to resent accusations of elitism or "looking down" on people in the face of aggressive anti-intellectualism?

[grimupnorthLondon]

I find myself a bit in despair after yesterday's thread on people who "don't watch the news" where a load of posters turned up aggressively declaring that it is their right to focus on their own families and that anyone who tells them otherwise is a snob. I think the UK is now at a stage where a lack of outward-looking curiosity about the world has turned us into a nation of selfish individuals. More dangerously, it has allowed us to drift blindly into the clutches of ruthless multi-nationals and an aggressively right wing government.

Choosing to actively remain ignorant of "depressing news" means many people are barely noticing the deliberate dismantling of the welfare state and the NHS. I fear that when many people who are currently drifting comfortably along hit a life crisis and find that they suddenly need legal aid/housing/mental health care they will be in for a rude awakening.

The education on offer in state schools these days is generally better than it has ever been, but so many parents seem to be colluding with their offspring to treat it with disdain or (at best) something you need in order to get a certificate. Why not support teachers' efforts, read fiction and non-fiction books yourself, have books in your house, use the libraries we still have, surf the net with your kids to teach them about source reliability and bias, volunteer for something you care about, watch films and documentaries and discuss them. Do something with content that isn't just about your daily consumerist concerns!

This isn't about time and money. Lots of these things are free and there are very few people who couldn't replace one reality show a week with something else or retune to Radio 4 on their commute or read a book for half an hour instead of surfing.

It's not just a matter of "pub quiz" trivia or being a grammar pedant either. The more you know, the more connections you will make about cause and effect in the workings of the world and the better able we will all be to make sensible decisions as a nation. You are not just a family member, you are also a citizen!

Calling people out on this is not elitist.

I agree on the whole. Bar tbe education point...We home ed but it is important to us.

At different points, your mosaiced/nodal social-political identity will place you in quite complicated positions with regard to a power,

Hah! Have you been following me around?

Given that those with power rely on the disempowered taking no interest in what's being done to them (who on the Today programme would ever expect the "underclass" to actual listen and hear themselves being excoriated?) it's ironic that people fight so vociferously for the right not to know.

I'll admit from hiding from the news this summer but having a said that I think there is a lot of the mainstream media which does encourage fear in the way it reports stories. You can have a tale of a refugees' escape from drowning on one page and some anti immigration rhetoric elsewhere.

This I think encourages insular tendencies and a lack of curiosity leading from fear. It's the same fear which also drives problems like segregation in the cities for instance. With a lack of curiosity comes fear of the unknown and a suspicion of anyone who questions anything.

I think you're making a very common mistake of assuming that not agreeing with a regressive left consensus is somehow ignorant or 'anti-intellectual'. You seem to have an almost sheep like script of what you believe people 'should' think and an assumption that if people are informed and well read they should agree with you.

Personally I find assumptions about what people should and should be thinking one of the most aggressive anti-intellectual forces at work in our country today.

You might want to check your own bias before berating other people for theirs. HTH.

Ah, Lurking, but what if your vote added enough numbers of votes to the losing party to make it worthwhile for them to continue to mount an opposition in your constituency? So that maybe one day, your favoured party could change things? Or if your vote at least ensured that your candidate got their deposit back? Still valid!

I'm not BillSykesDog. And I'm quite amused that you think there is regressive left consensus at the moment. Try engaging with the Corbynistas on twitter and see how that goes?

I have friends of all political persuasions and am very happy to debate someone who is pro-Brexit, anti-immigration, anti-benefit scroungers PROVIDED they are open to discussion and prepared to engage with facts. My MIL is like this and we have both shifted our positions in response to each others ideas and that is fine.

What I dislike is not people who disagree with me, but people who think any attempt at discussion is somehow "putting them down".

But that kind of simplistic thinking (besides not being what Bourdieu even meant) has enabled powerful forces to occupy the public space and shape it in a way that benefits the elites rather than for the wider public good. And there are a lot of 'useful idiots' on the political left as well as the wider population who have sat back and allowed that to happen.

Are you Jeremy Corbyn? Or Naomi Klein? If so can I claim my free copy of No Logo and a skinny organic latte from the East Village Workers Forcault Collective (Chomskian blend). Whoever you are I'm pretty sure you weren't on the EasyJet flight from Mykonos just been on.

Totally get this OP.

Was thinking yesterday how as an adult it's really eye opening the things you still have to learn about the world-the globe!

I always watch the news, yes it can be sensationalist or upsetting, we see propaganda, elitism, mis reporting, biased reporting and news black outs!

But not watching?! Really? Watch with an enquiring mind yes. Talk to people, talk to everyone, people from different backgrounds, cultures, races.
Teach your children to be like this too...ignorance is not bliss.

kind of proving my point there Marmite59.......

Play the ball not the woman. If you disagree with my argument say so, rather than mocking what you assume is my lifestyle.

And no, I drink PG Tips and flew RyanAir this summer.

The gap between you and Corbynistas is wafer thin. If you really think that between you and them there is much of a chasm and you can't really see that compared to the myriad of other opinions out there you're practically bedfellows then your view of the world is very, very narrow indeed.

Billsykes - once again, I'm not talking about people with different "opinions". I'm talking about the people who get angry with others for simply having an opinion about anything in the first place.

