
London's poor fetish: commodifying working class culture - chaghalibaghali
http://roarmag.org/2015/02/london-middle-class-culture-poverty/
======
l33tbro
The worst thing about this article is how hilariously smug and self-assured
the tone is.

Seriously, what gives the author the right to blanketly declare the lives of
the middle class to be souless, meaningless, and that their jobs are bullshit?
How does he not realize that he is projecting his own insecurity and outdated
ideas about "authenticity" on to these people.

Honestly, I've found that most people don't really give a shit about doing
something truly meaningful and soul-fulfilling in their work. I may, you
probably do too. But most people are fine with showing up, doing what they
have to do, then getting out and spending time with the people that they love.
What is so wrong with that?

Sure, we get it, the visual signifiers of the exotic have changed over the
last 10 years. Once upon a time in the UK it was Superclubs and being part of
something fancy and opulent. Now, the iconography of the working-class has
been appropriated - and people want to buy into that, probably based on the
tail-end of the skeuomorphic thing - where we were desiring to feel connected
to nostalgia based aesthetics.

But what the author doesn't get is that people are deeply social. Sure, the
economic and cultural environment will shift things the modes of interactions
- but people will continue forming relationships with friends, relaying
experiences, dancing to dumb songs with their friends. The artcile had some
great observations, but maybe rethink framing this as "a problem" and stick to
the description of culture (which was actually interesting).

~~~
brainpan
> what gives the author the right to blanketly declare the lives of the middle
> class to be souless, meaningless, and that their jobs are bullshit?

Well, that's what modern life is under the TINA regime[1]. A whole society of
people who've sold out every heroic ideal humans have ever conceived, in order
to live as cells inside corporate organs of a hyper-capitalistic organism that
would collapse if it stopped expanding. Money is god (it's about equal in
power to law, at least), and money is created in a Ponzi between central banks
and governments, and between private financial corporations and private
enterprises/individuals, all on the promise that there will be even more money
next year to pay back the debts of this year, and give "good enough or better"
returns on large capital pools invested. We consume natural resources in an
unsustainable way in exchange for this money, and for a cellular role in the
organs and the organism, and it will last in this way until the last day
comes, when we starve to death on our own planetary stripmine.

We could be taking a new course right now, to live in idealistic ways, in
sustainable ways, in heroic ways. But we all just quit that notion before we
start, because it's just too hard, and we distract ourselves with the greatest
media spectacle of entertaining diversions and political issues every
conceived.

Welcome to life in hell. You can get defensive and self-righteous when people
point out the mass hypocrisy and delusion and error in all our lives, but it
doesn't change the truth that we are all living in an awful state, as cowards
and lapdogs of the hyper-capitalist system that gives us life today, even as
it guarantees death in the future.

I figure that a not-yet born post-human super-predator will take the best of
human intelligence and anti-entropic principles and incorporate them, and
destroy the rest. Or some already-existing higher powers will swoop in at some
point in the future to harvest the best of our anti-entropic principles, and
destroy the rest of us.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative)

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I, for one, believe that continued economic growth needs continued growth in
global energy production, and that we will be unable to maintain this growth
over the next century for thermodynamic reasons. This will be the big shit-
hits-the-fan moment of the coming years, not climate change or wars. We
literally have to throw centuries of economics out the window.

~~~
ForHackernews
Solar energy is essentially untapped today (relative to output from fossil
fuels), and we are in no danger of exhausting the supply of nuclear fuel in
the near term.[0]

Eventually global energy production will taper off, but I would bet strongly
against it being within the next century.

[0] [http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-
Cycle/Uranium...](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-
Cycle/Uranium-Resources/Supply-of-Uranium/)

~~~
darkmighty
Yea, there is no "thermodynamic reason" for a limited supply of energy. Even
if we started expending too much energy in the atmosphere (say if we found an
efficient way to fusion), we could pump this excess heat to space, if it would
ever come to such an extreme.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
I see that none of you have heard of Carnot efficiency, or even the second law
of thermodynamics. Even if we were to get electric energy from magical pink
unicorns that produced no heat, the usage of that energy would produce waste
heat. And no, you can't just pump heat into space; if we could that would
easily solve global warming.

~~~
darkmighty
Yes you can...

Constructive proof: build a large suspended reflector (mirror), put you power
source on it and pump heat from earth to a sphere of any material, which
radiates heat into space.

No, this of course can't easily solve global warming due to enormous cost it
would have and ludicrous efficiency. It's way cheaper to just absorb less heat
from the sun (less CO2).

