23 observations on English Culture based on lived experience

1. Notions of place are wrapped up in ancient history, which has been translated into myth.
2. Culture is inextricably linked to history and politics. Culture, history, and politics are filtered and transformed by myth.
3. English culture is increasingly homogenised. Substantial differences between places are increasingly rare. Homogenisation is represented as progress.
4. The North/South divide is giving way to an urban/rural divide but the differences between urban and rural are not as prominent as they once were.
5. Many post-industrial cities and towns are associated with industrial processes that are no longer taking place.
6. Place linked subcultures are no longer prevalent and cannot meaningfully differentiate between one place and another.
7. Local festivals and other forms of folk expression are far less common than they used to be. Where they persist, they are marketed as tourist attractions.
8. City rivalries are based on arbitrary and outmoded proclamations of difference that increasingly no longer exist.
9. The remnants of industrial buildings are used as signifiers of place, although they are merely revenants, and represent little more than empty nostalgia.
10. Industry related mass leisure events sometimes persist, albeit divorced from the conditions that brought them into existence.
11. It is no longer possible to subsist in a poverty-limited state of work refusal. The benefits system is so controlling and oppressive that it forces people to work at finding jobs that do not exist or that people would not want to do if they had any choice in the matter.
12. Hatred of the poor is widespread but it is probably more noticeable in well to do areas than in other places.
13. Gentrification is widespread but more immediately apparent in some places compared to others.
14. Sites of higher education influence the towns and cities in which they are situated.
15. The main effect of the growth in the number of university students has been to increase the wealth of landlords and to transform seats of learning into commercial enterprises.
16. Massive disparities in wealth, levels of income, and housing conditions not only persist but are increasing.
17. ‘Culture’ has become a marketing tool. The concept of cultural industries is promoted particularly strongly in post-industrial cities, which were formerly renowned for producing physical products.
18. Artistic success is dependent on an ability to gain access to art business leaders through subservient networking. It is not dependent on the quality of the art that is produced.
19. The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 was an unmitigated disaster for working-class people in the UK. Tony Blair supported rather than challenged her worldview. The abandonment of the working-class resulted in a state of chaos that has produced disturbing reactionary political developments in places that were formerly characterised by collective action.
20. The availability of public transport has a significant impact on the mental mapping of space and the conception of what is possible.
21. Manchester is the model of a large post-industrial city, sustained by myth-based, nostalgia-informed empty civic pride and self-regard bordering on arrogance. Where Manchester leads, other cities attempt to follow, usually without success.
22. London is the model of a capitalist realist city approaching its monstrous apex. After reaching this point, its fall will become inevitable. When London falls, the world will follow.
23. People increasingly locate themselves in cyberspace, as opposed to physical space. It is no longer necessary to go somewhere to be somewhere. Real and existing places are prone to become nowhere.