Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Brexit's esoteric meaning: ideological roots and its wider destructive energy

All the evidence points to the disturbing fact that Brexit's primary power in Britain has been to bring out the worst in human nature.

There are conspiracy theorists who would believe that Brexit is in fact a foreign-backed project designed to destroy Britain (historically, in a similar manner to how Lenin was sneaked into Tsarist Russia by Germany). This blogger has discussed this theory before. Over the pond, some hold fears that Donald Trump is in fact some kind of Russian "agent", so it not surprising that similar theories are expounded about Brexit in the UK.
A more realistic worry is about the effect Brexit has had on the psychology of its people in general and its politicians in particular.

Historically, Brexit was the pet project of right-wing cranks and left-wing anti-capitalist ideologues. The first of these can be further broke down into two hard-right camps: the Libertarian ideologues who saw Brexit as method of economic creative destruction, and the more traditional nationalists who barely disguised the overt racism at the heart of their reactionary conservatism. On the other ideological extreme there were the left-wing anti-capitalists, who back in the original EU referendum in the 1970s, teamed up with the reactionary conservatives to campaign to get the UK out of the EEC. The Libertarians who are among Brexit's most fervent supporters today in the earlier generation originally campaigned with Thatcher to keep Britain in the EEC as they saw it as a free-market opportunity. Their flip to the side of Brexit came after they felt "betrayed" by the EU's (always transparent) longer-term integration and development into a regulatory institution.

What these three ideological groups share is a wider, more esoteric perception of Brexit. Brought to the modern day, these three ideological groups see Brexit as a force that enables wider structural (and even moral) change; Brexit is seen by each of these groups as a "means to an end". In this way, as I talked about in a previous post on this subject, Brexit acts as a kind of "talisman" - a symbol of unusual power and energy.
To be clear, I'm talking about its symbolic power. "Brexit" is an idea that is being used by the three ideological groups - Libertarians, reactionaries and anti-capitalists - to further their own aims. Brexit is their weapon of choice; the "talisman" that can be wielded symbolically to transform Britain (and even the wider world) into a landscape of their choosing.


Britain as an ideological "Ground Zero"

Libertarians ideally want to use Brexit to turn Britain into a kind of free-market laboratory. This is why they are perfectly frank about their willingness to see post-Brexit Britain unilaterally reduce its tariffs to zero; an idea that to anyone with a brain would see as economic insanity.
More widely, their method of "creative destruction" would remove regulations and workers' rights on a mass scale, and would be indifferent to the future of British industries. In their view, Britain's future would lie largely in financial services, with a stripped-out state and a native population left to mainly fend for itself.
Seen like this, Britain would more widely become a strategic threat to the EU, acting as a predator on Europe's doorstep, seeking to implicitly (and more openly) undermine the integrity of the EU, which Libertarian Britain would see as a "project" that ideologically had to be destroyed to prevent any of Britain's own population trying to turn back the clock on the Libertarians' domestic agenda. Indeed, the Libertarian agenda has been about destroying the EU as an institution for decades, as part of its wider aim to promote chaos.
This is the kind of "creative destruction" that is talked about when applied wholesale. Spreading and exploiting economic chaos elsewhere would then become Libertarian Britain's path to economic mastery. It has been done before. Thus, Britain would be seen as an ideological "agent of chaos" to the wider world (much as how Russia is now seen by many in the West): like the Bolsheviks of a hundred years ago, trying to spread the ideology of their "revolution" far and wide for their own benefit.
In a more symbolic sense, this Libertarian vision of post-Brexit Britain is of an island-nation that would, to the outside world, appear as a centre of global economic instability: a regime whose primary purpose is morally anarchic and economically exploitative. In other words, a "force of darkness" to the world.

Meanwhile, the ultimate aim of the right-wing reactionaries seems to use Brexit to "turn back the clock". In their esoteric perception of Brexit, it is about restoring cultural (and racial) homogeneity. They see Britain as a culturally-superior nation that has lost its identity and sense of self-belief. Brexit becomes a "White Power" fantasy, where Britain regains its exulted status as a "sceptred isle" that has a special role in the world. Intoxicated by their own rhetoric, they believe the British people are destined to reclaim their place, purified from "cosmopolitan" European influence and cleansed of the immigrant stain. When all the more technical reasons are stripped away, for these people it is really just wanting to "Make Britain White Again".

