A Marxist Critique of Lad Subculutre in Australia PDF

Preview

Summary

Major essay assignment 1 for sociology foundation unit.
Question:
Analyse and discuss the notion of ‘culture’ and how it is expressed in the context of a subculture or counterculture of your choice.

2. Outline how the sub/counterculture is constructed through the major com...

Description

SOCY110: FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIETY ASSIGNMENT ONE MAJOR ESSAY

The Eshays Work for the Bourgeoisie: A Marxist Critique of Australian Lad Culture

BY JOHN YOUNG 220247388

Word Count: 1,997

2 This essay will provide an analysis and discussion of Australian lad culture (‘eshays’) from the perspectives of Marxism and neo-Marxism. Firstly, the general notions of culture and subculture will be defined and briefly discussed from a classical Marxist perspective. This will be followed by an overview of the major components and expression of eshay subculture using the Marxist framework to show how it differs from but does not directly oppose the dominant culture. It will be argued that membership of eshay subculture is an attempt to adapt to neoliberal standards of success; but one that reinforces the eshay’s position of disadvantage to the benefit of capitalists (Terpstra 2006). It will be argued that lad culture is locally disruptive and sometimes violent but ultimately works to reinforces the status quo through the promotion of designer brands and the commodification of their behaviour by the media as a means of selling advertising (McClintock 2021). In conclusion, the dominant culture of neoliberal free-market capitalism remains unchallenged by the eshays who continue to sow the seeds of their own oppression engaging blindly in brand consumerism. Culture is a notoriously difficult term to define at any level of analysis (Mironenko and Sorokin 2018, 332). For the purposes of this essay, culture will be defined as a fuzzy set of shared assumptions, values, beliefs, ideas and behaviours within a social group that influence members behaviour and how they distinguish themselves from others (Spencer-Oatey 2008, 3). A subculture refers to a set of values, norms, ideas and practices held by a social group that are distinct from those of the dominant majority and often labelled as deviant by mainstream culture (Blackman 2017). One of the main schools of thought in sociological theories of culture and subculture, is the conflict theory of Marxism. Marxism is a conflict theory of culture that emerged largely from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in Birmingham. Marxists argue that social relations in capitalist societies are defined by conflict between two groups; the dominant class

3 (capitalists) who benefit from their exploitation of their subordinate classes (workers). According to Marxists, members of subcultures are working-class rebels, resisting the dominant culture imposed on them and using style, language and ritual as weapons in their struggle against authority (Macdonald 2001, 37-8). However, some theorists are critical of Marxism for being too narrowly focused on social class (Macdonald 2001, 32) and ignoring positive benefits of subcultural membership for individuals at all levels of the social hierarchy (Abramson and Modzelewski 2011). Despite these limitations, the Marxist view of subcultures is useful in explaining how youth subcultures in Australia express alienation and rebellion from the mainstream, thus reflecting the nature of a divided society (Moysey 1993). Large post-industrial societies like Australia are culturally diverse with an overarching dominant culture and various subcultures (Pakulski 2014). One example of a subculture in contemporary Australia, is the largely youth-based subculture of lads or ‘eshays’. Lads or ‘eshays’ (as they refer to themselves) are a subculture influenced by the British ‘chav’, a term used to describe young, white people from poor backgrounds who wear designer clothing, engage in crime and use drugs, while relying on government welfare to pay for their lifestyles (Cross 2021). The term eshay, is now widely used in Australia to describe a similar cohort of young people (aged approx. 10-24 years) who engage in petty crime, use drugs and celebrate their antics on social media platforms such as SnapChat and Tok-Tok (Cross 2021). For example, recent news reports link eshays to a string of street crimes involving theft, vandalism and minor assaults in South Australia and more serious knife attacks in Queensland (Rutherford 2021). Subcultures attract media attention because they are theorized as not simply distinct from, but in direct opposition to mainstream culture (Blackman 2014). To demonstrate the efficacy of Marxian subcultural theory in describing how lad subculture only appears oppositional but actually reinforces its subordinate position,

