guest post by D. PARTHASARTHY

When newspaper columnists become self-righteous, it is usually because they see a good way of capturing reader interest by moralizing about an issue. After all, tabloids around the world regularly make fortunes by generating a false sense of moral outrage and indignation through stories of the indiscretions and ineptitudes, sufferings and misfortunes of celebrities and of not so famous people. It is a sign of irony as well as an indication of the way in which neo-liberal capitalist media works, that the consequences of alienation engendered by an individualist ideology is fodder for sensationalist reporting, but also a tool for mobilizing collective conscience against alienated individuals, and for preventing communities from understanding the real reasons for alienation.

The farthest that editorial writers, columnists, bloggers, and talk show panelists will go in findings something good to say about Jade Goody’s ‘life and death in the open as a way of making a living’, is that it has generated greater awareness of cervical cancer. A few indulge in a bit of self-criticism about sections of the media out to make a quick buck by sensationalizing the lives of people, but are quick at the same time in accusing Jade Goody of complicity in becoming a willing partner in such enterprises. Public and media criticism of Goody during her dying days mirrors similar disparagement and scorn poured on her by the same media which even as it was lapping up and making millions out of her public and private life, simultaneously heaped ridicule on her for ‘ignorance’, ‘facetiousness’, and ‘boorish’ manners and behavior. Neither could allowances be made nor sympathies shown for her difficult childhood and upbringing. For that would threaten the carefully built up image of a civilized and civil British society, it would challenge the model of economic growth that has been followed by conservatives and labour alike, and expose the not quite unique British ‘class as status’ and ‘status as class’ stratification system. Liberals and conservatives alike are afraid of facing an abiding and enduring fact that women without support from the state or family, have few options when it comes to using ‘market’ forces to achieve a reasonable standard of living, that giving up the quest for personal dignity is a pre-requisite for women if they are to make headway in this still largely patriarchal capitalist world.

Anyone who has seen even just a few reality TV episodes in the west will notice that amidst all the drama of working class lives and family conflicts, women are always portrayed as less than human, as ‘abnormal’ nervous wrecks, high strung emotional beings, irrational, lacking maturity, and always as much to blame if not more, than their male counterparts for whatever sticky situation they find themselves in, and that is fodder for the reality shows. This is as much to feed the voyeuristic needs of male studio audiences and television viewers, as to distract and comfort repressed and alienated women viewers, as much to prop up patriarchal social structures as to turn women against women. The run ins with the law of Jade Goody’s boyfriend and father make news only because of their connection to her, and is not half as much a subject of criticism as her own behaviour has been. The media and the public have become so insensitive that Goody’s attempt to care for herself and her family using the media has become the subject of intense criticism, whereas if she had chosen to earn a living through illegitimate means, she would have received much less attention, and hardly any criticism beyond the standard ones. In other words its OK for media to thrive on scandal and scandal mongering, but its not OK for people to actually live out scandalous lives- even those that are not of their own making.

Notwithstanding Jade Goody’s troubled childhood, her rapid socialization into taking on adult responsibilities in the background of parental irresponsibility, critics have frequently taken potshots at her for her ignorance and lack of knowledge, especially as regards general awareness. Her resourcefulness in using the media to make a living and take care of her family reveals ability and skills rarely acknowledged by the media. Such resourcefulness is dismissed as manipulative shrewdness or worse, in a context where across the world, only credential capital is acknowledged even if credentials hide a complete inability or even a high level of facetiousness in dealing with real life situations as evident in recent financial failures. Economists and MBA can manipulate the economy using highly fallible and unsound data. It is not stupidity to ignore scholarly, empirical evidence against fallible economic models, but it is stupidity if you do not know that Cambridge is in ‘East Angular’. Bigots, die hard racists, and prejudiced dogmatists, become highly sought after panelists on TV shows without being labeled as boorish, rude, and stupid, but someone who has the decency to repent and apologize for comments made without due consideration is labeled as silly, inane, immature and mindless.

That Jade Goody was a woman, that family backgrounds and upbringing such as hers affect women in a much more intense manner than men, that women have fewer livelihood and economic opportunities given similar amounts of low credential and cultural capital – all these issues are rarely raised or addressed. For isn’t she a citizen of the UK- where all questions of economic opportunity and social equity are already settled? After all wasn’t Britain among the first nation states to be civilized and then go on to civilize the rest of the world? Jade Goody is ultimately symbolic of many things that have gone wrong with societies today given a very specific configuration of family, state, and the market, and the way in which they have evolved separately and together. The anthropologizing of the family as an institution, and the falling out of fashion of class based analysis has meant that a veil is thrown over the links between class and family. That men but especially women from ‘dysfunctional’ rich and middle class families still get access to social and economic opportunities that working class children can never aspire for.

Even liberals supporting a greater role for the state in empowering individuals fail to understand the ways in which state intervention usually takes forms which rob individuals of their dignity and further stigmatizes them. The only option is the market, but the market in capitalist societies is no longer about efficiency and opportunity; the very real possibility of inclusion through market forces as opposed to the exclusion of pre-capitalist social forms has vanished yielding place to a system where only the well connected thrive in a highly manipulated market place. But people like Jade Goody find that using the market even in ways preferred by global capital also comes with a price – the price of dignity and self-respect. If she develops a thick skin and shrugs of the disparagement, the scorn, the humiliations, and even makes a virtue of what she does, that is still not enough to redeem her in the eyes of the hypocritical moralist-liberals – she needs to be ridiculed and chastised even as she as dies, not because we want fewer Jade Goodys in our society, not because we wish to reform our institutions to ensure that individuals and particularly women have greater and more equitable access to opportunities, but because chastising and rebuking sparks a false sense of moral outrage, and it is moral outrage that brings in greater returns to capital for the media, and prevents citizens at large from expressing outrage at the real issues that confront their societies.