As James O'Brien demonstrates with this clip from the radio show LBC, the only thing that these kind of people really care about is "too many foreigners" in Britain. Brexit, for them, is their method of restoring Britain's cultural identity, with the overt implication that the restoration of Britain's prestige in the world will soon follow. 
The blatant xenophobia comes from seeing Britain as an "island race". Japan had its own period of hateful racism after the Great Depression, and when you hear the way the "gammon" types talk, you do wonder how far down that moral black hole the country could go, if the circumstances turn a particular way. Only the most complacent (or arrogant) individual could think that their particular country is immune from such behaviour; and such complacency and arrogance would in fact make that kind of behaviour more likely to happen, as the government's "hostile environment" has shown. Since the referendum racism has become more brazenly expressed, with many seeming to think that Brexit allows them to indulge their prejudice and hatred on anyone who looks foreign or speaks a foreign language. Racism is an obvious example of how Brexit has brought out the worst in people, with this portending for potentially even worse treatment of the "other" when people look for a scapegoat to blame. Britain could turn into a deeply ugly place to live.
The wider agenda of these reactionaries is "Empire 2.0", but as a thought experiment, how could that pan out hypothetically? If the "gammon" types within the Conservative Party itself gain greater sway after Brexit, it's not hard to see Britain humiliating itself on the world stage, either strategically or - at the more extreme end of things - militarily. Some of the idiotic bluster from recent government personalities has meant that the more extreme scenarios can't be seen as all that far-fetched.
It seems that the "gammon" fantasy is of Britain somehow gaining leverage over the former "white dominions" as well as preferential treatment from its former Asiatic colonies. Closer to home, it's not hard to see reactionaries also fantasizing about "putting Ireland in its place", regardless of its EU membership or close ties to the USA. Britain's military budget would have to be seriously indulged for any of these imperialist schoolboy fantasies to come to fruition.
As said earlier, this can only end in complete humiliation, as all nationalist rhetoric eventually does; which is why the hard-left anti-capitalists are all in favour of it...

The hard-left anti-capitalists see Brexit through the "long game": they want the Tory right to "own" any Brexit that follows, as they see this as their best path to power. If the Libertarians don't destroy Britain from within through their anti-social ideology, then the hard-right reactionaries will make Britain self-destruct through some strategic humiliation; this is the reasoning that the anti-capitalists have.
In these circumstances, the hard-left fantasize their victory in the chaos that follows. Then they will be able to implement "Socialism in one country", and turn Britain into a socialist experiment fit for the 21st century. In a similar manner to the Libertarians' wider ideological agenda, the hard left would seek to undermine the EU's integrity. Quite what the EU would think of Britain at this point (after period of disruptive Libertarian/nationalist scheming) is hard to say. It would, without doubt, become Britain's most disruptive political period since the Civil War. In terms of its wider impact on the world, it could well be even more disruptive than on Britain itself. The EU would have had to deal with two "hostile regimes" in Britain following each other, but from opposite ideological standpoints.
The wider anti-capitalist agenda would be both to disrupt the actions of the EU as well as the USA, while allying with regimes sympathetic to their cause (Russia, say). Heaven knows where that would leave things. The symbolism of this anti-capitalist agenda could also be argued to have global ambitions, where anti-capitalist Britain would act as the primary instigator to bring about wider structural change in the world; exploiting Britain's strategic position to effect a universal social realignment. That is the anti-capitalists' ultimate fantasy.

A case could even be made that, following a "no deal" scenario (which is still likely at this point), all three of the scenarios could occur consecutively. For instance, a "no deal" scenario leads to the Libertarian agenda holding sway; this leads to widespread disruption and poverty; to distract from the government-caused poverty, nationalism is exploited to distract the poor from the government's actions; this leads to nationalist-fueled hysteria and eventual strategic humiliation; the government falls and is replaced by anti-capitalists.


