Breeding hell
It's the language of Howard Flight's comments that is interesting. The idea that the poor should be 'breeding', and that's somehow a bad idea, is quite revealing.
Of course it could be that this was just some throwaway joke gone spectacularly wrong; but even if it's a joke, it's not terrifically funny. And even if it's a joke, it still tells us something, I think, about the attitude towards the untermensch by our lords and masters.
It's part of a wider picture in which everyone under the age of about 25 is cheerfully labelled as 'feral' and 'chavs'; it's a narrative in which the young and the poor can be dismissed as a mass of animals, as an underclass of scum. They are always set up against the 'middle-classes', aka the hardworking taxpaying middle classes, the people who do all the work and pay for all the doleites popping out kids and getting free houses on estates up and down the land.
It's a media-driven idea, as well, this dual society, the poor oppressed middle class who are funding everything and who can't afford to have children of their own; and, on the other hand, the chavvy non-working class, who are happy to siphon off the middle class's tax pounds to pay for their offspring and lavish lifestyle. Time and again, in tabloid newspapers - supposedly the papers of the common man and woman - you'll see stories about someone who's living in a mansion with 83 kids in it and guess who's paying... the rarest of examples are used as evidence of a system that is designed to punish the good middle class and reward the bad lazy workshy feral animals.
You might think, and I might think, that things are considerably more complicated than that; that there are poor people who work very hard at low-paid jobs and who have to bring up children at the same time, and so on. But it's an inviting narrative. In tough economic times, it's nice to have a villain to blame for your plight - if not the immigrants pouring over here and stealing our jobs and benefits (which we'll be reading about tomorrow in scary tones thanks to the latest ONS figures on migration) then you can blame the poor, the scroungers, the underclass, those who dare to take handouts from the state.
It's something that's convenient for our rulers as well - it's very handy for them to elude responsibility for the decisions they've made and are making by pointing the finger at the poor and at immigrants. "What can we do?" they say. "The middle classes are paying for everything, while those on benefits keep on breeding, like animals." It's the dehumanising thing that seems so depressing - dehumanising a whole class of people. It's the language of hatred. It's the language of class war.
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November 25th, 2010 - 14:22
I’m glad you brought this up, it shows Class War™ for the scam it is, where the middle and lower classes are trained to attack each other – by the upper classes.
November 25th, 2010 - 14:27
You’re right, the truth is more complicated. Of course, there are elements of truth when it comes to “workshy” factions. Not all “workshy” people are feral, nor are all feral people workshy. There are a lot of chavs about, but not all chavs are workshy, by that token. Some people on benefits for the long term blame the country’s problems on immigrants, some immigrants blame the country’s problems on “benefit scroungers”, some Eastern Europeans blame Muslims for our problems, some Muslims blame Eastern Europeans for our problems, and so on and so forth. A “rat race”, as The Specials referred to it. Everyone of every denomination is blaming someone else and claiming ultimate victimhood for their own position and denomination. All whilst we further slump.
To me, it can’t, by the same token, be instantly dismissed as “class war”. It might be more complicated than that. It might be some form of cowardice, lack of joined up thinking, or just self-interest at work. I think it’d be better to not see it as a “war”, but as a bunch of people interested in themselves only, and would turn against each other in an instant when it’s convenient or popular to do so. It’s not really a political point exclusive to the right; it can be seen on the Guardian website as well, and elsewhere.
It’s only until people take themselves out of the picture and stop being solipsistic that this sort of rhetoric will really go away. You could see it at work in the discussions over student protests: people were unable to see that violence actually brought more publicity to the demonstration, and brought fear to politicians, meaning that it was actually fairly effective. Instead, people were too concerned about themselves, and how violence doesn’t convince THEM to their cause, and THEIR tax being paid to subsidise students.
November 25th, 2010 - 16:53
As a fairly workshy middle class person, I have to say, well, I don’t know what, but I guess there’s a point to be made there somewhere. But then again, I do pay my taxes, it’s just that my workload is pretty small and I’m lucky enough to have a wage.
