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This is why Cobbett (and John Fielden, his friend and fellow Member for Oldham after 1832) came so close to being spokesmen of the working class. Once the real condition of the working people – for Cobbett, the labourer, for Fielden, the factory child – is made, not one, but the test of all other political expedients, then we are close to revolutionary conclusions. Concealed within the seemingly ‘nostalgic’ notion of the ‘historic rights of the poor’, which, in different ways, was voiced by Cobbett, Oastler and Carlile, there were also new claims maturing, for the community to succour the needy and the helpless, not out of charity, but as of right.2 Cobbett loathed the ‘comforting system’ of charity and moral rescue, and, in his History of the Protestant ‘Reformation’, he was chiefly intent upon giving historical backing to his notion of social rights. The lands of the medieval Church had been held in trust for the poor. Wrongfully misappropriated or dispersed, nevertheless the poor still had a claim upon them, which (in Cobbett’s eyes) was recognized through the mediation of the old Poor Laws. The repeal of those laws constituted the last act in a shameful series of robberies by which the poor had been cheated of their rights:
[...] the rules of a society formed in 1832 in Ripponden, a weaving village in the Pennines:
From the astonishing changes which the course of a series of years have produced to the labouring classes… from competition and the increase of machinery which supersedes hand labour, combined with various other causes, over which, as yet, the labouring classes have no control – the minds of thinking men are lost in a labyrinth of suggestions what plan to adopt in order to better, if possible, their conditions….
By the increase of capital the working classes may better their condition, if they only unite and set their shoulder to the work; by uniting we do not mean strikes and turning out for wages, but like men of one family, strive to begin to work for ourselves….
The plan of cooperation which we are recommending to the public is not a visionary one but is acted upon in various parts of the Kingdom; we all live by the produce of the land, and exchange labour for labour, which is the object aimed at by all Cooperative Societies. We labourers do all the work and produce all the comforts of life; – why then should we not labour for ourselves and strive to improve our conditions?
Fundamental Principles
First. – That, labour is the source of all wealth; consequently the working classes have created all wealth.
Secondly. – That the working classes, although the producers of wealth, instead of being the richest, are the poorest of the community; hence, they cannot be receiving a just recompense for their labour.
This vision was lost, almost as soon as it had been found, in the terrible defeats of 1834 and 1835. And, when they had recovered their wind, the workers returned to the vote, as the more practical key to political power. Something was lost: but Chartism never entirely forgot this preoccupation with social control, to the attainment of which the vote was seen as a means. These years reveal a passing beyond the characteristic outlook of the artisan, with his desire for an independent livelihood ‘by the sweat of his brow’, to a newer outlook, more reconciled to the new means of production, but seeking to exert the collective power of the class to humanize the environment: – by this community or that cooperative society, by this check on the blind operation of the market-economy, this legal enactment, that measure of relief for the poor. And implicit, if not always explicit, in their outlook was the dangerous tenet: production must be, not for profit, but for use.
Anyone who eats at my table is loved there – and I confess to feeling relieved that I don’t find myself preparing meals for people I might only consider an obligation. I don’t have to perform as someone’s partner with the joint diary, the tit for tat of mutual social upkeep. I try to think of the kitchen as a theatre of self-creation. Sometimes it’s as simple as putting pickles in a pretty dish and laying the table. Or slicing up fruit and arranging it on a plate that makes the colours vibrate. Other times it’s the rejection of restraint when cooking for one. I always feel defensive when people say ‘I don’t bother when it’s just me.’ It’s not that I don’t value convenience and simplicity – I love supermarket tortellini and instant noodles as much as anyone – but I infer from their words that they don’t think I am worth it. I’m not saying that cooking myself a five-pan, six-hour meal is a radical act, but it says my pleasure is worth investing in, is worth putting love into, even if I don’t always believe that, even if sometimes I feel profligate, greedy, unsatisfied.
i like this
Self-love has to include a disregard for how other people might perceive me, and living as though life is in the present, rather than something that will start in earnest once certain thresholds have been passed. I sometimes have to say aloud to myself: you do not agree that life’s worth should be measured in this way. Don’t give the idea the authority to direct your self-criticism for not measuring up. It feels like a life’s work. Repeat it until you mean it. Say it like a friend would.
