorities, and a deepening irreverence. For a section of that post-war generation, it means they don't feel at home in their home. As for official politics, forget it. The three main parties neither address these concerns or, worst of all, dismisses them out of hand. Anti-politics therefore has a constituency and, in UKIP, a successful vehicle. Here you have a party saying the unsayable, with a leader who thumbs his nose at too-cosy Westminster with a pint in hand and a Marlboro between his lips. A party who will stop immigration and take us out of the nannying EU. Its basic pitch is perfect for the projection of anxieties conditioned by class, gender and age; it is the mouthpiece of a materially constituted, partially politicised and sociologically discernible constituency of people.
Taking John's scenarios in turn, in the unlikely event of the Tories winning outright in 2015 followed by a No win in the referendum, UKIP's ostensible raison d'etre collapses. But that anti-politics constituency isn't going anywhere, so why should the party? It's not as if Westminster politics will become any less remote if the UK waltzes out the exit door. If anything, without the EU to shelter in, Britain is even more at the mercy of global economic headwinds. Life post-EU, compounded by reckless austerity and market fundamentalism will be a country in far sharper decline and greater unease. Who, apart from UKIP, are positioned to benefit from anomic despair? And if Labour wins, a veer to the right by a post-Dave Tory party is unlikely to stymie UKIP any. Sure, some former Tories might find their way back - assuming the Tories do make such a suicidal move. Whether it's Boris Johnson or Theresa May who takes the reins, both are canny enough to want to steer a centre course to try and win in 2020. And remember, Johnson is on record for favouring an immigration amnesty. The second point here is even if the Tories behave as John expects them to, UKIP will be okay. You don't have to play thought experiments here - look at history. During Michael Howard's 2003-2005 caretaker leadership of the Tories, its politics became markedly more hostile towards immigrants, travellers and the EU. How did UKIP manage with Tory tanks chewing up and ruining their lawn? 12 MEPs and two London Assembly members. The constituency was there. It's still there. And it's not going anywhere.
Unlike John, I don't think UKIP bring anything positive to politics at all. It poisons reasoned debate and raises the toxicity rate of public discourse. I'd much rather it didn't exist. But wishes and reality are not the same thing. UKIP lives because it responds to real social divisions, articulates and condenses real life experiences. Leaving the EU or spinning the Tories off rightward won't fix that. The only thing that could would be a consistent, determined and long-term effort to rebuild political trust, and that in itself will only work by dealing with the precarious, uncertain society. Is politics up to it?
It's all kicking off. This from Euronews.
Thousands of Bosnians have been demonstrating for a sixth day, calling for the resignation of the government.
There have been mass protests in more than 30 cities and the heads of four regional cantons have already resigned.
The protests started in the former industrial heartland town of Tuzla after four state-owned companies were privatised and sold off leaving workers unpaid and without jobs.
In Tuzla on Monday, locals were clearing up after government buildings were destroyed in riots.
In Sarajevo, demonstrators gathered outside the presidency building which was set on fire on Friday.
Protesters say overpaid politicians have left the country with more than 40 percent unemployment and rampant corruption. The are calling for non-partisan technocrat regional governments to take over.
Political analysts say it is hard to tell how the demonstrations will develop.
“How the situation will proceed from now is really hard to predict because we are pretty much in uncharted waters. This is the first time that Bosnia and Herzegovina has such a social uprising. I think it will depend pretty much on the way local politicians act upon it but also on the future engagement of the international community,” said Sarajevo political analyst, Srecko Latal.
British Foreign Minister William Hague said in Brussels on Monday that the economic unrest is a “wake-up call for the European Union.”
Two points. How is this a "wake-up call" for the EU? Is Hague suggesting that austerity might not be a good idea?
The second is, more significantly, the protests are throwing together communities that were formerly torn apart by ethnic hatred and violence. 20 years on, Bosnia is becoming the poster boy for unity against corruption, austerity and neoliberalism. Small wonder it's attracted scant media interest.
While we're on a moral panic tip, here's a recurring one for you: violent video games cause x, y, z social pathology. The latest story to plough the well-worn farrow is that killing digital representations of human beings leaves teenagers morally immature. Yup, blasting away at screens of bad 'uns, Russians and space Nazis stunts emotional growth and depresses developing empathy. Readers know I'm interested in the the narcissistic self, hence the claims made of this research are worth a look. After all, preoccupation with self demands a certain crowding out of others (though, paradoxically, the narcissistic self needs others to reflect by its "unique" qualities).