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Sometimes it's best to do the math before claiming stuff. Now, using thermal
radiation from a metal puts your emission spectrum at blackbody radiation
around or below 2000 Kelvin, and in that band around 50% of your emitted
energy will be absorbed by the atmosphere (thus will not leave earth). Your
heat pump going from 293 K to 2000 K will have a laughably low Carnot
efficiency (the highest efficiency allowed by thermodynamics): for every Joule
of heat you pump from the earth to the sphere, you have to use more than 20
Joules from our magical unicorns. Of these 20 Joules, 10 will be absorbed by
the atmosphere and heat the earth. But you have only removed one Joule of heat
from the earth. Thus your apparatus is not able to cool the earth, in fact it
will be heating the earth by a lot.

~~~
darkmighty
Who says the apparatus has to be in the low atmosphere?

What you cite are technical reasons, not thermodynamic. Thermodynamics doesn't
disallow the situation, only technical reasons make it difficult.

> Sometimes it's best to do the math before claiming stuff

> I see that none of you have heard of Carnot efficiency

Sometimes it's best to get off your high horse.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Alright, thermodynamics + not requiring magic (except the unicorns) then.
Thermodynamics has everything to do with it; if it were not for the Carnot
limit on heat pump efficiency, your proposed scheme for heat removal would
work fine. If it were not for the Carnot limit, we would have no problem
growing global energy consumption at 2-3% per year (i.e. exponentially) for a
hundred more years.

So, if you put your apparatus anywhere but in the low atmosphere, how do you
expect it to pump heat from the low atmosphere (where the heat is)?

I'm not on any high horse, but I'm surprised at how quickly people dismiss
this problem as absurd. It's quite obvious if you know some engineering
thermodynamics. I think people dismiss it out of cognitive dissonance, since
they don't want another unfixable world problem.

~~~
darkmighty
> I'm not on any high horse

> people dismiss it out of cognitive dissonance

Ok then.

You are making a few claims:

1) Thermodynamics imposes a finite limit on the energy consumption on Earth;

Sure, it might be necessary to build a fleet of titanic cooling towers to cool
the atmosphere, I don't think we will ever need to do that; but thermodynamics
doesn't forbid cooling Earth, hence your claim is false.

That out of the way

2) The direct thermal output of power sources/uses is going to be a problem in
the near future

I claim that's also false. In fact, the burden of the proof should be yours
when you make such a claim, but let me show why I believe otherwise:
(approximate figure from wiki [1])

142 PWh of energy was used worldwide. Solar irradiance is 340000 PWh. It would
take almost 200 years of steady 3% growth (or a 240x increase in consumption)
to even reach 1% of solar irradiance as internal heat. Even then, the impact
of greenhouse gases massively overshadows that.

On top of that, there's no activity requiring exponentially more energy, or
evidence that we may continue expanding energy demand for hundreds or years.
In fact, if you look at per capita energy consumption vs GDP [2], you can
clearly see a saturation of energy needs. Once the developing nations reach
this, it seems demand growth is going to slow down. Nothing physical ever
maintains an exponential growth for too long.

[1] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/The-
NASA-...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/The-NASA-
Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-
radiation-fluxes.jpg)

[2]
[http://www.withouthotair.com/c30/figure242.png](http://www.withouthotair.com/c30/figure242.png)

------
JimboOmega
I'm always reluctant to embrace something that is basically bemoaning
"cultural malaise", especially with a rather obvious left-wing bent, BUT, it's
very well written and offers several good points.

In particular, this bit:

"That their accent, speech patterns and knowledge of institutions, by their
very deployment in the job market, perpetuate norms that exclude those who
were born outside of the cultural elite."

It's a very valid point that culture drives so much of hiring and economic
reality. That it creates economic barriers everywhere.

There's also a valid complaint against the meaninglessness of the office job.
But to say "Hipsters :("... I'm not sure that really means all that much on
its own.

I don't think it's a case of seeking meaning in a pointless non-struggle by
emulating the struggling classes.

It's the same as it always was - the middle classes trying to differentiate
themselves by social signaling - doing things others can't. Classic yuppies
just bought expensive toys. The newer generation spends on other things. For
instance, by dressing like a hipster, you can signal that you are not chained
to the traditional office. You can buy $8 drinks at bars on weeknights. You
can spend a year or two abroad.

We aren't quite like Effie, but only because the peacocking evolved in a
different direction.