"Its only power is to corrupt and destroy"

Those thought experiments aside, what is clear from the above scenarios is how Brexit is innately destructive. There is no scenario where Brexit does not lead to some form of social disintegration or economic decline. Brexit's only power is to corrupt and destroy.
Those who have been sucked under its influence have destroyed the positive image that Britain had to outsiders. Where once Britain was held up as a paragon of stability and moderation, now Brexit had turned the country into one under the control of ideological fanatics, who have abandoned the moral code that the country once once held up for.
Brexit's fanatics don't care what damage they do to other people's lives. They don't care what damage it does to the British economy. They don't care if people lose their rights, their jobs, or even if it puts people's lives at risk. They only care that their aim is fulfilled, regardless of the cost. In this sense, Brexit has turned its fanatical advocates into virtual sociopaths, indifferent to the suffering they might cause to others.
It is this particular aspect of Brexit that has brought out the worst in human nature: making people not only unmoved by the chaos they might cause, they justify it and even revel in its potential, as this is the only way they can realize their twisted fantasy. It is a moral sickness.

For this reason, it is Brexit's "dark powers" that lend some sympathy to conspiracy theorists' beliefs that it is something that could only have been created by Britain's enemies. Something that has the power to create such chaos in the country could surely only be planned by those who wish to do Britain harm?
Alas, the truth seems to be more disturbing: "Brexit" may well have been an "unnamed monster" that was hiding under the surface of society for a long time, shapeless and invisible, lacking tangible form for its lack of appellation. Brexit is just the instrument of the many seething social demons that were there for decades. For those that had long felt that "something was wrong" with Britain but could never properly articulate it, Brexit provided an answer. Like all forms of chaos, all it needed was the right set of circumstances to emerge.
To its advocates, Brexit's power allows them to believe in irrational fantasies, detached from reality. It encouraged them to believe that they could suspend disbelief and think that both everything could change and nothing would change. Its primary purpose, in this sense, is to drive people mad.

Apart from clouding people's judgement, the Brexit "talisman" sows chaos between people. As a corrupting source of power, it is feeding people with irrational fantasies, leading to persecution paranoia. Libertarians, reactionaries and anti-capitalists all believe that Britain is being "exploited" by the EU, and that each of their own fantasies can be attained by Brexit. Equally, they believe that those who are trying to make them see sense and save the country from harm are trying to "betray" them, leading to even rational people lose their sense of perspective when confronted by such hysteria. In this way, it cleaves society in two, with those corrupted by Brexit's power acting as though under a delirious form of mass hypnosis in an ideological battle with those vainly trying to shake them out of it.
At the same time, Brexit has a "shape-shifting" quality. As it appeals to people with very different ideological motivations, its amorphous ability to offer answers almost regardless of someone's background feels almost diabolical in its appeal. Brexit can mean almost anything; and in the referendum it was clear that Brexit was made to mean whatever you wanted it to mean. Almost anyone could potentially support it, because people could be made to believe that it had an answer to their problems. As it appealed to anyone who felt that there was something "wrong" with Britain, it indulged the fantasies you had about how you wanted Britain to change; and providing a scapegoat in "Europe".


In spite of all this, Brexit is just an idea. Its qualities as a "talisman" were exploited by those who saw in it a method to achieve their aims, such as Theresa May after the referendum, while conversely it confounded those who used conventional (and reasonable) means to frustrate it. Thus its opponents became doubly confounded: after being unable to prevent using conventional means (in the political process), in resorting to more direct methods (such as protests) it made Brexit's opponents look like the irrational side.
For Brexit's other power is to make black seem as white. People wanting to prevent Britain from carrying out economic suicide were branded as "traitors"; people wanting parliament to have a greater say were branded as "undemocratic". Apart from driving Brexit's own supporters mad, Brexit would also drive its opponents mad as well; the only difference was the manner of the madness. Its irrational supporters were made to look rational, while its rational opponents were made to look irrational.

Something very strange has happened in Britain, and its hard to know how (or when) it will end.


















Monday, February 18, 2019

Britain and racism: latent prejudice, the British Empire and the "Brexit" effect

Is Britain a racist country?