Here, Mirjana Bajovic of Brock University in Canada took a sample of 109 13 and 14 year olds (61 boys, 48 girls). Of the half that played video games, violent titles were the most popular. Of these, the the gamers who spent between 1-3 hours every day shooting and maiming things were found to be perfectly fine. However, for the eight boys who spent more than three hours daily on violent games, there were signs of stunted emotional development.
Two points about this. As Bajovic notes in her PhD thesis on which the news story is based,
Correlational studies usually suggest that there is a relationship between two variables; they cannot prove that one variable causes a change in another variable. In other words, correlation does not equal causation. Other variables may also play a role, including social relationships, cognitive abilities, personality, socioeconomic status, and a myriad of other factors (Creswell, 2003, 2008; Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007). One of the limitations of this study was that it did not investigate causation and did not take into account those other variables. Another limitation is derived from the small participant sample. Data in this study were collected on a small sample of adolescents in seven schools in Ontario and should not be generalized to adolescents in other schools from other regions (Kerlinger & Lee, 2000). (p.230)
In other words these are only preliminary findings. They suggest in the absence of other variables, there is a statistical artefact between the length of time playing violent games and emotional maturity. Also, claims made cannot be generalised because of the very small sample involved. What there is is a suggestion that something might be happening.
The second point regards the measurement of 'emotional maturity'. When I was a kid at school I was bombarded with all sorts of essentialised gendered nonsense about emotions. On the one hand I was told boys lagged the emotional maturity of girls by two years. And on the other women, generally, never grew up emotionally. There is a burgeoning literature on the sociology of emotions, hence the very idea of what is and what isn't emotionally mature behaviour is very much up in the air. The other issue, also acknowledged by Bajovic, is that self-reported data may be inaccurate for all sorts of reasons, such as lapses of memory or fibbing to make one look more grown-up. The same is true of interviews - each research encounter is an arena of self-construction and self-assertion. If you go with Goffman, self-presentation is the driver of social behaviour.
Quite rightly, Bajovic calls attention to the limited nature of her venture and that it needs filling out with additional research. And yet, despite the caveats, we are given deliberately misleading headlines strongly suggesting that "science has proven" linkages when only a tentative avenue for further investigation has been opened up.
Of course, there's long been panics about video games, being as they are associated with violent killings, asociality, and health problems (remember The Sun's 'Nintendo Killed My Son'?). They are caught up in a spiral of signification that annexes seemingly innocuous pastimes and behaviours and splices them with more sinister things that frighten honest, hard-working folk (more here). And like all moral panics, whether they're live or low level pangs of collective unease, they focus attention away from the sources of unease. They work to promote outright misrecognition.
Much of our culture is based around screens. A typical evening in the BC household involves two computers and a telly. Looking at my internet friends and comrades, it's reasonable to assume theirs is much the same. So what this means sociologically and especially in terms of childhood/teen socialisation (in Bajovic's case) demand investigation. But one should never lose sight of basic questions that always must be asked. These involve always-already acknowledging the political economy and control implications/effects/histories of screen technology, allied to multi-faceted approaches that place those technologies and their users in their lived contexts without bracketing those away as messy variables. That is the path to truly useful knowledge about the social impacts video games have.
I was very sorry to hear about Stuart Hall this afternoon. A figure who tends not to get much coverage in academe or the left these days, his impact on the social sciences and socialist politics in Britain was deep and influential. When I started studying sociology in the early-mid 1990s, Hall's work cast a benign shadow over the British intellectual scene. His was an attempt to come to grips with how politics and culture worked together for the benefit of prevailing configurations of class and power. In 1978's Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and the Law Hall and his colleagues took up the idea of the moral panic.
When the official reaction to a person, groups of persons or series of events is out of all proportion to the actual threat offered, when ‘experts’, in the form of police chiefs, the judiciary, politicians, and editors perceive the threat in all but identical terms, and appear to talk ‘with one voice’ of rates, diagnoses, prognoses and solutions, when the media representations universally stress ‘sudden and dramatic’ increases (in numbers involved or events) and ‘novelty’, above and beyond that which a sober, realistic appraisal could sustain, then we believe it is appropriate to speak of the beginnings of a moral panic.