4 it is necessary to evaluate how the major components of this subculture are constructed and expressed. Perhaps the most observable symbol of lad subculture is their commitment to brand consumerism. Eshays can be identified by their uniform of expensive designer sportswear, bum bags worn over their shoulders, excessive amounts of gold and silver jewellery and their distinctive hairstyles of bowl cuts and mullets (Cooper 2021). The typical clothing brands of choice for eshays are Nike, Adidas, Nautica and Ralph Lauren, while Nike TN trainers and baseball caps are particularly popular choices (Cross 2021). While these brands are mainstream, eshays do not discriminate between genuinely branded items and fake ‘knockoff’ brands, and will often wear a mixture of both, which is considered taboo by the dominant culture of upper-class sportswear circles (Cross 2021). For Marxist scholars this type of brand consumerism is futile and does nothing to resolve disadvantage, which is why they describe it as resistance through ritual, and not real opposition (Macdonald 2001, 37-8). Language is a primary means by which youth subcultures identify and express their group identity and establish boundaries between those in the group and outsiders (Butcher 2008). Eshays adopt their own form of pig Latin to identify and communicate with one another. Pig Latin involves the scrambling of letters in a word and the addition of ‘ay’ on the end, for example, the word ‘lad’ becomes ‘adlay’ (Cross 2021). The term ‘eshay’ itself is derived from the slang term for a common practice in lad circles called a ‘sesh’ (group consumption of cannabis) which in pig Latin is expressed as, ‘eshay’. Other common words include ‘eetswa’ (meaning ‘sweet’), ‘ashcay’ (meaning ‘cash’) and ‘braa’ a bastardization of ‘bruh’ meaning brother or bro (Cooper 2021). Pig Latin is therefore an explicit marker of membership in eshay subculture, utilized symbolically to; express belonging, highlight outgroup differences and defy the authority figures of the dominant culture, namely the police and schoolteachers (Butcher 2008).

5 Ritualistic practices in eshay subculture include petty theft and assault, which they refer to as ‘rolling’ someone, usually for a piece of their preferred designer clothing or money to buy drugs. They attack unsuspecting individuals in groups and then celebrate their crimes on social media platforms like Tik-Tok. Marxist subcultural theorists argue that such behaviour merely reflects adolescents playing with the only power they have – the power to disrupt authority and pose a symbolic threat to the structural order of their local neighbourhood by engaging in violence (Macdonald 2001, 41-43). Other practices include ‘having a sesh’ the shared consumption of cannabis by small groups using bongs or rolled joints. Although the prevalence of cannabis use in Australia is high, it is still best conceived as a distinctly ritualistic expression of a subculture that signals opposition to the dominant culture (Sandberg 2013). Marxists emphasize how such practices only ‘signal’ opposition, they do nothing to change the exploitative relations between the dominant capitalist culture and its subordinate subcultures (Macdonald 2001, 38). To understand the practices of eshay subculture it is useful to apply the Marxist concept of alienation. Alienation refers to feelings of isolation, powerlessness and frustration that occur as a result of living in a highly stratified class-based society (Seeman 1959, 784). Eshay subculture is characterized by shared feelings of alienation and frustration towards traditional ideas about success, wealth and meritocracy espoused by neoliberal culture in Australia (Redden 2017). The structural foundations of eshay subculture are rooted in low socioeconomic status, poor education, prolonged unemployment and a reliance on government welfare payments (Cross 2021). Alienated and disadvantaged youths reject mainstream values of success and participate in deviant subcultures because it allows them to redefine success in ways that are achievable from their social position (McClintock 2021). However, this rejection of mainstream values by youth subcultures is not to be viewed as progressive and Marxists argue that overcoming the alienation of young people in society

