social mobility and the class system

Marx argued that class [was] the most fundamental inequality in society. This is now generally thought to be an outdated view because class has become far too complex to strictly define in modern society; and is now no longer the primary tool of racial, patriarchal and discriminatory divisions.

Social mobility has become the buzz-word for the destruction of class boundaries and one of the predominant tools of social mobility, advocated by most Western governments, is education. Education, along with the [seriously flawed] merit system ideal, is what someone needs to position themselves freely in society. Your history and social context is objectively irrelevant if you have obtained what you need through the education system. You can become a doctor or lawyer, previously purely the professions of the middle classes, if you work hard enough at school; and everyone is [supposed to be] given an equal opportunity to it.

So the labour government in the turn of the milennium advocated university education - to provide all of the aspiring educated with a means to succeed in the world. However, presumably in an attempt to implement blind equality, it has become quite clear that they have forgotten a few simple rules of economics. If everyone has a degree there will be a glut of graduates who cannot get "graduate-type" jobs. So in order to get head-and-shoulders above their fellow graduates many must seek further ways to educate themselves - with post graduate qualifications or more experience.

The government does not fund post-grad qualifications. And those "lower classes" saddled with crippling debt from university cannot afford to volunteer for experience and must simply enter the job market whereever they can. Many are forced to start at the bottom of the ladder again: 3-4 years behind everyone else and in serious debt.

This is the result of encouraging too many students to go to university to gain arbitrary degrees in "mickey mouse?" subjects - without then allowing appropriate equality of opportunity at recruitment level. Equality of opportunity must cover everything or it will fail.

The answer is there - it is just not used as it should be. The merit system for recruitment would help to select the right candidate for a job rather than the one who has had the benefit of nepotism or financial backing which have provided hollow experience or opportunities to "shadow" professionals (as if this could possibly demonstrate a higher level of experience).

The merit system is failing and needs to be fixed.

never judge a judge by the length of his.... service

...clearly this one forgets the importance of equality laws in favour of personal pride:

"Written tests are no guide to your ability to be a judge". A Times article this week where a judge has decided to take action because his years of experience did not give him an advantage in the application process over more junior candidates.

Full article can be found here:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article5599860.ece

The judge was told in a “dismissive and cursory” letter that his application would be taken no further.

I'm having a difficult job not attacking this article due to my own personal experiences of applications in the legal sector. This man has been turned down for a job as he was unable to get through the sifting stage of the process. The article makes it clear that this stage was in place to sift out candidates who couldn't demonstrate that they met the minimum standards. The judge evidently found the questions so trite that he reflected his superiority in his over-concise and cynical, albeit correct, responses: which were then interpreted as insufficient.

With great power comes great arrogance. Perhaps the judge would be surprised to hear that in this tricky economic times a law and LPC graduate, with top 5% academic qualifications, who has taken all practical steps to get on the legal career ladder has an even more torrid time. This type of candidate appreciates these "tests" which eliminate the often deceiving weighting placed on this so called experience - experience which in 9 out of 10 cases is gained from nepotism of some sorts - or otherwise greater opportunities being offered to those in circumstances where they can afford to work for free.

So when employers start developing ways of judging pure merit - through an extended incremental recruitment process (which may well be arbitrary to some) you would only complain if, on failure, you reflect that you could have tried harder - yet this judge's inflated ego suggests you shouldn't have had to! He states that "any bar student could swot up" - you could argue that if any judge swotted up too they could do equally well if not better! Essentially everyone has the same chance - some might find it easier if they have more experience, some might try harder if they haven't - and following, if some have learnt more from their experience it will come out at a later stage of application anyway. This is the whole point: equality of opportunity. The best candidate might never have been given the opportunity to have been a judge already for 6 years: why should they be dismissed at such an early stage in favour of someone who had?

Access to jobs is an issue for another day - but allowing candidates an equal opportunity to be heard by employers is far fairer than risking institutionaled discrimination to prevail: even if some overqualified candidates believe they have a predetermined right.

"Arab-Israeli" is not synonomous with "wrong-right"

... or right-wrong for that matter. I have tried to avoid thinking too much about the issues in Gaza: not out of denial but through recognition of my ignorance on the matter. Opinion will always be polarised and standing on either side of the fence forces you to defend your opinions - to the point of having a debate on an issue you're simply not prepared for. So avoidance has been my motive thus far.