- Hall et al. 1978, p.16
Building on famous work done by Stanley Cohen on media portrayals of Mods and Rockers, these panics are a contrived sense of crisis hyped up as threats to the moral fabric and social order. The threats posed decent, hard-working people - unruly youth subcultures then, an objective alliance between Jihadists and paedophiles today - demands "action", usually in the forms of more intensive policing and a return to a disciplinarian life that never really existed. As far as Hall and his comrades were concerned, there was more to panics than press hyperbole. There were an ideological symptom, a cultural convulsion of a society founded upon irreconcilable class interests. As such moral panics spoke to a deep objectless anxiety permeating ways of being in advanced capitalist societies. A panic worked to scoop up as many (not all - no one is "brainwashed") people as possible to direct their unease at groups that might act as attractors for inchoate anger. Abstract processes of surplus extraction and capital accumulation are out, pinning the blame on "people like them" is in. Hall and co. also noted how threats, as defined by the great and the good, can be associated with harmless but supposedly related behaviours. A moral panic can therefore also involve a 'signification spiral', where other groups, subcultures or modes of conduct can be coded as troubling. Persistent panics around delinquent youth has seen the gathering of all teenagers in public places (especially at night) branded as problematic. High school shootings over the water were occasions for hand-wringing about Marilyn Manson and violent video games. And so it goes. The loser is social life as a whole - it becomes ever more miserable, anxious and paranoid. But the winner is social order which, for the most part, carries on.
Perhaps Hall's greatest contribution, politically speaking, was his approach to Thatcherism. As a good Gramscian well aware of the political crisis of the 1970s, Hall quickly realised that, while she was still in opposition, there was more to Thatcherism than the usual soundbitery. Thatcher was more than an office-seeking politician, she had a project for remoulding British society. In the context of a crisis in the state's political economy, her 'authoritarian populism' combined a hard law and order pose with tough anti-immigration and borderline racist rhetoric (the National Front collapsed in 1979 because voters swayed by their outright racism had somewhere to go). It's us vs them-ism, a virtuous 'we' against a non-white, semi-communist, semi-totalitarian Other. Can you spy analogous logics at work betwixt populism and moral panics? Hall was worried, and later proven right that Thatcher's Tories might create an alliance between sections of different classes. The populist rhetoric went with the promise of a popular capitalism - a shareholder, home-owning democracy. Freedom to buy one's council house, freedom from strikes and union bullies, freedom to be successful, this was Thatcher's promise as she waged class war against the labour movement and, by extension, the interests of all working class people including her own supporters. Closing state-owned industries, creating vast private monopolies out of tax payer-owned assets, and using North Sea oil revenues to fund tax cuts for the rich; what Thatcher was about was the greater subordination of Britain to the blind whims of capital. Ironically, her authoritarian populism - founded on popular anxiety - created the conditions for its retrenchment.
Hall clearly understood what Thatcher was about, and you can see echoes of her authoritarian populism in Conservative Party electoral strategy still. But when it came to alternatives, Hall was associated with the so-called Eurocommunists of the old, official Communist Party and their house journal, Marxism Today. His Gramscian appreciation of Thatcher implied that the left, the CPGB, Labour - mark your preference, needed to be in the business of forging alliances of its own. Unsurprisingly, the disintegrating communists and the feud-wracked Labour Party were in no position to do so. Hall and others' 'New Times' work did attempt to come to grips with the crisis of the labour movement and try and chart a way forward, but there were few takers beyond the commentariat and the vanishing communist party. That is until Blair came along who, in the early years, attempted to create a Blairite populism of his own.
Academically, Hall was indispensable as the head of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University. Cultural Studies is now largely absent from faculties across the land now, but in its heroic early phase in Britain, under Hall it produced a great deal of politically-charged work grappling with problems of culture, social order and power. Hall's own Marxism, which he never repudiated, set the tone for intellectually exciting and radical work throughout the 70s and 80s. Unfortunately, Cultural Studies' will-to-truth was replaced by a glossy, verbose will-to-shop by the early 00s. Perhaps reflecting the different times, at times the discipline had more-or-less become 'philosophy-goes-to-the-mall'. I am sure Hall would not have approved.
With the loss of Stuart Hall, the left loses another of its good men. I therefore hope his passing encourages a wider reflection on and engagement with his politically-charged writings. You would be hard-pressed to find a more fitting tribute.
NB You can read another of Hall's famous articles here: The Great Moving Right Show.
Would you like some awesome sauce with your Sunday dinner?
