Notes on
the introduction to: Cohen, S. (1987) Folk
Devils and Moral Panics. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Dave Harris
The CCCS approach is very similar to the old
problematic which saw delinquency as a collective
solution to structurally imposed problems
[Merton?]—the best example is probably Willis.
Most delinquency stays the same regardless of
various 'conjunctures'.
CCCS work does break with structural, cultural or
biographical models, but it can also display an
'over-facile historicism, understanding present
[situations] by an appeal to the past'
(viii). Trends in the past [class struggle
etc] are identified, and then these are projected
forward, in what is really an essentialist view of
history.
The work does offer an 'ingenious and more often
than not plausible reading of sub cultural style',
but this is seen as 'resistance', winning space,
something radical and political. We get
'symbolic' resistance even where the 'target for
the attack is inappropriate, irrational, or simply
wrong', as in football hooligan attacks as a
magically retrieving a sense of community [P. Cohen on skinheads?].
The symbolic also comes to mean 'false
consciousness'. The analysis has added some
significance to particular clothing styles, for
example, but we seem to be able to decode it only
in terms of opposition and resistance. This also
overdoes the creative elements of rather than the
borrowed ones: we can be particularly doubtful
about, because there was a considerable role
played by 'commercial entrepreneurs, and lumpen
intellectuals from art schools and rock journals'
(xii) [surely acknowledged in Hebdige's
work?]. The American influence [generally?]
was also underestimated, in favour of the
'experiences of 19th century Lancashire cotton
weavers'! There is also some special
pleading, for example in the argument that
'Paki-bashing' is really a form of
proto-politics—this is justified by arguing that
the very ignorance of political gestures somehow
justifies this as authentic, just as in the
machines smashers of 1826 (xiii). It
is very debatable that symbols can actually be
deployed where there is no knowing agent!
The concept of homology sometimes covers this
dubious linkage, but not always. For example
Hebdige sees an oscillation between an obvious
fabrication and some kind of unconscious semiotic
guerilla warfare. Generally, though, the
meaning of activities as known to actual members
is treated as if it is incidental, which renders
members as cultural dopes. Or is it that
subjective meanings do not matter? Hebdige's
eloquent analysis of the examples can be seen as
equally 'imaginary' as those he reports (xv).
The connections between black music and youth are
better, less forced than the others. The
concept of bricolage comes to the rescue
here. The concept of new polysemy suggests
that the only coherence is going to be an elliptic
one [? did I mean via discourse?] . However,
some rules are needed [Cohen reviews some provided
by Turner, xvi]. The dangers of abstract
analysis can be found in Hebdige's example of the
adoption of the swastika by punks—who says it is
intended only to shock? Punks or
sociologists? Can everyone be doing
irony? Empirical evidence is used in a very
variable way.
There are clear dangers with these asymmetric
method [quoting the criticism in Resistance Through Rituals?]
If we start from social class, we find much more
mundane examples of activity, much more
accommodation rather than breaks with the existing
political and social order. We need
ethnographic studies to grasp this. One
example would be Pryce's study of [black youth?]
in Bristol [heavily criticized by Gilroy], which included the
finding that rasta and reggae are used as
compensations rather than political protest.
Policing the Crisis
is a better piece of work, though [this seems to
be almost a consensus about this these days—2014—I
am still not convinced]. At least we see a
clear role for the state as an agent that actually
does the labelling. However, even here there
is a 'premature theoretical closure', provided by
the arguments about the emergence of crisis.
The substantial State concerns about delinquency
are actually much more diffuse and less political.
There is no explanation why some groups are
repressed more severely than others (xxv) [I don't
understand this bit—moral panics surely develop
the political threat of some groups where a number
of issues coincide?].
All CCCS writing seems to agree that crime and
delinquency is some sort of solution to the
tensions of class society, assuming that juveniles
can be admired as politicized. There are
clear dangers of romanticism. Although the
political potential of delinquency is heavily
qualified, CCCS writers still have a strong
commitment to defend them, sometimes with a note
of regret. The political system is
criticized in terms of its moral absolutism, while
hooliganism is discussed in a spirit of moral
relativism, forgiving the racism of white working
class groups, for example, while condemning it in
the bourgeoisie. What might be seen as
undesirable elements are defended and
contextualized in the subculture [Gilroy does this
for the sexism of black youth?]. [I think
the reverse happened in politics, leading up to
and following the split with the working
classes. Here, working class racism and
sexism were condemned so vigorously as to write
off all the other forms of politics, while middle
class sexism and racism were not even analysed:
they might well have started with the university,
even the Open University]. CCCS writers ran
the risk of going native, or of patronising the
people they were studying. Alternatively,
they simply dismissed non- revolutionary appeals,
such as those for job satisfaction, fulfilment,
and meaning—exactly the same as those framed by
intellectuals [there are shades here of the work
of Rancière
on Marxists underestimating the apparently
moderate demands of anarcho-syndicalists in the
1830s].
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