But let's not forget that Hunger Games is some ways an allusion to the Roman
Empire - and that the fundamental problem is not a new one.

~~~
notahacker
I dunno, personally I thought it was dreadful even by the standards of left-
wing articles bemoaning cultural malaise, some of which at least manage
consistency. Hipsters are attacked both for being "unable to do anything
useful, alienated from physical labor" _and_ because "never will they face the
grinding monotony of mindless work", for taking unpaid internships and for
having mortgages. They apparently go to food markets out of vicarious faux-
working class escapism, and not because freshly-cooked spicy food is worth
paying a bit more for than Pret. Middle class people that don't embrace the
working class aesthetic are even worse. The author doesn't seem to realise the
average hipster has disposable income to buy £6 jerk sandwiches and £8
cocktails because £21k goes further when you have no dependents and rent by
the room rather than because they're nascent millionaires tasked with finding
new ways to cut working class incomes.

Hipsters are nowhere near as bad as keyboard class warriors whose pretentious
prose belies the inauthenticity of their attempts to speak for the working
class as surely as the braying accents they whinge about.

~~~
JimboOmega
Complaining that both hipster AND low class work are meaningless is a bit
contradictory, definitely. And I have to give you props for pointing out that
not every person with a decent office job is a millionaire. Anyway.

What is the author's point, exactly?

For the vast majority of the article, the point is "the life of the middle
class is pointless; they try to find some meaning in it through trivialized
edgy experiences - which fail to provide much relief to the ennui since they
are too sanitized."

Okay, so I buy that. It's less about "poverty tourism" than it is just the
classic social signaling game, made more complex by anti-consumerism.

Maybe you take a month off of work to work on your burning man mutant vehicle
rather than spending a month's salary on a flashy Mercedes, but you're
signaling the same thing.

Be that as it may, it takes until the last few paragraphs to really derail
into "oh, but the poor poor people!". In a paragraph it tries to explain how
rising rents are tough; how the privilege afforded to some young people
magnifies itself later in life, etc, is harsh.

Very little of which is an indictment of faux working-class escapism. That
escapism in itself only seems to be indicted by the way that it raises rents,
a _very_ tired argument.

But in what way do the "£6 jerk sandwiches and £8 cocktails" hurt the lower
classes? The article never makes the point, exactly.

Basically... I read this article as "Chasing faux-working-class hipster stuff
is completely pointless, but people feel compelled to do it anyway since they
have nothing better to do." I agree with that. Examining the way young urban
professionals evolved in an anti-consumerist era is worthwhile.

The little "Oh, btw, die yuppie... er, hipster scum" paragraph I am forgiving.
The point is just too weak, and it's better read the other way.

~~~
vacri
_the life of the middle class is pointless; they try to find some meaning in
it through trivialized edgy experiences_

It's clear that the author has an _extremely_ limited view of the middle
class. It's an incredibly broad demographic; they aren't all twentysomething
hipsters downing microbrews in converted warehouses.

------
petercooper
_Culture_ has become commodified full stop. Culture of all classes is
consumed, revered, hated, and loved by people of all classes.

I'm a working class boy with the middle class car and I know upper class
people with the working class clothes listening to grime, middle class people
living in a working class area who like eating out at the upper class joints,
and even working class people with upper class money. While it's extremely
unlikely for one change their underlying class (in the UK), now more than ever
it's possible to enjoy the diversions, entertainments, and even trappings of
any class.

As Kanye said to Zane Lowe in his interview today, fusion the future, and
that's not just music but culture full stop. And it's a great thing too,
IMHWCO.

------
keithpeter
_" Now the warehouse resides in the middle-class consciousness as the go-to
space for every art exhibition or party."_

(UK but not London) Warehouses are cheapish, available and more easily
licensed. Good old fashioned middle class practicality.

------
UVB-76
The middle class are damned if they do, damned if they don't by the author's
argument.

They are at once chastised for "inoculating" themselves from working class
culture, and for embracing it.

~~~
Det_Jacobian
They're not embracing it, they're _consuming_ it. Embracing another culture is
altruistic. Narcissism is looking at another culture and considering whether
to "inoculate against" or "experience" it as a feature of your own life.

The twenty-somethings are filled with a sense of meaninglessness because their
lives are meaningless. They allowed their careers to define who they were, and
are now surprised when the market created a large, ticketed carousel for them.

~~~
Fomite
This. They're not adopting, or becoming part of a culture, they're indulging
in it as spectacle. If you bought your Mason Jar specifically _to_ drink out
of, you have missed the entire cultural context.

------
Apocryphon
Between white America's appropriation of black American pop culture and the
rise of yuppie hipsterdom, this applies just as much to the U.S., doesn't it?