Back in the noughties, there was a Stoke-on-Trent councillor who faced a very strong challenge from the BNP for his seat. The fascists threw the kitchen sink at it, and Labour countered by ensuring they went door-to-door. It was touch-and-go but in the end the BNP did not win and the incumbent clung on. The thing is, despite staring down the barrel and with the fash snapping at his heels our councillor refused to go out and canvass for support. I bring this up because Dave's approach to the Scottish referendum is almost exactly the same. Sure the No Campaign - Better Together - have the poll lead but the momentum is increasingly with with the Yes'ers. Where is our Prime Minister? Where is the elected political leader of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as centrifugal forces tear at the 1707 Act of Union? Nowhere near Scotland, of course.
Like the rest of his male, pale, and very, very stale front bench, Dave is locked into body swerve mode on pretty much every key issue. And as issues go, they rarely get bigger than this Autumn's referendum on Scottish independence. If Dave was any kind of leader, he'd be all over the campaign. For a man who said yesterday that we have "seven months to save the most extraordinary country in history", he has been remarkably mute about this referendum.
Far be it for me to advise Dave, but the vote provides a golden opportunity. Sure, not many people in Scotland likes Tories but, from a cynical point of view, having him swashbuckle his way through the lowlands and highlands, facing down Alex Salmond in a live debate, being seen *to listen* to grievances of ordinary Scots. it could allow him to project himself as a national figure - a Prime Minister for all Britons. If he was to take such a lead and the No Campaign won, he could reap considerable political capital as the Man Who Saved the UK. That would be his legacy, not the bedroom tax. He might even get himself re-elected in 2015.
Unfortunately for those who wish Scotland to remain with the rest of us (that includes me), the biggest asset the Yeses have is David Cameron and the worthies of Official Britain who line up with him. The historical crisis of the leadership of the ruling class has landed us a Prime Minister who couldn't be less suited to bat for a voluntary union of peoples. Thatcher was a class war premier, but she was canny. She constructed a flag-draped narrative pitting 'the nation' against the 'enemy within'. It was plausible enough for the support needed to return her to government and to see off organised labour, even if it was poppycock. And it all came apart when she departed significantly from this "one nation" course with the introduction of the Poll Tax. Remind me, which part of the UK served as a laboratory for it?
Dave, however, is neither as sharp or as lucky as Thatcher was. His mob are of the school that they don't just believe what they say, they take flight from anything inconvenient rudely intruding into their field of vision. They probably really do think austerity means "we're all in it together", just don't show them a cumulative impact assessment of social security cuts. I'm sure Dave is sincere in his belief that he acts in the nation's best interest. The problem is his idea of 'the nation' coincides with the most backward, most decadent sections of British capital. Dave's government is very far from being the "committee for the common affairs of the bourgeoisie", let alone representing the interests of everyone else. And the thing is, most Scots know this. They know the Tories are not for the likes of them, which is why they return one Conservative MP out of 72 to Westminster.
That's one big problem. Here's another. What compelling reason is there for Scotland to stay? Okay, naysayers can point out what kind of independence involves keeping the Queen, the pound, and nuclear submarines. You can argue that it's a bit silly letting the Bank of England and the Treasury control your economic fates, semi-colonial-stylee. Scotland might be less able to weather the headwinds of global capital and could find the path to EU membership a tortuous one. Some business might relocate south of the border to remain in EU territory until that is sorted out. And Scotland will have to take The Krankies back. Yes, some might want to frighten Scottish voters into casting no ballots. But, sadly, that's all Better Together have got. Just look at Dave's speech - a pile of platitude topped off with guff. Quelle surprise, one of the most important speeches of his political career has absolutely nothing to say.
You could level the exact same criticism at the SNP-led campaign, of course. The difference is the Yes'ers are holding out the prospect of change. No one knows what an independent Scotland would look like, but it wouldn't be Tory. As such it can be a catch-all for every hope and dream, of a new start crammed with new ideas. Of a Scotland defining itself against the corpse blue of Tory England. No offers nothing, just more of the same. If the union is to be preserved, the No Campaign has to offer something more than Olympic Medal Tables - nothing less than a re-visioning of Britain will do, and that means commitment to deep, lasting constitutional reform. But the chances of that happening are a great deal less than Scotland voting yes.
With a choice between hope and a miserable status quo argument saddled with liabilities, who would you vote for?
oily slick customer. Yeah, Ed occasionally bests him at the despatch box but most people don't bother with PMQs, and don't see his frequent slips into schoolboy bullying a red-faced ranting. Dave knows about the importance of presentation and the need to project, for want of a better phrase, 'activist government'. So why has it taken until now for him to recognise that the west country floods are a big deal, and that he should do something about it? Telegraph hack Iain Martin is similarly stumped. Leaving aside his silly attempt to blame the foreign aid budget for cuts to flood and coast defence monies, there's certainly a 'thing' here. Iain slaps on some generous gloss, suggesting a perfect storm of leaving ministers to their own devices and not wanting to be seen panicking underlies the indifference. I beg to differ.
