The nexus of cultural politics
In 2008, another systemic economic crisis in capitalism emerged, this time beginning in the US with the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the sub-prime mortgage market1 coupled with a crisis in the banking industry. In 2009, what became known as the Eurozone Crisis2 was measured by the inability of a number of European nations to service debts with banks, which were accused of âbad lendingâ within global markets on a grand scale. The response across Europe, the US and Canada, to varying degrees, was for governments to introduce austerity policies in order to control the crisis, to reduce government debt and control deficit. The debate among economists over whether austerity policies were effective and indeed necessary as a response to the crisis have been heated and vigorous with deep divisions emerging as to what was the most economically appropriate way to address the crisis caused by an unregulated banking industry but impacting mostly on ordinary citizens with huge cuts in public spending, including welfare, social benefits, confiscation of housing due to enforced non-payment, reduced spending on health, reduction or freezing of wages, increase in student fees and in parts of Europe â most notably Greece and Spain â substantial rises in unemployment. Economists and politicians that supported âeconomic austerityâ were claiming that they based austerity policies on pure economic decisions in relation to what Weber referred to as âcalculated rationalityâ, principally governed by neo-liberalism that fĂȘtes the free market as the dominant economic rationale. This, in my view, includes ideological and moral perspectives despite any arguments negating these two points on behalf of said economists, which they would claim play no role in cold, calculative thinking.
However varied the consequences of austerity measures across Europe, one common theme is shared, and that is the fact that ordinary working people were not responsible for the crisis, but ordinary working people, as opposed to elites who caused the crisis, suffered the most as governments sought to reduce public spending. In the case of the United Kingdom, austerity policies were not simply based on âcalculated rationalityâ; in fact, austerity economics became an opportunistic-ideological excuse to shrink the size of the state, reduce public spending in the longer term and rely on the market and private sector to increase investment. Whatever national context we wish to analyse, austerity economics have had a profound impact on various societies, thus it is in this context that I wish to pose the following question: what impact has austerity economics had on cultural politics within nation-states?
This chapter serves as a theoretical basis for the scholarly essays that follow by presenting a discussion on cultural politics and austerity, both as economic rationality and as an ideological construct that permeates various narratives under the latest crisis in capitalism and neo-liberal philosophy. Raymond Williamsâ concept of âcultural materialismâ is a useful conceptual framework to study the processes of cultural politics. For instance, in his little but extremely condensed book Marxism and Literature, Williams draws upon three concepts that are central for understanding cultural production and power; these are âdominantâ, âresidualâ and âemergentâ. âDominantâ is self-evident, and âresidualâ has echoes of the anarchist focus on âmemoryâ of a past-historic lived culture that resides in the present. Such ideas, beliefs and values, which can be termed as âtraditionâ, can sometimes conflict with the modern. The most obvious ones are religious beliefs (morality) and working class culture, but it is a murky field, because conservatism, a dominant ideology (ideas, beliefs and values) also draws upon the past to be lived in the present, which converge with the modern.
What this ultimately means is that the âemergentâ contains contradictory ideas, beliefs and values, and at the very least those ideas that dominate perhaps use methods of âcontainmentâ through various types of intervention to stem what Williams referred to as âoppositionalâ in his analysis of culture. Hall (2007) later used the âcontainment-resistanceâ model to argue exactly that (i.e. the site of popular culture â not to be confused with commercial culture masquerading as the popular â has the potential to edge out, threaten, even overthrow the dominant ideology); dominant may equal establishment, but these values, ideas and belief systems permeate into working class culture. This makes the space of cultural politics very complex and difficult to analyse, and perhaps in times of âprosperityâ we may be forgiven to say that the establishment has the whip hand, because times are good or at least seen to be good derived from various political and media representations.
Like Williams, Richard Rorty viewed cultural politics not simply as a form of linguistic practice â although this is extremely important for both â but equally as a space of practice as action:
Interventions in cultural politics have sometimes taken the form of proposal for new roles that men and women might play; the ascetic, the prophet, the dispassionate seeker after truth, the good citizen, the aesthete, the revolutionary. Sometimes they have been sketches of an ideal community â the perfected Greek Polis. ⊠Sometimes they have been suggestions about how to reconcile seemingly incompatible outlooks ⊠.
(Rorty, 2007: ixâx)
The moral and political dimensions of this statement are clear vis-Ă -vis the complex processes of cultural politics, thus placing the word ânexusâ prior to cultural politics in the section title above is to highlight the complexity of the term; for what exactly are the connections between concepts, narratives and ideas that shape cultural politics, and once again what impact does austerity have on cultural politics? Something is missing from Rortyâs statement: the absence of economic policy and its impact on thinking and thus the âinterventionsâ Rorty highlights. I donât wish to revisit the debate on economic determinism as the force for thinking and acting, but for our purposes, it is worth bearing in mind the economic basis (rationale) and neo-liberal justification for attempting to normalize the idea of economic austerity as a rational act of judgment within the constraints of capital.