~~~
happyscrappy
Except Americans despise snobbery or snobbish attitudes of any kind, its
almost taboo, while the Brits embrace it.

~~~
ripb
>Except Americans despise snobbery or snobbish attitudes of any kind, its
almost taboo, while the Brits embrace it.

Ah, making sweeping generalisations of one demographic containing about 80m
people and another of 330m people. Bound to be a good tactic.

~~~
walshemj
From what I hear of the DAR and the WASP establishment that's not true its
still major deal the Jeb Bush is a catholic.

~~~
barry-cotter
It's not 1950. The WASPs lost their lock on the establishment around the time
my father was born. The Ivy League graduate Liberal intelligentsia have been
the establishment for 40 years on the outside.

Jeb's Catholicism is not a big deal for his electability or this would not be
the first time I'd heard of it. By this time Mitt Romney's run I'd read
multiple discussions on his Mormonism.

------
vacri
The only constant is change. Working-class culture isn't static either, and
it's pretty patronising to imply that it is.

It's also weird that the article states that the middle-class are priced out
by rent and head towards working-class areas for the cheaper rent, then blames
the middle-class for doing so.

------
TheMagicHorsey
This author hasn't spent a single day living with people that work for a
living. There is just as much boredom with life and existential malaise
amongst the working class as there is amongst the bourgeois. The only
difference is, they have less free time and money to pursue things they think
will fill the void.

I'm kind of sick of these idiots that raise a particular kind of work up on a
pedestal. Seriously, the author is complaining about fetishization and doing a
boatload of it himself.

------
avolcano
This is basically just Pulp's "Common People" in article form:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTMWgOduFM)

~~~
pron
I was about to write the very same comment before searching the page for
"Pulp" to see if anyone else had made the same connection...

------
ripb
While I connect with and appreciate many of the points he has made, I have to
say I'm getting pretty damn tired of the almost constant attack on the white
middle class person from left-wing journalists.

You are damned if you do and damned if you don't with these journalists, many
of whom are middle class or higher white people themselves who've simply
developed somewhat of a hardon for self-loathing.

If rich young techies in San Francisco took their money and went and lived in
areas already established as being the dwelling of the rich they would face
criticism from these journalists for isolating themselves, not investing in
the community, etc.

If rich young techies go and buy up property in previously poor areas, attract
businesses to serve their needs, etc. they're damned for gentrifying the area
and driving the culture out.

The only way it seems that these people would be satisfied is if the value
creators simply went to work every day and created value and the output was
distributed across the entirety of society, regardless of contribution...which
in a very unfair way places all of society's burdens at the feet of the
working current middle class even more than they currently are.

I'm a white, middle class software developer. I tend to go for these kind of
things such exhibitions in warehouses, quirky restaurants and bars, etc. I
don't do it to appropriate culture, I do it because it's more interesting to
me than sterile, obviously very well financed restaurants and bars that charge
you huge amounts of money to sit in a room packed with suits desperately
trying to impress other people.

I'm not trying to take from below, I'm trying to find things of some substance
that I'll enjoy and will likely find other people that I can connect with at.

Again, these hit pieces are pretty damn tiring. Who is it whose paying the
bulk of the taxes to sustain the free schools the working and welfare classes
send their kids to? Who is it that is making the finance available so that
working class, welfare class, etc. can access third level education as those
above them can? Who is it that is paying the bulk of the costs associated with
those universities? Who is it that is covering the welfare that those in the
welfare class are currently surviving on? And those in the working class whose
manual jobs are quickly becoming redundant?

Who is it that is paying the vast bulk of the costs associated with providing
the welfare and working classes with access to healthcare they absolutely
otherwise would not be able to afford?

The middle class.

~~~
gluggymug
First, the article was about London not SF. London is dominated by finance not
computing. Hence the use of quotes around 'creatives'. Most jobs in finance
are just juggling other people's money. They aren't creating anything.

Second, the warehouse galleries, bars and restaurants aren't real working
class. It's an illusion to give the middle class what they want. If it were
real they wouldn't charge £4 beers because working class people can't really
afford it.

------
andrewmutz
I'm always surprised to see articles like this upvoted on Hacker News. Not
that there is anything wrong with the content, but it surprises me that it is
popular on a forum relating to startups and technology.

~~~
ripb
>it surprises me that it is popular on a forum relating to startups and
technology

The culture they discuss in the article is highly applicable to the home of
the modern startup though - San Francisco.

