Rhetoric Class

Lenin sends me the following email:

Surely the most obvious entry for Notes on Rhetoric has been missed? Middle class! A letter writer to the New Statesman calls Richard Gott a 'middle-class lefty', Nick Cohen derides 'middle-class left-wingery' (what class does a well-paid journo fall into these days?), someone has just called me a 'middle class trot' etc etc.

So, here's an entry:

"Middle Class. Your opponent, (especially if left-wing or intellectual), exists in a materially and culturally rarefied realm, separate from the masses, whose common sense they scorn. As they are Middle Class, their views are likely to be dippy, unreasoningly and excessively liberal /radical, ill-conceived, insufferably smug, know-it-all, hoity-toity and with all the sympathies on the wrong side. They can be airily dismissed with a bit of common-wi-nowt-tekkin-owt wisdom."

Indeed. How many times must we see this stupid, dishonest gesture rehearsed?

It’s not only the vain, tedious pretence that arguments and viewpoints shared across the population are the preserve of the bourgeoisie (a bourgeoisie defined not by its position in the relations of production, but by its poncey ‘lifestyle’). It’s not the the trotting out of this feeble rhetorical trick in lieu of argument. Nor is it the dull inevitability with which these ‘critics’ of middle-class pomposity are in fact it’s most obvious and embarrassing representatives. Nor is it even the patronising and disingenuous adoption of a ‘robust working class common sense’ from which these attempts at satire are launched (Even though their audience is also middle-class, so that they rely only on some kind of collective class shame or bad faith). It’s that these self-dramatising comedians would never dream of any actual class analysis, any genuine critique of ‘bourgeois values’ or ideology. They’d run a mile before pronouncing something like this, for example:

...what makes them representative of the petit-bourgeois class, is that in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, that they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter politically.

No, the invocation of ‘middle-class’ and ‘bourgeois’ as pejoratives is all dandy as long as it’s aimed at the Left. That’s the rule. And there are enough scribes who’ve read the script and appreciate the remuneration to pass these stock gestures off as their own spontaneous ideas.

A not unrelated matter. Adam Kotsko has a nice little post on 'Islamo-fascism':

Seriously, "Islamofascism?" Are the terrorists winning the sympathy of the common folk by promising to get the trains running on time? Is contemporary Islamic terrorism characterized by a militaristic aesthetic? Are there rumblings of a return to paganism? Is there an industrial-style operation currently attempting to exterminate one or more races of people? Is this supposed Islamic version of fascism an attempt to ward off the danger of communism in the face of the injustices brought about by rapid industrialization? Is it focused in on a messianic leader who speaks publicly to crowds of thousands? Are the terrorists of a nationalistic and expansionistic bent? Do they actually hold power in a legitimate nation-state at all?

The ‘meaning’ of the concept of Islamo-fascism, like so many other such concepts, is to be found outside it in the positions it allows people to take up, the roles its authorises, as in “Yep, I’m fighting fascism, just like o’ George did back in the 30’s, just like the old decent left did. And of course, reciprocally, ‘why ain;t you fighting fascism. You’d better have a damn good ex-coose’.

Similarly, the tired ‘middle-class lefty’ jibes permit self-dramatisation as a debunker of unreal flim-flam of posh people, an Imaginary little theatre piece to amuse and reassure, whilst the actual ruling class go about their business unscathed.