We've been in the long election campaign for a wee while now, and some of the inaction can be laid at the door of Conservative election strategy. "Hold on a minute, Phil. Surely that's preposterous. Look at the seats affected, look at the Dorset coastal constituencies - most are Tory-held, and only a couple could be described as marginals. In the past, only Labour made the mistake of dumping on its natural support. There's got to be another explanation?" As Dave doesn't do detail, I wouldn't be shocked if his knowledge of that part of the world is confined to Oliver Letwin representing West Dorset. But, electorally speaking, we're talking about - hideous phrase klaxon - the wider campaigning narrative. Even my lampshade knows the Tories grab bag of electoral tricks has "dung" stamped on it, and we can expect relentless negativity about the past crimes of the Labour Party. Anticipate the Winter of Discontent, that most knackered of warhorses, getting dragged out the stable some 35 years after the fact. The blanket negativity towards the opposition has to be balanced by a positive offer. In a zone free of policy beyond kicking the poorest and most vulnerable, Dave and Crosby want to concoct a vision of Britain going places. We've had the previews already - more people in work than ever before, sorting out the deficit, more apprentices and students, a surging economy, vague references of a plan to prosperity. Unlike 2010 when Dave talked Britain down, this time talking Britain up is the message. That's the crux of the emerging CCHQ lines - Labour = bad, Britain = good. Labour + Britain = bad. Yes, some people get paid lots of money for zoning the Tories' strategic messages in a Manichean fashion.
This matters for the floods. Putting aside government failure for a moment, having train lines knocked out, sea walls breached, homes ruined and farm land inundated does not radiate positive, soft nationalist vibes. It speaks of failure, of being overwhelmed and consumed by disaster. Far better the PM do nice things, like looking at factories or having cups of tea with photogenic "normal" people. Disaster then has to be boxed off from the official view that all is peachy in the country's garden.
Related to this is Dave's utter aversion to criticism, to being held to account. His frequent anger at PMQs indicates a skin thin to the point of translucence. The noted preference for letting ministers to get on with their own departments is less a philosophical preference to a looser practice of government and more a way of devolving responsibility away. Gove, Pickles and IBS - of which more shortly - are proper hate figures, and deservedly so. But as meat shields for their boss, they carry the can well. Ultimately, everyone in education, local government or social security know Dave is equally culpable for what is being done to them, but the ministers successfully intercept more than their fair share of blame. It's almost as if it was designed that way. Dave then is adept at a-duckin' and a-divin', hence his instinctive recoil from anything to do with the floods because it's an opportunity for him to be held responsible. There's no escaping that his government announced cuts to flood protection on the eve of this round of flooding, and as the disaster has settled on sodden land and become a hot potato, trying to keep Owen Paterson and the Environment Agency's Chris Smith in the firing line is no longer tenable. Hence yesterday's hasty announcement under focused questioning at PMQs that more money was being made available.
What about being "hands on" like Gordon Brown was shortly after 2007's summer floods? There's little chance of that, because Dave is at pains to avoid getting ambushed by angry residents in front of the media. Remember this from just after Christmas? Probably not. But with greater international interest and the possibility of a dithering, speechless prime minister getting a mouthful from ruined farmers and homeowners, election-winning footage this would not make. Hence the distancing, hence the apparent indifference.
Thirdly, Dave's paralysis is symptomatic of a wider malaise afflicting the Tories. I make no apologies for plugging the decadence and stupid empiricism theses yet again, simply because I find them so useful for framing the Tory Party's behaviour - especially its leading figures. It is a truism that power does not like truth to be told back to it, and that's definitely the case here. IBS stops the DWP collecting stats on food bank use, refuses to authorise a cumulative impact assessment of his policies on social security recipients, and dodges questions in the House and select committees. Gove is notorious for thinking that he "just knows" what the most optimal education system is - sod decades and decades of evidence and study. And as for Pickles, well, because no local authority has gone under yet there must still be room for even more cuts. Each fights shy of the real world addressed by their policies and prefer to inhabit a comfort zone concocted on the basis of their own prejudices and ignorances. Dave is no different. Suppress an inconvenient HS2 report? Why not. Write off the last three years of economic stagnation? We'll have that. Zero hour contracts a problem? Any job is better than no job. It goes on, and on, and on.
