In the name of righting historical wrongs and removing prejudices, the phenomenon of wokeness has created new no-go areas for people. The absurd idea of cultural appropriation and many things we are not allowed to say or do was born. In turn, this attitude was supported by no-platforming, which prevents people from expressing alternative opinions.

It was therefore a relief to hear that the Economist has found that wokeness is declining after a peak 2 years ago. The research was mainly in the US, but apparently even among those who were the main proponents of woke ideas there is a noticeable silence. Even the most ‘vociferous’ Democrat party member, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez removed her ‘she/he’ pronouns from her profile on X, something reported by BBC Radio 4.

Writer Kathleen Stock noted that last week's ‘Transgender Day of Remembrance’ was not highlighted by most British institutions for the first time in years. Nothing from the BBC, the Labour Party or even Stonewall. And I have seen that on Warwick University's website there is a notable lack of pronouns.

We are not though yet out of the woods. Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh, who has just starred in the box-office hit Wicked, was referred to as a “Bond girl” last week while being interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Many years ago she had co-starred opposite Pierce Brosnan in ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’. Those protesting said that it was ‘sexist labelling of the most obscene kind and undermined women everywhere as human beings’. No mention was made that it was one of the roles she had chosen to take on and been paid for or that, let’s face it, Pierce Brosnan was also probably chosen more for his looks than his acting ability.

And then the Times film critic reports that he was told a few hours before a pre-arranged interview with a female Hollywood film director that the interview had bee axed. Why? He thought it was because he had many times in the past refused to comply with their ‘ridiculous and grovelling star-sucking interview conditions’. But no. It was because he was a man, a man about to interview a woman. And “what if the gender roles had been reversed?” Rightly, there would have been massive outrage from all the usual quarters, including Woman’s Hour.

But this same wish to smother things in a layer of supposed social concern has spread much further. Last week, we heard the views of Lee Elliot Major, the professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter. He argues that many things need to be done to increase social mobility. He starts by saying that we should stop referring to children as ‘disadvantaged’ and say instead that they are ‘children from under-resourced backgrounds’.

As a professor of social mobility, he explains that ‘disadvantaged’ frames certain children as somehow inferior, in need of conversion (or education) to fit the middle-class norms of the classroom. Indeed, he tells us “...education efforts feel like a very one-sided negotiation: we want you to come into our world, change who you are, fit into our culture, and play by our (unwritten) rules. It places more value on certain roles in society. He says that having lived alone as a teenager and once served as a bin-man, “I have subsequently become the country’s first professor of social mobility. I may well have become a middle-class clone, but my story should not be used to denigrate the important job that bin-men do.”

So then, I’m left wondering what his idea of desirable social mobility actually is, if it is not the ability to change from one social group or stratum to another because you perceive the second to be more desirable than the first.

But  ‘children from under-resourced backgrounds’ means more than meets the eye. It does not relate only to money, but also to other more intangible things, all included in the concept of ‘Cultural capital’. This is an idea created by the French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu and based on Marxist theory. They are the cultural and educational resources provided by parents and their social networks, as well as basics like food, healthcare and clothing. And what is provided will vary from family to family.

The Professor elaborated on his idea last week when he argued that the “national directives encouraging schools to boost cultural capital have prioritised middle-class pursuits — visits to museums, theatres and high-brow art galleries”. Pupils should instead study working-class history like the miners’ strike and the Jarrow March. They should study “working-class figures” in order “to make the school curriculum more accessible and relatable to all children, particularly those from under-resourced or disadvantaged backgrounds”. Rather than going to museums and theatres, pupils should (know their place and) instead go to football stadiums, looking to grime music and graffiti artists for their culture. And as for Shakespeare and Dickens... What we need instead is to make things ‘accessible’.

My parents did not quote Shakespeare. And we never went to the Theatre. It was therefore quite a shock when I was first introduced to Shakespeare through his play, Julius Caesar. Our English Literature teacher read long extracts from it to us and, even as a boy of 14, I was fascinated by the oratorical skills used by Brutus and Mark Anthony to sway the crowd in diametrically different directions.

Likewise, coming across some of the great poets such as Wordsworth and Robert Browning was an eye-opener. Reading it out loud in class was quite something. I got top marks (he said modestly).

The first time I went to the Opera was as a thank you from the school to those involved with putting on the school play (I was in the very important scenery painting section). We saw ‘The Mikado’ by Gilbert and Sullivan at the Hippodrome in Birmingham, performed by the one and only D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. And it was hilarious.

But then the same was true of science. The idea of evolution was not something taught at home and certainly never in Church. So when it was explained in biology, I found it fascinating. Neither did my parents have Newton’s laws of motion pinned up on the wall or try to explain valency bonds as the foundation of chemistry, instead leaving science to be taught at school.

I know it’s a bit weird, but actually one of the most riveting things I heard in science was the revelation of the second law of thermodynamics – entropy - by our physics teacher – or as Flanders and Swann in their song snappily entitled ‘The First And Second Laws Of Thermodynamics’ succinctly put it: “Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body”.

If Professor Lee Elliot Major had his way, though,  we should not try to get above ourselves. And so we would only be taught things which related to our position in society. He seems to be supported in his view by many who believe that education should be 'relatable'. The education system should avoid subjects that children from disadvantaged (that word again) backgrounds cannot relate to because they have never experienced them. This, rather than striving to add to the ‘cultural capital’ provided by our parents by increasing our knowledge and learning of concepts which even our parents were only vaguely aware of. I think though that’s the point of a good education. We aim higher and so it is capable of leading to significant social mobility. 

And surely the concert hall, the theatre and the museum are not just for the few.  Yes, we need explanation of Shakespeare’s archaic language (available now on ‘Upstart Crow’), just as we need explanations of many aspects of the visual arts, but encouraging experience of the great arts doesn't patronise kids from poor backgrounds. Shakespeare, Mozart, Monet and other great artists belong to everyone, whatever their background.  It tells us that it doesn't matter where we come from: the best of our civilisation belongs to us all.

25 November 2024

Paul Buckingham