Rorty was influenced by John Deweyâs pragmatic philosophy (pragmatism) and whilst not entirely in agreement, Rorty offered contentious and specific interpretations of Deweyâs work and fully understood that Deweyâs basis for thinking about democracy was instinctively a moral judgment regarding cultural politics.3 This partly explains the use of the word âinterventionâ because Dewey rejected its absence detailed in âspectator theoryâ,4 but Rortyâs usage was not entirely dependent on morality. For Stuart Hall, such âinterventionsâ into a space of cultural politics was more specifically referred to as âpopular cultureâ detailed in his work titled âNotes on deconstructing the popularâ (2007). Hall had argued that popular culture was not the authentic sphere of peoplesâ production but rather the space whereby resistance to dominating ideologies emerged. Hall maintained that dominating ideologies â what Horkheimer ridiculed as (bourgeois) âreasonâ â clashed with alternative narratives, ideas and actions of the people which emerge as a form of popular culture; this, in essence, is the core of cultural politics because quite rightly this, for Hall, rests on the containment-resistance axis. In other words, political elites seek to contain resistance and normalize society by whatever means are at their disposal and pass it off as âreasonâ, and this is why Horkheimer is equally important to include, because the title of his book of which he offered a scathing attack of âbourgeois reasonâ â as absolute rationality â The Eclipse of Reason rests upon interventions at all levels of society.
This current collection of scholarly contributions is an attempt to understand how the period of austerity shapes cultural political spheres and how interventions help form a social process under conditions aligned to neo-liberalism. Such interventions include what Emma Briant and Steven Harkins refer to as ânudgingâ in their chapter partly titled âThe cultural politics of neo-liberal nudgingâ, referring to processes of âsocial interventionismâ and by using Gramsciâs theory of hegemony further detailing how state-led interventions operate in civil society in order to influence the dynamics of cultural politics. In Sallie McNamaraâs essay, we see how media discourse as a cultural intervention operates, using examples such as Breaking Bad and Girls (US) and Downton Abbey (UK) to demonstrate the various types of âausterity narrativesâ5 in play within culture and how such narratives are multi-dimensional in meaning and context.
Broadly speaking, where oppositional narratives to austerity are evident, they may constitute a cultural dispute with the types of ânudgingâ displayed by government agencies discussed by Briant and Harkins. Public responses to both media and governmental-led political discourse are notoriously difficult to quantify, but if cultural politics is anything it is the discursive relationship between production of discourse/narratives, consumption and response. Certain forms of opposition and resistance to dominant cultural-political hegemonic forces have been and continue to be seen as threats to the prevailing order. For instance, in Glen Parkinsonâs chapter concerning the riots that occurred in England in 2011, he states in relation to Erich Fromm that âcultural deviancy necessarily implies a sickness of the individual rather than of the societyâ; this was demonstrated at the 2015 Tory conference in the UK where Prime Minister David Cameron lambasted the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, as a âthreatâ to society. Cameronâs speech, also peppered with claims that the Tories were now the âparty of labourâ, clearly demonstrated the desire to connect between and govern two opposing poles of the social spectrum (i.e. establishment and labour) which is how hegemony operates with regards to seeking the consent of the ruled.
When Rorty argued that âThe term âcultural politicsâ covers, among other things, arguments about what words to useâ (2007: 1), he was in part referring to the varying âlinguistic practicesâ in process; however, the phrase âamong other thingsâ clearly demonstrates a broad, not narrow, view of cultural politics â in other words, something beyond narratives. Linguistic practices in circulation such as austerity narratives define the practice of cultural politics and relate to what Raymond Williams referred to as hegemonic and counter-hegemonic production, basing his thoughts on Gramsciâs contribution for understanding relations of power. Such practices are evident throughout Europe where political forces of resistance to hegemonic powers are Syriza (Greece); Podemos (Spain); Five Star Movement (Italy); Bloco de Esquerda (Portugal); the shift to the left by the British Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn; the emergence in the US 2015/16 of Bernie Sandersâ challenge to Hilary Clinton for the leadership of the Democratic Party which generated significant grassroots support; and the election of Justin Trudeau in Canada, 2015, on an anti-austerity agenda.