My default mode of self-love hasn’t fallen into either of the categories I defined earlier. Mine has been to spend money. Through spending I hoped I’d find a way to like myself more. Be more confident. Be someone people wanted to spend time with. This false promise of love got me into debt, made me indulge every but why shouldn’t I voice in my head, buying things for myself, paying the bills when out with friends, never saying no when I couldn’t afford to do something, showboating, until debt became a way of getting through the month for necessities like travelling to work and the weekly food shop. Paying the minimum payment on huge credit balances and then spending back up to the limit. Ever since I was eighteen and was first offered credit and an overdraft, I’ve amassed heart-thudding debts, the kind that make you dissociate, as though the debt is a fungus growing in the dark that you have no hand in. How did it get like this? I’d ask myself, clueless.
ugh the self-pity in this is deeply upsetting
I know there’s a relationship between the way I’ve spent money to try to create an image of myself that might appeal to others, and the times I’ve desired to be loved by men who were indifferent towards me. To be cured of the want for approval from those who will never give it, those who I have ambivalent feelings about. That seems to be the task I will always work at. To spot when I’m craving a status that I don’t believe in. Then there’s the Liberty smock dress. My intuition told me the dress would most probably not suit me, but I wanted to buy it anyway, to be a woman who could look dainty in a loose, old-fashioned dress. All clavicles and flatness. Buying the dress was a rejection of my body, which would not fit the image of me in the dress that I had in my head. If the best things in life are free, the best of all is romantic love. How much do I need to spend to fill the gap love’s absence has made?
the self-pity!!! ugh
A fear I often return to is whether intimacy of the self counts. Does self-knowledge have to rebound from another, be in collaboration with someone, to give you the best look at yourself? Otherwise, might I only be hearing myself as echoes? I’m afraid that if I am not seen, heard and observed in the smallest, pettiest, most inconsequential moments of my life, my most basic nature might always be slightly concealed from me. As though my one true self is being withheld by the lack of romantic love. If I try to locate that nature myself, what comes to mind is someone whose ego can be hurt by returning home from a trip to find only junk mail has arrived in their absence. Occasionally I try to catch myself in the act of being me, listen back to the snores, coughs and murmurs captured on my sleep app. I find this self-surveillance creepy, can only bear it for a few seconds, but I do it because I am desperate for feedback. Desperate to know what it is I need to change about myself. I’m afraid that it was my fault I was alone when I heard the worst news of my life; that when I received the most joyous news in my life, again, I was alone. I’m afraid these things tell me that I have done my life wrong. I’m afraid I might not ever truly know myself. Then these thoughts clam up. I’m unable to face them and I hate myself for the indulgence. I know that if you ask yourself hard questions, you must be prepared not to find an answer. You must be prepared to admit sometimes your questions rise from self-pity, helplessness, envy.
i think i find self-pity to be even more repulsive when it's acknowledged. when the recognition of it is not enough to compel an overcoming
In my youth I believed that to go on holiday abroad was to acquire glamour. All it would take was one week in a sunny European resort, an immersion in strangers, and I would be granted access to it. Become liberated from my homeliness, small-town experiences, from the daily sense of making do with hand-me-downs, bland food, the thudding boredom of schooling. I perceived glamour as terrific ease in the world, erudition and imagination, with no labour or artifice to my conversation, mannerisms and style. A polishing of what was latent within. In this way, travelling abroad seemed to parallel the idea I had of romantic love, that it was my destiny, and with it I would step into a truer self. I wanted to be like one of the kids at school, who after a break would walk back into classes with streaks in their hair from the sun, skin pale around their eyes from wearing sunglasses, with the swagger of chaste holiday romances. A temporary celebrity in the playground. My own family holidays were infrequent, domestic and unphotogenic.
appreciate the honesty but this is sooo annoying
Each night the hotel staff would set up a table for two, with a small beach fire and hanging lanterns, at the apex of this view I first had. They advertised this as the ‘where the waves break’ table. I both wanted to eat at this table and knew I could not subject myself to the scrutiny of it. Is she a divorcée? Was she jilted? Why is she here alone? These questions were not simply the paranoid thoughts of someone holidaying solo, they were the questions in the minds of the couples holidaying there, who probed me – the why? pressing behind the actual questions they asked, the slightly pitiful way they invited me to join them for a drink or an excursion. I did not take them up on it. It can seem an affront that someone would prefer, would find it more enjoyable, to be alone. When I’m sat at a table alone, I wonder how I can indicate to others that I am not waiting to be joined by someone, I don’t desire that to happen. I am alone without regret. But it would be better to reach a point where I’m free of thoughts of how others perceive me.
omg lady CHILL