Sagnir - 01.06.2016, Page 126
by connecting it to ‘fecklessness’, ‘welfare-dependency’ and ‘a-morality'’. The riots
increased the overall usage of the term underclass and made the discourse arouflJ
it more extreme. In the period of August 6th 2011 to July 27th 2012, 130 articles
in UK newspapers used the term ‘feral underclass’. This stands in stark contrast to
the 5 years leading up to the riots when only 36 articles mentions it.29 Combining
the word with feral is also noteworthy, as feral describes domesticated animals thaf
have become wild.30 Moritz Sommer explores how this process creates otherness
and dualism. This takes shape in the binary constructions of: feral-domesticated,
civilized-uncivilized, animals-humans and sickness-healthiness. By using the wofd
underclass another duality is formed; that of working class versus underclass. In
the riots the underclass was used to describe economic disparity caused by behaV'
iour deficiencies, meaning that the poor were to be blamed for their poverty. This
stands in contrast to the image of a law abiding and civilized working class, oUe
who labours and is not behaviourally deficient.31
Problems with the Underclass
The idea that there is a class under the working class has a long and problernatic
history. This problematic past is still reflected in the usage of the term today. Al'
ready Karl Marx made a distinction between the 1 jwipenproletariat and the working
class. Luwpig literally means shabby. He saw the lumpen as something fundamentall}
different from the working class, something racially different, filthy and danger'
ous. In moralising language he chooses certain professions which he classifies as
I Jtmpenproletariat32
“Alongside decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubions
origin ... , were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escapetl
galley slaves. swindlers, mountebanks, lapgaroni, pickpockets, tricksters. gamblers,
maquereaus, brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ- grinders, ragpicxers, krute
grinders. tinkers, beggars-in short, the whole mdefinite, dis- integrated mass,
thrown nither and thimer, which the French term la bobemeim
In a similar fashion 19th century Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso use^
the term underclass to describe misfits and criminals. He built his theories on eU'
genics and physiognomy. Lombroso saw this underclass as mentally and morall}
deficient as an effect of bad hereditary.34 In his essay “A world of difference: Cot1'
structing the “Underclass” in Progressive America” Mark Pittenger writes about
how American journalists influenced and constructed contemporary concepti0131.
29 Moritz Sommer, “The Rioter’ as ‘Pleb’”, p. 18-20.
30 Merriam-Webster dictionary, “Feral”, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar)r/feral.
Retrieved 16. August 2015.
31 Moritz Sommer, “The Rioter’ as ‘Pleb’”, p. 26-28.
32 Peter Stallybrass, ”Marx and Heterogeneity”, p. 70-72.
33 Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch05.htm. Retrieved 16. August 2015-
34 Mark Pittenger, “A World of Difference ...”, p. 28-29.
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