6 requires resolving the structural factors of class inequality generated by capitalism (Moysey 1993). Marxism’s focus on alienation has been criticized for being unable to explain why successful members of the middle and sometimes upper classes are also attracted to lowerclass (deviant) subcultures (McClintock 2021). Abramson and Modzelewski (2011) reveal that both marginalized and high-status successful individuals, choose to participate in the subculture of mixed-martial arts cage fighters. They concluded that the ideals of a subculture are attractive at all levels of social hierarchy and irrespective of whether they reinforce or challenge the status quo, they still have great influence over the lives of members (Abramson and Modzelewski 2011). In the case of eshays, lad subculture is not restricted to members of low socioeconomic status but also includes middle- and upper-class students in higher education who use their intellect to reinforce misogyny and celebrate the sexual assault of female students (Jeffries 2020; Phipps and Young 2015). Therefore, this reductionist critique of narrow class focus, can be addressed by neo-Marxist accounts of subculture, which offer a more nuanced framework for understanding why members of lad subculture are not restricted to the lower classes. Neo-Marxists draw on the work of Antonio Gramsci to show how even disruptive subcultures reinforce their own disadvantage. Gramsci coined the term, ‘cultural hegemony’, referring to the domination of society through the cultural influence of thoughts, behaviour, and expectations such that people are conditioned to support the very institutions that oppress them (Joseph 2017, 347). This concept explains both the construction and expression of eshay subculture are a product of cultural hegemony in Australian society by the carefully designed fiscal and social policies of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is a socioeconomic ideology based on free-market capitalism in which control of the economy is shifted from the public to the private sector (Joseph 2017, 355-6). It is described as a culture of cruelty and coercive competitiveness (Phipps and Young 2015,

7 12), while its repressive social policies increase inequality, generate social unrest, create conditions that facilitate violence (Oksala 2011; Smith, 2012) and transfer support away from those most in need towards the already wealthy (Redden 2017). The neoliberal culture of competitiveness regulates economic activity but also transforms the behaviour of individuals, pitting them against one another and causing some to abandon mainstream pathways to wealth, in favour of success realized through subcultural membership. When applied to eshay culture, the neoliberal agenda conditions both rich and poor eshays alike, to be preoccupied with expensive jewellery and designer clothing brands, the cyclical consumption of which merely reinforces existing class boundaries and benefits capitalists who profit from sales (Macdonald 2001, 37-8). Rather than directly opposing neoliberal culture, eshays merely perpetuate it, in a manner similar to their origin culture of British working-class teddy boys who attempted to ‘buy status’ by purchasing expensive brands predominantly associated with the upper class (Macdonald 2001, 37-8). By wearing the symbols associated with the upper class when engaging in deviant and violent subcultural behaviour, eshays signal opposition to the dominant culture. However, neoliberal control over the mainstream media ensures that the prevalence of such behaviour is commodified by artificially inflating the threat eshays pose to society in order to attract readers and increase ad revenue (McClintock 2021). This essay has provided an overview of the major components of eshay subculture including their uniform of designer sportswear, their use of pig-Latin to identify fellow members and ritual practices involving theft and illicit drug use. Marxism explains why eshays merely ‘signal’ opposition by rejecting neoliberal values of success and disrupting local authorities with the only form of power they have - violence. The eshays are not restricted to the lower classes and their style of designer brands and derogatory use of pigLatin also appeals to middle class lads in higher education. Neo-Marxist theory illustrates

8 how the cultural hegemony of neoliberal free-market capitalism commodifies eshay subculture and ensures their portrayal in the mainstream media increases ad revenue for capitalists. In conclusion, while eshays continue to disrupt and signal opposition to the status quo, they do nothing to resolve actually challenge it or resolve class conflict and thus they appear to revel in their labour, sowing the seeds of their own oppression by the bourgeoisie.