Fair enough. I've just reread your original post and it seems pretty elitist to me, the irony being your calling out 'snobbery' then indulging in a pretty hefty helping yourself. The irony is, to me, your overt concern with the vulnerable and then apparently decrying the pastimes and habits of those very people. I come from that stock: sure my dad read the Guardian but also watched the Generation Game.

Has it ever occurred to you that people have a lot on their plate? That the satellite dish is maybe the only pleasure they get all week? That 'getting on' is not some kind of fascistic tendency but the way some of us are wired?

Sheesh.

I think the sneering at intellectualism is part of the tyranny of low expectations. My family are very working class at their roots - labourers and cleaners and occasionally retail staff. All of them used to go to the public library to find books to read, engaged in local politics (even if just through the union), took night classes to learn how to paint, or teach themselves mechanics, play in the local band etc.

My granddad was very proud of this part of the culture of being working class - because no matter if you've spent your day shovelling dirt, or cleaning floors, you can still go home and have a rich interior life that was cultured. Just because you were working class didn't mean you weren't just as good as everyone else who sat behind a desk and wore a shirt. Somewhere we've lost that - I don't know how or why but now there's a sneeriness towards people trying to improve themselves and it makes me sad.

Not to get too tinfoil hat about it either, but I think it's rather convenient for those in charge that the working classes have been convinced that grass roots politics isn't for the likes of them.

In that case, your Dad is clearly not one of the people I am talking about. And I didn't say anywhere that people shouldn't watch reality TV etc. as well - of course people need enjoyment and pleasure and I wouldn't begrudge anyone that. But educating yourself about the world can be useful and enjoyable in addition to that (not instead of it) and makes life more interesting.

And where did I call out "snobbery"? What I said was that accusations of snobbery and elitism at people who bother to take an interest in the wider world are misdirected and unfair.

I don't think reading the guardian makes anyone better than anyone else , reality tv is a broadening of education for me too

That's exactly what I was trying to get at OneFlewOver. My Grandad was the same - worked with his hands, left school at 12 but could recite reams of Shakespeare, calculate accumulator odds at the bookies in his head and always had a view on the political issues of the day.

And yes, it is politically convenient for some when people trust Apple and Richard Branson more than any politician......

I'm not talking about "better" bumpetybump. But it doesn't make people worse either, which is what is implied when people are called "weird" or "snobby" for taking an interest in current affairs.

What this thread reminds me of is debates I had with far left (I voted Labour but only just) and green friends of mine after the GE. They simply could not understand that others led different lives, had different attitudes, and voted differently from them. One said 'I just don't get it, I've never met a tory'.

The response to this confusion, that they lived in a different country from the one they thought they did, did, imho, lead to Jeremy Corbyn. Once you decry the habits of the masses of whilst simultaneously attempting to support and promote the rights of the very same group it's a short leap to 1917 in Russia and all that followed.

My granddad was very proud of this part of the culture of being working class - because no matter if you've spent your day shovelling dirt, or cleaning floors, you can still go home and have a rich interior life that was cultured. Just because you were working class didn't mean you weren't just as good as everyone else who sat behind a desk and wore a shirt. Somewhere we've lost that - I don't know how or why but now there's a sneeriness towards people trying to improve themselves and it makes me sad.

There was a strong element of helping others in Victorian morality. I am fascinated that the Pre-Raphaelites - at the height of their fame - took to teaching classes in working mens clubs. Of course William Morris was one of them, and he had visionary ideas about worker welfare.

Marmite59 I work in the City surrounded by Tories. And I understand why rich people vote Tory - they will pay less tax and they all have private healthcare anyway. It makes sense and they know what they are doing.

What dismays me is the people who are suffering from Tory austerity who don't understand why it is happening because they have not informed themselves about government policy or its effects. In the "news" thread yesterday that I was referring to, someone thought Gordon Brown was still prime minister. How can that person make a judgement about the state of the NHS or policies like child benefit cuts that directly affect her as a mother?

Believe me I do not have my head in the sand. I know how marginalised and unelectable the opinion of the current Labour leadership is. I am simply expressing a wish that more people were aware of what is happening so that they might vote/politically engage in a way that aligns more closely with their own best interests.

I don't give a sh*t whether people watch TOWIE or go to the opera, prefer ketchup or caviar. It's not about taste or culture - it's about making informed decisions as a citizen.

Yes Lurking but I think it lasted longer than that - at least until the 1970s I'd say. Look at the work produced by the coal miners for example and some of that was spectacular and really rather recent. Is there a line in the sand when this type of thing fell out of fashion or just stopped being acceptable?

This isn't about time and money. Lots of these things are free and there are very few people who couldn't replace one reality show a week with something else or retune to Radio 4 on their commute or read a book for half an hour instead of surfing.

This is from your original post. How can you say you're doing anything but preaching at people? You are literally telling them what to do!

Anyway back to the mindless tv and soul corrupting social media ....

?

I was not telling anyone what to do Marmite. I was arguing that these things are doable, in anticipation that people like you would tell me they were too expensive/elitist.

And you are putting words into my mouth. I am happy for people to watch as much TV and do as much social media as they please. I just think it would be better if they engaged with what is going on in the real world also and didn't mock others who think it is important.

I'm also in two minds about news = intellectualism

1. Most major news outlets are shockingly biased and piping out their own propaganda fuelled agendas

2. I know lots of people who avidly digest news - like my FIL - but that doesn't mean his views are enlightened