Yes, these people are running the country. Fortunately, in this case sociology is destiny. They are stuck in a groove. Their dreamworlds are locked in by the decay of the Tories and the right. They're proper stuck. The problem is that they might still be able to convince enough voters to give them a punt in 2015. And if that happens, if they defy precedent and increase their support, they will drag the whole country with them into a dead night of decadent irrelevance.
Johnson's at it again. Rather than sit down and have meaningful dialogue with workers' representatives on the London Underground, he's been carping about a "lack of mandate" because the RMT's successful strike ballot came off the back of a 40% turnout. Instead, Johnson believes every ballot for industrial action should meet a 50% threshold to qualify as lawful. Ever keen to mimic the buffoon and curry favour with the wilting Tory grassroots, Dave has intimated that he'd like to see the Underground classed as an essential service, an imposition of a minimum service agreement during stoppages and, of course, a turnout threshold. For both men, it's about an instinctive hatred of a group of working people who have a record of winning disputes.
In Johnson's case, there's a bit more to it. He talks about not negotiating with the RMT "as long as it holds a gun to Londoners' heads", but has not met with the union for nigh-on five years. This is part distaste for the hoi polloi, and part calculation so he can trot out this transparent line when occasion demands. The second thing is that Bob Crow condenses in one man absolutely everything Tories like Johnson hate about working class trade unionists. He's militant, refuses to "know his place", is successful and worst of all, refuses to be taken in by the Boris Johnson Show. If Johnson can take him and the RMT out, he can lay credible claim to Thatcher's union-busting legacy, deepen his base in the party and extend his appeal among those backward types who see the pay and conditions of Underground workers as something to vilify, not to attempt to win for themselves.
Like the rest, Johnson is fully immersed in the stunted outlook and smug decadence gripping his party. Therefore, I'm not in the least bit surprised he (and Dave) haven't properly thought through the unintended consequences of their move to impose ballot thresholds.
The first is well-trailed. As the New Statesman points out, Johnson wouldn't have been elected if the threshold was applied to mayoral elections. The same can be said for European and local authority elections, parliamentary by-elections and, in some cases, a few constituencies on general election day. Johnson himself was elected on a 38% turnout. The RMT's ballot managed 40% which, as it happens, is quite high for an industrial dispute. The mayor has been asked about this comparison frequently, and a typical routine of muttering and mumbling comes by way of reply. Some might say a strike ballot and election are two different things, but Johnson knows the legitimacy principle is the same for both. And so do the public. He is canny enough to be aware that every time he gibbers something about the threshold, he is dumping over his own standing as an elected politician. Yet, simultaneously, he ignores the signals his antennae are picking up as if it won't affect him. He doesn't care that prodding a socket with copper wiring would give politics a nasty shock. The oaf is ultimately undermining his and his party's medium and long-range interests all for narrow egotism and a deluded sense of invulnerability. Decadent is one word for it. Another, much shorter d-word also comes to mind.
The second is less considered, but could be of equal - if not more - significance. Johnson and Dave favour the threshold because a) it will be more difficult to pull off official disputes, b) demoralise union activists as thresholds are repeatedly missed, and c) cost unions more time and resource to meet the new criteria. Quite apart from restrictive new rules running the risk of midwifing wildcat strikes or, more likely, individual acts of workplace damage born of frustration, it's yet another example of complacent suppositions. Remember, the relationship we as labour movement people have with unions is atypical. We go to meetings for one, and we earnestly talk about union issues with real-life people in real-life places. For most trade union members, the relationship they have is the missive through the door and the monthly deduction of subs. A good chunk of workers in organised workplaces won't even know who their local rep is. Consider what might happen if the law changes. A dispute arises, a union goes for a ballot and has to hit the thresholds. It has diverted more resources into a get out the vote operation. That could mean more workplace meetings, more literature through the post, more activists working on turnout and, who knows, a canvassing of members' homes. This is easier to do on a smaller scale, so it's likely disputes involving hundreds or thousands, not tens or hundreds of thousands would become the 'standard' official dispute. But more importantly, the turnout pressure could force members into a closer relationship with their union. A distant, abstract entity might become something more approximate, more immediately relevant, more direct. That's the last thing Johnson and Dave would want.
These things won't necessarily happen, but they could. The question is are Tories willing to run the risk? Given their sectional stupidity and dislocation from the collective interests of British capital itself, there's no evidence they think there even is one.