9 REFERENCES Abramson, Corey M., and Darren Modzelewski. 2011. “Caged Morality: Moral Worlds, Subculture, and Stratification among Middle-Class Cage-Fighters.” Qualitative Sociology, 34 (1): 143-175. doi: 10.1007/s11133-010-9175-8 Blackman, Shane. 2014. “Subculture Theory: An Historical and Contemporary Assessment of the Concept for Understanding Deviance.” Deviant Behaviour 35 (6): 496 – 512. doi: 10.1080/01639625.2013.859049 Blackman, Shane. 2017. “Subculture.” In The Routledge Companion to Criminological Theory and Concepts, edited by Avi Brasman, Eamonn Carrabine and Nigel South, 213 – 218. London: Routledge. Butcher, M. 2008. “FOB Boys, VCs and Habibs: Using Language to Navigate Difference and Belonging in Culturally Diverse Sydney.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 34 (3): 371-387. doi: 10.1080/13691830701880202. Cross, Julie. 2021. “What is an Eshay: Warning Signs Parents Should Look Out For.” The Daily Telegraph, February 02. https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/manlydaily/what-is-an-eshay-warning-signs-parents-should-look-out-for/newsstory/057317ceea99c1ed70140da29e88b9ac# Cooper, Harrison. 2021. “Braa, Eetswa, Lad: Coolum High Student Harrison Cooper Provides Parents Guide to Eshay Language, Looks, Behaviour.” Sunshine Coast Daily, May 02. https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/sunshinecoast/community/braa-eetswa-lad-coolum-high-student-harrison-cooper-providesparents-guide-to-eshay-language-looks-behaviour/newsstory/88531e9ca8c1f4b4f31328c81741e014

10 Jeffries, Michael. 2020. “Is it Okay to go Out on the Pull Without it Being Nasty?: Lads’ Performance of Lad Culture.” Gender and Education 32 (7): 908 – 925. doi: 10.1080/09540253.2019.1594706. Joseph, Peter. 2017. The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression. Dallas, Texas: BenBella Books. Macdonald, Nancy. 2001. The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity, and Identity in London and New York. New York: Palgrave. McClintock, Alex. 2021. “Pig Ignorant: The Eshays Moral Panic Shows how Lazy the Australian Media can be.” The Guardian, March 21. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/22/pig-ignorant-the-eshaysmoral-panic-shows-how-lazy-the-australian-media-can-be Mironenko, Irina A and Sorokin, Pavel S. 2018. “Seeking for the Definition of ‘Culture’: Current Concerns and their Implications. A Comment on Gustav Jahoda’s Article ‘Critical Reflections on some Recent Definitions of Culture.’” Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science 52: 331 – 340. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-018-9425-y Moysey, Sean. 1993. “Marxism and Subculture.” In Youth Subcultures: Theory, History and the Australian Experience, edited by Robert White, 11-18. Hobart, TAS: National Clearing House for Youth Studies. Oksala, Johanna. 2011. “Violence and Neoliberal Governmentality.” Constellations 18 (3): 474 - 486. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/JohannaOksala/publication/230385990_Violence_and_Neoliberal_Governmentality/links/5a0 360530f7e9beb176f7218/Violence-and-Neoliberal-Governmentality.pdf Pakulski, Jan. 2014. “Confusions About Multiculturalism.” Journal of Sociology 50 (1): 23 – 26. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783314522190

11 Phipps, Alison and Young, Isabel. 2015. “Neoliberalisation and ‘Lad Cultures’ in Higher Education.” Sociology, 49 (2): 305 – 322. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/48937/ Redden, Guy. 2017. “John Howard’s Investor State: Neoliberalism and the Rise of Inequality in Australia.” Critical Sociology 45 (4-5): 713 – 728. doi: 10.1177/0896920517745117 Rutherford, Lucy. 2021. “Wannabe Teen Gangsters: SA’s Eshay Culture, What it is and Why they are Committing Crimes.” Geelong Advertiser, February 15. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/newspapers/wannabe-teen-gangsterssa-s-eshay-culture-what-is/docview/2489423091/se-2?accountid=17227 Sandberg, Sveinung. 2013. “Cannabis Culture: A Stable Subculture in a Changing World.” Criminology and Criminal Justice, 13 (1): 63 – 79. doi: 10.1177/1748895812445620 Smith, C. 2012. “Neoliberalism and Inequality: A Recipe for Interpersonal Violence?” Sociology Lens. https://www.sociologylens.net/topics/crime-anddeviance/neoliberalism-inequality-recipe-violence/11057 Spencer-Oatey, H. 2008. Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory. 2nd ed. London: Continuum. Terpstra, Jan. 2006. “Youth Subculture and Social Exclusion.” Young, 14 (2): 83 – 99. doi: 10.1177/1103308806062734...