On the surface, Britain appears to be one of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to race relations. But, like how Brexit has had the effect on exposing Britain's dirty laundry for all the world to see, the image that Britain projects to the outside world (and the way it sees itself) is often very different from the reality. You only have to look at the evidence.

Politics in the UK has become consumed with latent (and also overt) prejudice. Britain's governing Conservative Party has become consumed with Islamophobia, where it is widespread at the grassroots level and (used more selectively) at government level. Then there is the "Europhobia" that has become more endemic since the EU referendum; a paranoia that is mainly anti-German in its sentiment and stems from - of course - "the war", where it seems some politicians' prejudice is about not forgiving Germany for killing their fathers.
At the same time, even the party of the opposition has its own "problem" with Anti-Semitism.

More generally, there is evidence of overt and covert racism and prejudice in wider society. There is "unashamed" prejudice shown by the lower end of society, and there is more covert racism within the higher echelons of society. In the latter case, it is a form of prejudice that "dare not speak its name", but everyone understands its real origin

A survey not long ago discovered that when it comes to employment, BAME applicants in the job market have almost as much chance of getting rejected for a job on the basis of racist stereotyping now as they did fifty years ago. Black people with "funny names", for instance, have to contend with the latent prejudice of their white employers. It seems that far too many managers are still in the "David Brent" mould. In other words, while things might seem to have improved a lot on the surface, underlying prejudice is not hard to uncover.


"This sceptred isle"

The roots of British identity cannot escape from the fact that Britain is an "island nation".

An uncomfortable parallel is found in Japan: a "island nation" that, after the Wall Street Crash, transformed its identity into that of being a militarist power where the native population were led to believe they were innately superior and that, by contrast, people in China were "dogs".
Britain has historically avoided the descent into racist nationalism that has overtaken many other countries at one point or another in their history, but there are uncomfortable signs now that this descent into the moral abyss is close to hand.
Germany and Japan are the historical examples that come to mind most easily, for obvious reasons. Both were countries that became imperial powers fairly late in the game, and this may have created an innate insecurity in the pathology of their rulers. In this way, the hateful racism that made both these nations the worst villains in the Second World War may have also stemmed from an innate insecurity.

Being one of the first empires built on sea power, Britain's evolution as an empire came about through a combination of opportunism, luck and ingenuity. Seen from the other side, this "opportunism and ingenuity" may simply be called a form of dastardly cunning, for no empire came to thrive on good manners alone. But the ability of Britain's white population today to see themselves as somehow "different" is built on the belief that the British Empire was, if anything, a service to mankind and the world as a whole, rather than the exploitative empire that it was.
The racism that still exists in Britain today stems from the belief that British people are innately "better", which invariably leads to the belief that the empire wasn't "colonizing" but "educating" foreign territories. This then explains why so many people believe that the loss of the empire was somehow an injustice to the country. How could a "proud" nation allow its empire to disappear? How could this "sceptred isle" allow itself to be overrun with "colonials"?

It is this innate prejudice that feeds the politics of race hatred, and explains why a significant proportion of the native white population bear such resentment to foreigners. The white working class have had their ignorance and prejudice stoked for decades by a tabloid media that uses hate as a weapon of misdirection. Xenophobia has been used by the tabloid media in Britain to keep the white working class in their place; ignorant and angry. As long as they were angry at someone else (such as "Europe" or "asylum seekers"), they weren't angry at the real cause of their problems: the ever-more-rapacious ruling class.

It takes a great deal of ignorance to believe that the British Empire was a paragon of virtue, but it is astonishing how many people in Britain today (and they are usually white) that still hold this belief as inviolate. The belief that the British Empire was ultimately benevolent in character still permeates through the thinking of the native white population of Britain today. Apart from the white working class holding on to this idea as an article of faith, it also Britain's (white) ruling class that also believe this without question.

This is also linked to the reason why so many people hold Churchill as the greatest Briton in history, both rich and poor.
Not just by today's standards, but even by the standards of his day, Winston Churchill can fairly be called a white supremacist. Race relations have of course moved on considerably since Churchill's day, but even people then considered him a racist.
Churchill's view of the British Empire was that Britain was populated by people who were innately superior, and this was how he explained why Britain ruled over a quarter of the world's population. In that sense, to borrow Hitler's infamous phrase, Britons could well be seen as the "master race".
Churchill was famous for his disregard for the Indian population (Hindus in particular), and he saw Britain's rule over the Indian subcontinent as a moral right; a "moral right" due to the British Empire's superior intellectual, military and organisational might, no doubt.

