A thread of possible interest:
This is followed by a non-trivial observation:
On this latter point, should an example prove helpful, readers may wish to revisit the unconvincing contrivance of Guardian columnist Zoe Williams – specifically, her scolding of those who’d prefer not to have sociopathic neighbours – say, the kinds of creatures who blast out loud music in the small hours, and who, for entertainment, hurl pets from upstairs windows.
An aversion Ms Williams denounced as a “demonisation of the poor,” a project of “extinction,” in which those who’d rather not have their ornaments rattled by another all-night next-door rave, are “trying to shunt people out of society for not being rich enough.”
According to Zoe, those who’d prefer not to be assailed by thunderous basslines at 4am, or to have their evenings enlivened by small, terrified animals falling from the sky, are merely being cruel, “dehumanising,” and needlessly judgemental. For Zoe, the problem with ‘problem families’ is simply that they’re poor, and nothing whatsoever to do with how they choose to abuse their equally poor neighbours.
In the world of our Guardian columnist, we – by which she means you – should be “unstigmatising,” which is to say, non-judgemental. Passive and accepting, on an indefinite basis. A process via which empathy, or feigned empathy, is shifted from the working-class victim of crime and antisocial behaviour to the working-class perpetrator of crime and antisocial behaviour, on grounds that the thug or criminal is in some way being oppressed and, unlike their neighbours, being made to misbehave.
Needless to say, this prompted some lengthy speculation as to how Ms Williams might react, should she wake one morning to find a family of violent morons moving in next door to her:
And,
As a real-world test of Zoe’s scrupulously progressive worldview, her professed concern for the common man, it would, I think, make for instructive viewing.
Update, via the comments:
Connor adds,
Well, the idea that Zoe, who lives far removed from rough council estates, would herself behave in the same way she demands that others do is quite laughable. It’s so transparently unconvincing, so absurd, that you have to wonder how these obvious dishonesties can go unchallenged in her world. Unless, of course, everyone in her world is pretending much the same things.
As I said here, with suitably vivid examples:
Part of the reason, I suspect, is that there’s little in-group status to be had in pretending to care about functional people of modest means. Instead, they pretend to care about more exotic demographics. And so, among progressives, we get pretentious compassion for unrepentant and habitual thieves, habitual burglars, habitually criminal drivers. Oh, and dog thieves and armed muggers, obviously.
It seems to me this is the level it typically works on. So, again, pretending.
And let’s not forget Peter Matthews, an Urban Studies lecturer ostensibly offended by “urban inequalities,” and who wants to ensure that more of us live next door to “the poor and marginalised.” Writing in the Guardian, Dr Matthews agonised over litter inequality and the fact that rougher neighbourhoods tend to be strewn with wrappers, cans, and food-smeared detritus. And so, we had lots of fretting about inequalities in litter density, while the question of how the litter gets there remained, rather oddly, of zero interest. With the words drop and littering pointedly not appearing.
Presumably for fear that these practical details might have inegalitarian implications.
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