Bijou Drains
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There are issues with the internet, no one can doubt that , but I don’t see dumbing down as one of them. It might not be that the classics of literature are read in the way that they once were, but most of the culture of previous generations that has been preserved in literature is the literature of the ruling class.
Not many of you will have heard of Jack Common (his brow was apparently the model used for the bust of Marx in Highgate Cemetary and George Orwell described him as the writer he always wished he was) but I was put on to reading him by my mother, who read him when first published. I went in to Newcastle City Library in the early 80’s and no record of his work was any where to be seen (Newcastle, my home town, was his place of birth and the subject of his work). With the marvel of the internet his work is saved and available. A quote from one of many websites now deveoted to him goes as follows:
“To say that the work of Jack Common has been ignored and forgotten by both the literary establishment and the city he once described has become routine within the few esoteric corners of academia and journalism which have brought attention to the man and his work over the last few years.
While his name may grace the wall of Byker Metro station and designate a collection of papers at Newcastle University, he nevertheless occupies an obscure role in the history of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Geordie culture, one subordinate to the likes of Richard Grainger, John Dobson and Lord Armstrong who through the display of pervasive architectural grandeur remind us day by day of their existence. Without the surface magnificence of Grey Street or Central Station, Common’s works, ranging from the essays found in The Adelphi and The Freedom of the Streets to his two autobiographical novels Kiddar’s Luck (1951) and The Ampersand (1954), not only explore the banality, exuberance and joy of industrial Newcastle in the early 20th century, but delve into the politics of working class culture, the love-hate relationship the ambitious Geordie has with his roots and the difficulty of obtaining class mobility, themes greatly relevant in our age of consumption, individualism and aspiration.
While many Geordies upon reading Common will ask why his name has remained a mystery until that moment of enlightenment – and of course why he has not been introduced in the curricula of English literature classes around Tyneside – his interest in both the local and universal should engage those outside the region, and as Keith Armstrong has argued rescue the man ‘from being a mere footnote in Orwell studies’. In his Preface to Seven Shifts, a book which assembles a group of seven working lads to ‘describe their jobs, their conditions, and some of the their reactions to the life they lead’, Common aptly illustrates his relationship to companion and rival George Orwell and the literary establishment: ‘My friends include members of the literary bourgeoisie and lads from the unprinted proletariat. Both parties talk well, and you’d probably enjoy a crack with them as much as I do. But here’s the pity. The bourgeois ones get published right and left – especially left; the others are mute as far as print goes, though exceedingly vocal in public-houses’. As the voice of the silent and oppressed majority, Common’s non-fiction and autobiographic works are of great value and worthy of much study and investigation”
Thanks to the internet some of OUR culture is being preserved looked at, accessed, considered and evaluated. Without IT much of this would be lost and working class experience would continue to be a footnote in history.
For instance without the internet the true story of the second world war would remain untold!!
‘Who determines truth within socialism’,
Why would “truth” need to be defined within Socialism, there would be situatons where knowing what the majority opinion is, would be important, but not “truth”
“Matthew, you seem to have a handle on things.
I presume, since you argue that ‘workers are scientists’, then you’d agree that ‘workers’ should determine ‘science’?”If you are going to ask me that question, you first have to define what you mean by science, as the notion that science is some part of human existance divorced from the rest of that existence is, at least for me, problematical.
So in effect your point that the development of capitalism without the reformation (using the example of Spain, France, Italy) is wrong, because the post reformation Catholic church in these countries was not the same church?
“I just think mediaeval England had a lot of good about it that has been forever lost, and that the Tudor tyranny was responsible. If you want to consider that progress and well done, then it spites the common people of the time. If you think we lost nothing because the Middle Ages were dark, ignorant and pointless, and had nothing of value for us, then so be it.”
I don’t think many of us would deny that point, William Morris’ ongoing popularity within the party being but one manifestation of this. However Catholicism being better than Protestantism is a bit like saying standing in a barrel of shit is better than doing handstands in a barrel of shit, much better not to be in the shit at all.
Most of the advantages of pre reformation Catholicism came from the fact that very few people appear to have really believed in most of the bollocks the church talked about and society had corrupted (or in my view improved) most of the teachings of the church to be less moralistic and more practical (A quick scan throught the Canterbury Tales shows that)
“…for the socialist man the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labour, nothing but the emergence of nature for man…”
Surely Marx is describing the history of the world not the nature of that world.
You also fail to mention that your quote continues….
, nothing but the emergence of nature for man, so he has the visible, irrefutable proof of his birth through himself, of his genesis. Since the real existence of man and nature has become evident in practice, through sense experience,
My bolds not L Bird’s
“So very sorry you all had such rotten schooldays.”