In this sense, Churchill's view of the British Empire's rule over its colonies was justified through its innate superiority, and had nothing at all to do with the exploitative manner of its administration. The viewpoint Churchill had of the empire (and its self-justification) was transmitted throughout the empire's ruling class, such as through the boarding school system. 
By being able to separate and indoctrinate boys (and girls) for years in the moral teachings of the "British philosophy", this instilled in them an innate prejudice in favour of British superiority and the innate inferiority of the colonial populations. In this way, at its kindest, it educated Britain's ruling class to see the colonial populations as "children" in need of guidance; while at its harshest, saw the empire's colonial populations as people bred only for natural servitude, like slaves. If the British Empire's non-white subjects had to be educated, it was only for the wider benefit of the empire.

This is why such deep-rooted prejudice takes generations to remove, and explains why much of the progress that has been made since the end of empire has been superficial: the ugly prejudice still prevalent within the white working class, and the elitist snobbery within the white ruling class, are evidence of that.


"Take Our Country Back"

The toxic legacy of this prejudice from the days of empire has now led to much of Britain's white population today feeling that they are still - in an unmentionable way - the "master race".

This quietly-held sense of superiority, of a population that has somehow been held back from greatness by the actions of foreign powers (the EU) and of a proud homeland "taken over" by foreigners, is the prejudice that runs through Brexit.
The mythology of British exceptionalism has many facets, but the narrative is well-known. As the empire that "won" the war, the fact that the empire was lost in the peace seems to have left an abiding sense of betrayal; many of Britain's white population have been unable to come to terms with being taught to see themselves as superior, but being unable to have anything to materially show for it.
Without an empire, and now seen as just another European country, how can these people demonstrate their "superiority"? The answer was offered in 2016.

And now we are at the point where racism has become unashamed and blatant among the more raucous segments of the population, against both those of BAME heritage and European stock. Fueled by the xenophobic language in the tabloid media, the government itself seems to have been taken in by the nativist atmosphere after the referendum: the "hostile environment" can now in theory affect almost anyone that isn't British, and to almost any British person who isn't white.

This is how Britain (and more exactly, England) has become a kind of social laboratory of white-power experimentation in the Western world. Racial prejudice, while still "officially" sanctioned, has become implicitly acceptable, thanks to Brexit and thanks to the "hostile environment".



















Thursday, February 7, 2019

Culture, creativity and inequality: how conservative ideology suppresses societal growth

Britain is a place of contradictory tendencies: both the historic home of the Industrial Revolution, and also the home of that most traditional of institutions, the monarchy and the aristocracy.

This contradiction is clear today from how the government, on the one hand, publicly encourages creativity in its many forms, but in practice its policies do everything to stifle it, by depriving channels of funding, and only encouraging channels that perpetuate (and exacerbate) inequality.

Under the Conservatives, the British government's natural bias is thus to see culture and creativity as something that should only be encouraged in "people like us" i.e. the well-off.
Part of this comes from a conservative definition of "culture" in the first place: that "culture" also means "tradition", such as the high arts. This natural bias follows from the belief that only those with the right education can truly appreciate, and therefore benefit from, "culture".

At an anecdotal level, this stratification of the arts in Britain has become apparent in fields such as contemporary music, the film industry and literature.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the music industry in Britain was filled with working-class bands (and from where the "indie" scene sprouted); go back further to the 1960s, and the egalitarian nature of the music industry - that anyone with a guitar who was good enough could "make it" - was clearly evident.
Today, apart from the dynamic and successful black music scene (successful partly because, by a happy coincidence, it is centred on London), there are few obvious routes for talented musicians of limited means to "make it". Again, this goes back to the wider conservative trend that has spread from politics into British culture. A career through creative pursuits is something only really available to those with the means: to most others, it is a pipe-dream. Whereas at one time an enlightened government might find the funds to help talented people with limited means, those days have long passed.
For those without the means, the fact that the most obvious route these days is through a TV talent show says it all - "culture", to the ordinary person, has become even more facile.


