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Learning to Labour: how working class kids get working class jobs
Chapter 5: Penetrations
By: Emile, Hyeonil, Jacob, Jenny, Ryan, Tom
Image from: https:/www.goodreads.com/book/show/36432924-learning-to-labour/
Overview: what is “penetration”
“‘Penetration’ is meant to designate impulses within a cultural form towards the penetration of the conditions of existence of its members and their position within the social whole but in a way which is not centred, essentialist or individualist”(Willis, 1978)
Penetrations is in a way, the lads piercing through the veil of the ideological notions that are instilled by schooling. Their skepticism towards ideas brought by the school system, such as meritocracy and the promise of better employment through qualifications, is expressed through cultural form. These cultural forms are important to the lads’ culture, and shape the way they behave and think through a set of practices.
The “conditions of existence” refers to the lads real life experience, with their realization that they will most likely remain within the working class, despite the promises made by the school system. They reject individualism, which is promoted by the school system, as well as conformism. They express these realizations and rejections not directly through dialect, but rather through their actions and culture.
Cultural forms: Counter-school culture
As a form of penetration, counter-school culture is produced by the lads. “The counter-school culture and its processes arise from definite circumstances in a specific historical relation and are in no sense accidentally produced”(P120).
Two qualifications to form counter-school culture: Creativity & rational impulses.
Three practices of counter-school culture:
1. Assessment of the rewards of conformism/obedience to the school.
2. Assessment of the quality of available work.
3. Questioning conformism, class mobility and meritocracy.
Counter-school culture: cont. The practices
1. The lads do not believe in the risk/reward of conformism/obedience. “Immediate gratification is not only immediate, it is a style of life and offers the same thing too in ten years time” - Willis p.126. There is no point in conforming because it is a sacrifice that does not lead to a reward greater than counter-school culture can provide. In their eyes, counter-school culture offers the same rewards as conformism, but the rewards are immediate and concrete, and not promised later in the form of an illusionary better paid job. Even worst, conformism might lead to no reward at all, resulting in a meaningless sacrifice of time and action.
2. “Objective grounds therefore certainly exist for questioning whether it is sensible to invest the self and its energies in qualifications when both their efficacy and their object must be held in great doubt” - Willis p.127. Even if their qualifications did grant them work after school, it is doubtful that the jobs acquired through said qualifications would even be meaningful. “it is unwise for working class kids to place their trust in diplomas and certificates. These things act not to push people up - as in the official account - but to maintain there those who are already at the top” - Willis p.128. As Willis says, the lads do not believe that acquired diplomas and certificates do in fact bring people up but is mainly used to maintain the status quo.
3. “Some working-class individuals do 'make it' and any particular individual may hope to be one of them. To the class or group at its own proper level, however, mobility means nothing at all. The only true mobility at this level would be the destruction of the whole class society” - Willis p.128. Willis talks about the inability of a class to move up without destruction of the current hierarchy. Since the lads form their own group which adopts counter-school culture, they also ensure that no individual do “make it”, in a way. If every individual identify with their group identity, in this case, there is no hope for mobility.
LABOUR POWER
Willis talks about the concept of labour power, a type of commodity that has an unusual property. It is not a fixed quantity, and therefore when sold at a given price, the outcome can vary greatly. In theory, the labourer is supposed to sell this commodity, labour power, on the marketplace like any other commodity. This creates the possibility for exploitation, as any other commodity has a fixed quantity and value for given price. Due to the variability of labour power, it is virtually impossible to determine its value when it is sold.
“whilst labour power is bought and sold on the market place it is, in fact, like no other commodity. It is unlike all other commodities because it is not a fixed quantity. No matter how the matter is judged morally or politically it remains true that labour power is the only variable element in the capitalist system” – Willis
Capitalism
Willis discuss the unfair exchange of human labour, the difference between middle-class’ and working class’ income, and capitalism’s false promise of freedom
“In essence, the labourer can produce more in value than is represented by his wages” - Willis, page 130. Capitalism’s main goal is profit, and the labourers work is used to create profit. Capitalism takes advantage of the unusual property of labour power in a way that allows labourers to be paid less than the value of their work. “it is the individual labourer's blindness to the special nature of the commodity which he sells which is at the heart of the ideological legitimation of capitalism. It conceals processes of exploitation and the source of profit” - Willis, p131. In other words, the labourer is exploited in order to make profit, under the false promise of freedom.
Another main point is the difference between middle-class and working-class income. The labourer’s wage is calculated in units of time, regardless of the value they produce. So it does not matter so much what they make or how much they make, but how long they’ve been working. This creates a feeling of indifference in the lads regarding on what kind of labour work they get into, because the value of what they produce is meaningless. Not only that, but deskilling labor contributes to the meaningless of the work.
Critiques
The lads’ in the Willis’ book are not representative of the working class population as a whole.
Ethnography was developed in the context of colonialism, and at the time that Willis wrote his book there were racist connotations behind ethnography.
References
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labour: how working class kids get working class jobs. New York, NY:
Columbia University Press.