Have the English working-class been depoliticised by cultural debasement?

 

I know George Orwell's book 1984 very well. The proles were depoliticised by cultural debasement but don't forget that Winston Smith believed that all hope rested with the proles.

In today's Britain, which is a bit like living at Butlin's holiday camp, one of the most popular TV programmes is about baking a cake, so don't expect too much. The Marxist historian Raphael Samuels wrote in the New Left Review, "A dozen vanguard parties and as many tendencies and groups, compete for the honour of leading a non-existent revolutionary working class."

The Trotskyist Paul Mason, seems to agree. In his book 'PostCapitalism: A Guide to Our Future', he wrote: "Marxism got it wrong about the working class. 200 years of experience shows it (the working class) was preoccupied with 'living despite capitalism' not overthrowing it."

Friedrich Engels was often driven to despair by the English workers because of their imaginary sense of national superiority and their narrow-mindedness and bourgeois ideas and viewpoints. In general, British people have a low level of political awareness and have been softened up by years of Labour reformist politics. In addition, the education system in Britain does a cracking job on them. Politically, they know fuck all and Winston Churchill was well aware of it. Churchill said that the best argument against democracy was a five-minute conversation with the average voter.