Bottom-up and Top-down conservatism

That facile perception of "culture" is perpetuated among the lower class. This is the flip-side to conservatism: bottom-up rather than top-down.
.
Working-class conservatism stems from the deep adherence to orthodox thinking.
Partly this may be down to lack of education meaning that they lack the imagination to think of doing things in any other way. As a result, people who think differently are seen with suspicion and thinking ideas "beyond their station"; there are a whole host of other belittling terms that have been used by the conservative working class to describe creative or talented peers. "Get a real job", "fancy Dan", etc. etc.
People from their background who think, act, dress, or talk differently are made fun of, or at worst, stigmatized. Thus "creative" people in these circumstances are encouraged to suppress their inner tendencies out of the need for social acceptance within their peers.

The traditional mindset is that male and female roles in their strata of society are fixed, and the implication is that a "real" man would not waste his time thinking of creative pursuits. Equally, a woman from the same background ought to be thinking of her family and not her selfish day-dreaming.
In this way, creative and talented people from the lower classes of society, without government support, can find it almost impossible to reach their natural potential. Discouraged by the conservatism found among their peers, and by a government that treats them with indifference, the result is a tragic waste of human creative resources. Talent and creativity go to waste by a society that sees little value in their worth. Meanwhile, the human impact on those people directly impacted by this might be immense, resulting in a whole plethora of mental health issues.

It is this combination of both top-down and bottom-up conservatism in a society that suppresses its natural growth, leading to stagnation. It is no coincidence that the most conservative societies are also the most stagnant: societies with no dynamic "culture", other than the narrow definition that suits the accepted orthodoxy. These are societies that are frozen in time: culturally-dead to the outside world.

Britain is one of the most unequal developed societies in the world; a situation that has exacerbated in the last forty years, after previously improving.
The long-term effects of de-industrialization in Britain on the working class have resulted in a class of society that feels emasculated and forgotten, its sense of self-worth lost. In that sense, when many of these areas voted to leave the EU, this was also a forlorn cry of frustration. These are people that have lost their sense of motivation.

As said before, there was a time when Britain was more egalitarian; this was also a time when society was arguably at its most dynamic and creative.
The most obvious reason for this is that egalitarian societies provide an evident motivation to improve and be imaginative; when there is a greater chance that being creative will result in social success, naturally you will try your best to do so. There is a good reason why, to use one example, for a while in the 1960s it seemed that every group of teenagers wanted to be (or tried their hand at being) a band.
The other reason is that egalitarian societies tend to be less conservative; the belief that inequality is somehow "natural" to society is a key tenet of conservative thought. Thus egalitarian societies tend to be more open-minded because society is closer together, both economically and culturally. In an egalitarian society there is less of a social division between (for example) the working-class factory worker and the well-off artist, musician or writer. In this way, there is more engagement between the different strata in society as opposed to social "self-segregation" in more unequal societies. More engagement with other social groups leads to hearing different perspectives and naturally helps to improve someone's creativity, and thus social creativity as a whole.

It is that "self-segregation" in more unequal societies (such as contemporary Britain) that is the cause of the top-down, bottom-up "double lock" on creativity.
The most extreme manifestation might be like this. Those at the top of society see "culture" as something that is wasted on the uneducated lower class, and thus perpetuate the problem through their indifference; they don't want to educate the lower classes in something they wouldn't understand, therefore the lower classes will continue to be uneducated in "culture". Besides, there is also the barely-suppressed historic fear of the lower classes becoming too "cultured", and thus too intelligent: intelligent enough to want to change the social hierarchy completely.
Meanwhile, the lower classes see "culture" as something only connected with "bourgeois" pretensions, and anyone within their strata that affects to be interested in it is a "class traitor". In this way, people from this background who aspire to creative tendencies and an interest in culture are "forgetting their roots" i.e. their traditions and upbringing.
In this way, those at the top and bottom of society segregate themselves from effective contact from each other.

These types already exist, in one form or another, in Britain today.