November 25th, 2010 - 17:47
Hmmmm. A time of economic problems, one group of people dehumanised, considered animals, economic problems blamed on them, not really part of this country etc etc. You know I can’t help thinking of another country in western Europe about 75 years ago.
Scary isn’t it?
November 25th, 2010 - 18:04
Irregular verb:
“The upper classes produce heirs”
“The middle classes have families”
“The lower orders breed”
The view of people-as-livestock which has long characterised what used to be called “the gentry” has no more gone away than overt racism has; it is merely hidden by a better class of euphemism.
November 25th, 2010 - 21:13
‘Why can’t we just get wid of all these wascals, wuffians and wapscallions on welfare?’, seems to be the typical Tory train of thought these days.
November 26th, 2010 - 10:19
I have no problem at all with “the poor” continuing to “breed”. The stupid and the lazy on the other hand? This bothers me imensely.
But if there’s one thing that working-life has taught me, it’s that in the venn-diagram of society, the stupid and the lazy cross over all financial sets.
Hmmf.
November 26th, 2010 - 12:09
I agree with a lot of the general sentiment here, but I have to point out that an awful lot of people seem to have jumped on the “he said poor people breed, ergo he thinks they’re animals” narrative without actually bothering to read what he said:
“We’re going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s jolly expensive. But for those on benefits, there is every incentive. Well, that’s not very sensible.”
i.e., he’s talking about the middle classes doing the breeding (or not, as the case may be), and “those on benefits” are only connected to the verb “breed” by implication. It suggests to me his use of the verb was more flippant than pernicious.
November 26th, 2010 - 13:21
Thanks, Nick, for covering the point I wanted to make, and more eloquently to boot.
After reading his actual words you really have to want to make the connection between “poor people” and “breeding”. If “breeding” is an insulting term then he is applying it to the middle class directly. So if he is having a go at the “poor”, he is also having a go at the “middle class”.
That said, reading his full statement I do disagree with his sentiments, but it is important that we disagree with what someone has actually said, not with a misinterpretation of their words, or the argument becomes solely about the misinterpretation.
November 26th, 2010 - 13:24
You can’t separate the bit about the middle classes from what follows. “There is every incentive” to do what? Clearly it is referring to the verb from the previous sentence, which is ‘breed’. So there is no way of uncoupling it.
November 26th, 2010 - 13:45
I’ve got no problem with his use of the word “breed”, just with the fact that he’s talking bollocks. A few years ago someone with more time on his hands than was strictly good for them calculated that it cost more to raise a child to the age of 18 than it would to replace your Mercedes-Benz with a new one every two years. Now I don’t know what standard of living this was referring to, or indeed which particular model of Mercedes-Benz, but I don’t think the loss twenty quid a week is going to lead to a shortage of Tarquins and Jocastas.
November 27th, 2010 - 17:30
The only problem is that Howard Flight probably uses the word “breeding” in conjuction with people of all classes, not just the working classes. I suppose that can be put down to sexism on his part.
November 27th, 2010 - 20:48
It must be a terrible dilemma for the middle-class paranoids of Mailland. Either…
a) We let the poor pop out kids to work for us on minimum wage and keep the economy afloat
b) We imports loads of forrins who’ll pop out kids to work for us etc.
or
c) The population declines, as does economic growth so no more property boom for the next 30 years and OUR kids will have to work in Tescos stacking tins of peas.
Immigrants/working class… which to choose… its the Tory version of Burridan’s donkey…
November 27th, 2010 - 21:02
I wish someone would explain to me why apparently those in the top 10% of the income bracket can’t afford to ‘breed’. The logic presented in the press seems to be “Well we need this million quid house and 5 holidays a year and a Bentley and fucking hell that leaves hardly any cash left for Eton, so lets not have kids” whereas the poor apparently go “Brilliant, at £20 a kid I’ll have 18 kids and will have enough money left for me plasma telly and Stella”.
Seriously, this is the view the media and politicians are presenting. Is it just me, or is this logically complete nonsense??? Or perhaps as other posters suggest its simply the propaganda system in action designed to dehumanise the ‘enemy’ – i.e. around half the population…