I didn’t say I had a rotten time, that’s a judgement you made.
I had the time of my life.
I learned how to shoplift and play three card brag, dice and poker. I was drinking by the age of thirteen, I played endless games of football and only an ex catholic can truly appreciate the exquisite deliciousness of sin.
I was a catholic at 18 and a party member by the time I was 21, what sinful 3 years that was!!!!!
“I expect many here will have gone to a Roman Catholic school and been taught by nuns and Christian Brothers and so would not have been taught about Bloody Mary, Guy Fawkes and Mary Queen of Scots being baddies. I imagine they will have been pictured as heroes. Perhaps, anyone here who had a Catholic education imposed on them can confirm this.”
As a “recovering Catholic” my own experience of a 1960s-70s Catholic “Education” were as follows:
Junior school – Started in the just pre Vatican II era, Latin mass, once a week in school, marched off to benediction every Thursday afternoon (replaced by Stations of the Cross during Lent). Changed to the English mass in about ’66 I think.
Everything about school was religious, The local parish priest was in the school hovering around every day. Catechism for 45 mins every morning “Who made you”- “God made me”, “why did God make you” – “God made me, to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world and to be happy with him in the next” Collecting pennies to give to the “Black Babies”, if you collected a full sheet you got to choose the name the child was christened! So there’s probably 1/2 dozen poor fuckers in Africa in their mid 50s wondering how they ended up being called Wyn (Wyn Davies Newcastle Centre forward of the mid to late 60s).
Being coached for about 6 months for first communion and first confession (I had to make things up in confession, I’d never done anything, I was only bloody 7 years old), having the Spanish Inquisition every Monday morning for those who hadn’t been to mass (there were teachers stationed at each Mass so they knew who’d been and who hadn’t). You got the belt if you hadn’t.
In the small amount of time left for genuine education all texts had (approved by the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle) stamped on the inside cover, so what little history we were taught obviously met with the approval of the local Bishop.
Senior School – Things went from bad to worse. If you passed the 11+ and your family had a bit of brass you went to St Cuthbert’s (Alma Mater of Sting, Laurie McMenemy, Cardinal Basil Hume, Neil Tennant, Declan Donnelly, etc.) If passed the 11+ and your family were potless you went to St Mary’s (Alma Mater of several noted Tyneside’s notorious “families”, one of whom was recently exonerated at the Old Bailey for about the 14th time). My family were potless so that’s where I ended up. (I realised it was a rough school when I found out it had its own coroner)
The school houses were More, Fisher, Campion and Maine (all Catholics put to death by Prods), the only history we were taught was pre Tudor history, the texts were again pro Catholic and approved by the church, no mention of the reformation, I think they thought if they didn’t talk about it people might forget it ever happened.
We were told specifically in Geography that we wouldn’t be studying Eastern Europe or China, as they were “Communist Countries” and against the Catholic way of life. We were taught the dangers of VD and contraception by the local priest and my mate got six of the best for politely asking the question “father, if you don’t play the game, why are you making the rules?”. Mass was a regular feature as were appearances from various priests, nuns, etc.
There were regular “retreats” to the local monastery for weekend stays, where attempts to recruit for holy orders met with no success. However the secret way into the wine cellars was passed down by generation after generation of pupils in complete secrecy so copious amounts of sweet and sickly alter wine were consumed by grateful 13 year olds.
The head master was from Glasgow and the most Catholic man who ever lived, but Catholic in the Glasgow sense of the word (Celtic mad, keen on a fight and massively intimidating). As a result, all of the school sports teams played in Celtic kit, just in case the local Prod schools hadn’t realised we were papists.
Daily assembly consisted of about 3/4 an hour of prayers (Hail Holy Queen and regular Novenas to the Virgin Mary) you had to stand to attention for the full duration in absolute silence and if you moved (or as sometimes happened fainted with exhaustion) you got the belt. There was then a whip round to send the local disabled kids off to Lourdes, and if you didn’t cough up you got the belt.
The school had a secondary economy which operated mainly out of shop lifting, and anything could be bought for about 10% of the usual price at the top of the sports field from the younger members of the local “families” and it was not unusual to see the odd teacher approach these kids, especially in the run up to Christmas.
When you finally reached the sixth form there was a degree of relaxation, you could study post reformation history as long as it was French or Spanish history (because the Catholics “won”), but on the plus side twice a year there was a sixth form social evening with a free bar, to which the female pupils of the local Convent School (La Sagesse) were invited. (The head had connections with S and N brewery who would drop off several complimentary kegs of ale with the strict instructions that none of the underage drinkers could have more than a gallon)
Apart from that, it was all fairly normal.