------
sandworm
"At the same time our doctors, teachers, university professors, architects,
lawyers, solicitors and probation officers are rendered impotent. "

What does it say about a society where lawyers, doctors and professors are
considered "middle class"? These are educated professionals. They earn, or
should earn, higher-than-average wages. But today such professions are looked
down upon.

Why would anyone want to be a doctor? They spend their time dealing with
old/sick people. Even a lawyer has to keep appointments, has to show up to
work regardless because other people plan their day around meetings with
lawyers.

It was not that long ago that people dreamed and struggled to complete the
education necessary to enter these professions. Today they are looked down
upon as labourers, wage earners whose pay is a function of their skill and the
number of hours worked. Instead we praise property owners, capitalists, whose
investments and pensions are instead a function of how much property they
already own.

It is time to properly tax investment income and start respecting those who
actually work for a wage,.

~~~
walshemj
A GP (family doctor) in the UK earns 5 or 6 times the median wage with a Final
Salary Pension

~~~
sandworm
That's my point. Earning a wage 5 or 6 times higher than average is still
considered by the OP to be middle class. Something is wrong when the "middle"
also includes professionals who earn far higher than average. Western society,
particularly London, is too focused on the elites. Everyone who isn't a banker
is balled up in the "middle class" catch-all.

For instance, a tax break by government to help "the middle class" shouldn't
be helping lawyers and doctors. They aren't middle class. Progressive taxation
or benefits should not aid those earning 200k/year.

~~~
walshemj
And so would I class is _not_ based on money as one Tory MP said referring to
Heseltine, deputy PM at the time – as saying "The trouble with Michael is that
he had to buy all his furniture"

Which was toped by an even grander MP who remarked "that is a bit rich coming
from someone whose father had to buy his castle"

------
nemo44x
Good article in many ways but what I always feel like these commentaries miss
is that many of us came from working class backgrounds and put ourselves into
the middle classes. And we still identify with the working class and that it
isn't a fetish but rather our roots.

Say what you will about Western society but it does provide many opportunities
for a working class kid to take agency and move themselves into the middle
classes while still identifying with their upbringing too. I can afford nice
things now, and I treat myself from time to time, but I (and many others I
assume) haven't abandoned the things I grew up on either.

------
geographomics
As a fairly recent immigrant to London, I haven't the faintest idea what the
author is talking about. Can anyone please explain to me what this nonsensical
rant really means?

------
Apocryphon
Let's consider how the author's description of London contrasts with San
Francisco and Silicon Valley.

As the poster child of gentrification in action, the city certainly has no
shortage of artsy hipsters culturally appropriating both the trappings of the
poor, as well as their actual dwelling spaces (adding insult to injury, one
could say).

But unlike the article's description of London, the Californian hipsters
aren't underpaid, underemployed youth who aren't able to make it to affluence
in a finance-dominated economy. They're those working in software, supposedly
the most meaningful of professions in the area, for companies that "change the
world." They're well-paid, even if it's not because of equity, as the last
vestige of the middle class here ([https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-
engineers-make-so-much...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-
make-so-much/answer/Michael-O-Church))

So where are the similarities?

~~~
Crito
> _" They're well-paid, even if it's not because of equity, as the last
> vestige of the middle class here ([https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-
> engineers-make-so-much...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-software-engineers-
> make-so-much...\)") _

Thank you for that link. I've tried to explain that to several people in the
past few years with little success. That page explains it very well though.

In terms of pay, most developer positions are comparable to what union
tradesmen can make. It varies city to city, trade to trade, and developers in
the states are not unionized so maybe they could make more if they were, but
regardless they are still in the same neighborhood. Yet the popular perception
is that a typical developer is making brain-surgeon money.

------
stcredzero
_commodifying working class culture_

Can also be applied to Hip Hop and punk.

------
jkot
I dont get this. _Bullshit jobs, pointless existence, drinking in bars,
gentrifiers, working class._..? It sounds like communist manifest. Most
londoners I know are in constant buzz just to keep flowing.

London problems could be fixed in four simple steps:

1) introduce 0.1% property tax

2) build a few decent schools

3) improve subway

4) deregulate high raise buildings

~~~
EliRivers
_Most londoners I know are in constant buzz just to keep flowing._

You don't get what the article is talking about, but you can turn around and
say something as hard to interpret as that? Is this some kind of drugs
reference, or are you saying people work hard, or they're always excited? What
the hell is "flowing"?

~~~
Crito
I think he means that people in London are chronic drinkers, as a way of
coping with their environment/existence.

~~~
walshemj
Well compared to a Lot of Americans we are

