n a recent BBC politics programme where audiences ask a panel of politicians and social commentators (generally representing the range of mainstream opinion) an audience member is captured making the most incredible rant. In short, (and you can see it below) the man argues that the British Labour Party are “going after him” for tax (as expressed in their manifesto for the forthcoming UK elections) despite him earning only 80,000 pounds a year. He argues (wrongly) that he is not part of the richest 5% of the population and his earnings are average, so he should not be targeted for increased taxes.
To hear the man in his full glory, check here
Now, there is considerable disbelief amongst the panel and the audience towards the man’s claims (that he is an average earner/that he is not in the top 5%) but the audience member is indeed adamant.
We could of course be cruel and say that it his naked self-interest which determines his belief (we have been accused of such crass determinism elsewhere) but we rather see it as an excellent case of how banal ideology truly is. Put simply we mainly construct our views from the ordinary mundane world which surrounds us, our relationships, our everyday existence. We know for a fact that whilst inequality in incomes between the top 5% and the rest of us are enormous, the inequality between those in the top 5% is even greater. He is clearly not a billionaire and objects to being lumped in with such persons for tax purposes. No doubt his friends, the people where he lives etc also earn salaries around or in excess of 80,000 but he has no contact with billionaires ( and probably little with people who earn under 50,000 a year let alone 10,000). He probably works extremely hard and may not have inherited much wealth, which would make him more dependent on earned income than some of his associates and henceforth more opposed to increased income tax as it affects him more. He is in his own mind an average guy trying to make his way in the world like everyone else, and not the top 5%.
Roberto Frega has usefully described this as the normative structure of the ordinary. We often confuse ideology as something rational when it really boils down to sets of everyday (often contradictory) beliefs which allow us to negotiate the everyday tasks of the social order (a social order infused with economic inequality and unequal gender, class and racial power dynamics). We see our “normal” as the natural order. Nicola Prentis is not wrong therefore to question the lack of women speakers at ELT plenary sessions (namely IATEFL), because that invisibility sends out a clear message of what is “normal” for men and women. But, perhaps, she is wrong to see ELT Plenary Sessions in themselves as “normal” with their emphasis on “celebrity and status” and just maybe women tend to be a little bit more sensitive to this hierarchy and pomposity. We might ask further why state school teachers rarely find the necessity to mount such “conferences”. And then we might ask whether it is teachers who are actually organising a conference or just a conference organised by commercial organisations where teachers, something like 33% of attendees, are invited to an event in their name but not in their interests (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language). No doubt, some readers at hearing our criticism of IATEFL where they may have spent considerable amount of money in order to attend and, god forbid, actually enjoyed the thing will feely equally as offended and under attack as our 80,000 a year man.
And then there are all those who will criticise the coursebook but defend the CELTA, as if the very continuation of the CELTA doesn’t depend on the skills and craft of coursebook writers who fill the gaps in pre-service training (see amazing discussion in the comments section here ).
But this is how ideology works, not with a bang of full-bloodied and well-thought out self-interest but a whimper of compliance to the status quo and people’s attempt to negotiate their place within it.
Note: for those looking for a juicy in-depth Marxist discussion on the concept of ideology, we recommend the quite wonderful book by Abercrombie, Hill and Turner: The Dominant Ideology Thesis
Marxist TEFL Group 