Transcendental Yobbism

In my midterm essay on Martin Amis' novel Success I had one particular paragraph that I thought would serve as an interesting addition to our discussion on what it is to be a "Yob". I find it particularly interesting for a few reasons. One, Amis is a Brit writing about Britain. Two, it highlights the omnipresence of Yobbery throughout British society (at least from the book's point of view) and it was written in 1978(!) which I think adds another interesting point to our ngoing discussion on the origins and growth of "the yob problem". Anyway here it is:

The collapse into the unity of the middle class void and into unimpeded animal brutality is made evident in the transcendence of yobbism. The term Yob's meaning, as described by Gregory in reference to Terrence, is a person “both gutless and aggressive, as craven and sentimental as he is sour and crude, lacking any genetic tradition, any pact with good behaviour, Terrence is simply the representative of the values that got to him first” (184). Yobbism, which at first (in the novel and often in societal schemas) seemed to be confined to a description of lower class individuals like Terrence, over the course of the novel ends up breaking through all previous boundaries. Not only are lower class people like Terrence yobs but Gregory’s friends Skimmer and Kane are described as “upper-class yobs” (169). Gregory describes his other perennial associates as Torka “and his yobs” (215). Not only are yobs beginning to appear in the upper class but the already acknowledged yobs of the lower class are also extending their field of operation, insinuating themselves into new areas such as in the “traditional, familial, up-market Italian place… full of men with puffed, unintelligent faces and muscular pot-bellies” (184) who are accompanied by their equally yobbish wives. Everyone is middle class and everyone is a yob and in this yob- ruled world there are no goals or mobility, nowhere to go to escape yobbism. “The yobs are winning” (184) and in their world the only stability is the instability of perpetual flux and transit. There is no good or evil, no moral judgements on the various reprehensible acts people commit, there is only success and failure and the battle of each against all.