Recently however the vehemence from both sides towards relatively neutral opinion has inspired me to find out more. There have been marches across London where institutions have been petitioned to make statements as to their loyalty one way or another. London university students have staged sit-in protests demanding that their deans deny support of Israelis and make express statements that they will do all they can to help the Palestinian citizens who are suffering.

Now the BBC is under attack for being bias. Of course the media is bias - it's the media! But its the only real form of information we have on what is going on in gaza - so i ask - how do we know that any information we have isn't bias? This is really an arbitrary point. People are entitled to make up their own opinions - even if they are to be made up of terribly poor knowledge or terribly bias media influence. What seems to be the difficulty here is the singular methods of argument over the Arab-Israeli conflict: defend the Israeli government and you are branded as being anti-palestinian; fight for human rights protection for Gazans and be accused of insensitivity to the long term suffering of israeli citizens living in fear of terrorism.

I am so sure of the absurdity of this scenario - forcing public media to just keep quiet for fear of offense - that it will soon become general public opinion and that this small post will seem trite. But as we stand today people can not see the absurdity in their argumentation - only their own polarised opinion is relevant and they will take offense if you refute them.

What I find the most horrific thing of all is that the more I learn about the conflict as a whole the more I realise that the whole problem is a Western creation: I dont mean this from the viewpoint that the initial zionist habitation was wrong - but from the viewpoint that Westernised democracy was seen as the only logical answer to the problem for the most part of the conflict and following this the sensitivity of the situation meant that the majority of Western influence or "help" was underhand - essentially to suppress extremism which threatened the democratic model thought of as compulsory.

"Arab-Israeli" is not synonomous with "wrong-right" (or vice versa). I say we should take different sides: human rights vs national autonomy: liberty vs sanction: humanity vs pride: tolerance vs stubbornness.

the disguise of diversity

This is short because if i start to rant it might be misinterpreted.

A white middle class male approached me today. He attends an institution which is famed for its ethnic and national diversity. It boasts its status as the most diverse institution where people from every corner of the globe, from every minority, are welcome to come and unite. The male told me that these people come and form societies based on their ethnic origins or nationalities. Consequently these societies cut themselves off slightly by being a united group in themselves. To be in the societies you have to fit the criteria. The institution is proud because they have hundreds of societies representing hundreds of minorities. Not only does the male have no society to which he fits but the societies have also segregated themselves from the others. They do not need to open themselves up to diversity or blending. So the institution is not a compound but a mixture. And it is not the role model of multiculturalism it says it is.

when institutionalisation meets affaires courantes

Is Harry a racist? The online dictionary's definition of racism includes "...usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others". Humour can be seen in the fact that ones own "race" (or bloodline in this case) does indeed have the right to rule over others and by definition is therefore superior. whether that "right" is right or not is a debate for elsewhere.

Pedantics aside I can't decide how serious this issue is. "Paki" is a term which is generally considered as offensive. It is frequently used as a racial insult. I pondered the fact that the British army might be referred to as the "Brits" and the Pakistani army could - in pure linguistic terms - be referred to as the "Paks" for instance. However, the point is that when a word gains negative connotations through being used with offensive intentions it is by all accounts an offensive word. Perhaps therefore it would be fine to refer to the Pakistani army in this way if the term "Paki" had never been used in the racist way which it often is. So i dont think the word should be used on these grounds.

The other point of potential defense is the context which the word was used in. The army's institutionalised stereotypes are common - race based or not. the racism seems to go both ways. It is not abnormal to be branded with nicknames associated with the way you look - usually drawing on the negative in a depricating way. Even those with the names will defend them with the fact that they add to the camaraderie and therefore help with morale. Still where terms are instittutionalsed the people branded with them are covertly forced to accept them. Arguably therefore they are taken for granted and accepted and all possible offense is buried.

A problem for Harry is that if all of his peers in the army refer to peoples nicknames then he would be obliged to. obviously it can be suggested that an heir to the throne should be able to retain his absolute integrity and should not therefore use a general superficial expectations as an excuse.

I conclude that Harry's remarks were damaging and offensive. They were uncalled for and action should be taken. The action taken however should be very much in light of the context the remarks were made in. The racist witch-hunt of the modern era would do much better to look behind the racism rather than by just finding new people to accuse. If a person is offended the remarks were offensive but incidental racism is different from racial abuse and should be treated as distinct: not to suggets that the former is acceptable but to understand that incidental racism arises from circumstance more than from the deliberate mens rea of the culprit. On the other hand much of the media has neglected to mention that Harry also referred to people as ragheads - surely a comment with far less scope for justification yet a comment which recieved relatively little outcry.