Such opposing narratives serve as a battle of words and ideas that compete for our attention as Milan Kundera once eloquently argued; such competing discourses underpin cultural politics which are defined by narratives and counter-narratives, relations of power and morality; Foucault argued just this. Jackson (1991: 200) argued that cultural politics is âthe domain in which meanings are constructed and negotiated, where relations of dominance and subordination are defined and contestedâ. Ten years earlier, Hallâs emphasis on the study of popular culture was based on the âcontainment-resistanceâ dialectic â this is the process of cultural politics and movement. In an illuminating piece concerning cultural politics in relation to human geography, Clive Barnett (1998: 633) criticized Jacksonâs formulation â and by association Hall â because âit tends to attribute a high degree of unity and intentionality to the exercise of power in order to be able to represent the active work of everyday meaning-making as so many acts of popular resistanceâ. Barnett is correct because establishment power blocs do not require âunityâ in order to convey discourse, and resistance is not always unified either, itâs often contested within groupings particularly on the left; furthermore, media discourses are equally multifarious, which is why cultural politics and the struggle over hegemony is not only complex but also ongoing â a sort of âpermanent revolutionâ, to borrow Leon Trotskyâs term.
In MichĂšle Barrettâs (1982: 37) work titled âFeminism and the definition of cultural politicsâ, she begins by stating that âCultural politics are crucially important to feminism because they involve struggles over meaningâ (my emphasis); âstrugglesâ are based on the interventions Rorty referred to in the process of cultural political practice, engagement and the formation of ideas via linguistic practice. The production of linguistic practice in relation to power relations is clearly evident in Chapter Three of this book presented by Maggie Andrews. For instance, in the section âRemembrance and the working class soldier hero in austerity Britainâ, Andrews presents a variety of narratives which are evident in relation to various television programmes and political commentary, including âwar narrativesâ and âtechnological narrativesâ. Under the sub-section titled âAll Tommies are heroesâ, Andrews states how âthe complex interweaving of past and present ⊠constitutes the construction of historical narratives in the centenary of the First World War combatants, particularly Tommies, of that war and more contemporary conflicts âŠâ (my emphasis). Andrews also states that âprogrammes are the products of a particular cultural momentâ, which in this present context is austerity based.
Similarly McNamaraâs use of the term âausterity narrativesâ describes how drama conveys a linguistic practice in the context of austerity within the production of cultural politics, not oppositional but reaffirming: âWe have to keep going, whatever happens. We have to help each other keep goingâ is the rallying call to staff during World War I at Downton Abbey (ITV) by the Earl of Grantham. McNamara shows us the relationship between this statement and the ideological rallying call and perfunctory statement of David Cameron, the leader of the Tory Party during the period of austerity which is, âweâre all in it togetherâ.
Linguistic practice as a relationship of power and its concomitant engagement by subjects underpins the dynamics of cultural politics and whatever form this takes. Cultural politics â the act of thinking and response â is in the first instance a site of intellectual struggle concerning the vision and direction of society, and clearly an embryonic form of cultural positioning is in play on which response depends, and quite clearly in the wider context of society, the cultural hegemony of power and counter-hegemonic movements provide us some evidence of the struggle over the legitimacy of linguistic practice and narratives.
A moral dimension central to the notion of cultural politics is the pursuit of social justice and how social justice is achieved, and how the struggle between often opposed interests are effectively played out (dramaturgy) is central to the struggle between class difference, despite its post-modern rejections. Class and relations between levels of power are intrinsically linked in the space of cultural politics, even if only as a subtle form of false consciousness. Scott Fitzgeraldâs The Great Gatsby spoke in part of the illusion of class barriers and an illusion of class difference â or at the very least spoken in deferential terms; the idea of a classless society was fermented as ideology in the US and has seeped into the consciousness of Europeans, conditioning prevailing norms. The negation of the idea of class as a central form for movement is in itself an insistence of other categories that formulate cultural politics which may determine the shape of things to come, but the outlook isnât delicious.
In Mark Hayesâ chapter, he is critical of such illusions where under the sub-heading âThe reality of class ⊠â he argues: âNot only is class in Britain an enduring social phenomenon, the inequality between the classes has increased dramatically in recent years, with differences in income, wealth and status more pronouncedâ. Using Hallâs containment-resistance dichotomy in relation to Hayesâ statement, the process of cultural politics is not so much the annihilation of class but rather to present it by elites as an illusion where in times of austerity â as already stated in relation to Andrews and McNamara â the reactionary, âweâre all in it togetherâ context is how containment, or the attempt to contain resistance, operates.
The term âcultural politicsâ is not to be confused with âpolitical cultureâ, although the two are closely interwoven. If we take Gabriel Almond as our lead, followed closely by another American writer, Walter Lippmann, political culture is primarily governed by the ruling elite. What eventually became known as the âAlmond-Lippmann Consensusâ was the belief that public opinion had little if no impact on political decision making. This view has always been a contentious issue to argue that, in the US at least, citizens were generally unable to understand the complexities of politics so were broadly ignored by elites that governed...