A recent survey discovered that people in Britain are these days far more likely to identify as a "leaver" or "remainer" than as a firm supporter of a political party. This is just one clear indication of the seismic effects that the EU referendum and Brexit have had on the wider political and social culture of Britain.
Looking back through the various ideological "turns" that have happened in Britain since the creation of the "party" system following the Civil War (more on that in a moment), there have been only a few significant shifts in ideological allegiance since then.
The two-party system
The two-party system of "Tories" and "Whigs" that emerged from the aftermath of the Civil War was the established convention until the Labour Party emerged as a force in the early 20th century. Between the restoration of 1661 and the repeal of the Corn Laws and universal male suffrage around two hundred years later, there were long periods of either Tory or Whig rule, often lasting for decades. The Whigs changed their name to the Liberals, but the interests and ideology they represented did not; the same can largely be said for how Tories became "Conservatives".
Things only became truly "interesting" with significant reform of the electoral system, with the Labour Party only appearing as a genuine electoral force after the end of the First World War. Put in this light, it could be argued it took a disastrous continental war for any significant ideological and social change to occur; the same could be said of the election of the Attlee government in 1945.
That "shift" to the Labour Party occurred relatively quickly during the inter-war period, and the collapse of the Liberals.
This "shift" after the First World War is significant because it marks the period when the political system properly seemed to reflect the modern nature of British society as an industrial power. The Labour Party was formed precisely because it saw the Tories and the Liberals as not being representative of the interests of working people, especially those involved in industries. In this way, Britain was an industrial power, but its traditional political masters were not ideologically sympathetic to industry.
Since the Civil War, the Tories and the Whigs (now Conservatives and Liberals) have represented much the same ideological ground with the same natural interests and inclinations. On the one hand, the Tories were the standard-bearers of the interests of the landowning ruling class, while the Whigs were supporters of the merchant class.
These allegiances were formed from the divisions created by the Civil War, with the Tories the supporters of monarchy and the central power of the executive, and the Whigs the supporters of a restrained monarchy that gave more power to parliament and looser regulation of the economy. To complicate matters further, some Tories were also sympathetic to the Catholic cause even up to the Jacobite rebellion, while Whigs were consistently and fervently Protestant.
Old prejudices
This puts into perspective why many Tories, even today, are dismissive of industrial strategy and the wider concerns of business. Those prejudices go back centuries.
Following the "postwar consensus" that began with the Attlee government, the paranoia that seemed to grip the Tories about industry and the power of the unions by the 1970s led to Margaret Thatcher's ideological warfare on Britain's industrial base.
Using Libertarian ideology as a justification for destroying the power of the unions and - consequently - Britain's industrial base, Thatcher used ideas of free markets borrowed from Liberal thought to implement what was in reality a deeply-Tory aim: to change Britain from being an industrial power (which it had been for nearly two hundred years) to a post-industrial power.
But the term "post-industrial" is itself misleading, as what it really means is creating a modern-day version of a "pre-industrial" society: a society that has modern technology, but no significant industry. The only valued parts of the "economy" are those that can generate growth for the elite without significantly increasing the economic power of the masses, while relying on technology (such as through a complicit media) to keep people ignorant of the truth. The "service economy" that was created by Thatcher is the natural result of this strategy, where the elite use their in-built advantage (e.g. as landowners) to horde ever greater quantities of assets. This is the root of modern inequality in Britain. It is a "class war" by the rich against the poor; a "war" founded on historic prejudices and fear.
In other words, it is about creating an economy that is only interested in "self-sustenance" rather than genuine growth; an economy that just provides the bare essentials to keep the masses from revolt, but equally (through the "service economy") creates the social circumstances to keep them in a state of chronic insecurity; not knowing what the next month will bring, reliance on "the devil you know" is how the ruling class keep the masses in check. It is a modern spin on the psychological relationship between master and servant. How do you get a servant to keep on supporting his master?
The fact that the Conservative government today, in the midst of Brexit, seems to be doing its best to undermine industry, simply is the latest chapter to this story. The Tories' distrust of the EU stems from historic prejudice; the same kind of prejudice that makes them paranoid about industry. Anything that takes power away from the political centre is seen as instinctively dangerous to a Tory. Anything that promotes the rights of workers, anything that might put at risk their own assets or their money-making ability is seen as inherently threatening.
The Tories only supported the EU at first because they thought they could use it as a way to gain influence in Europe and make money themselves. When they realized that the former was based on an inflated sense of their own abilities, and that the latter involved a necessary trade-off of their own powers, their enthusiasm for Europe turned to a feeling of "betrayal". Thus Britain's media had nearly thirty years of negative headlines and criticism of the EU before the referendum happened. At the same time, the government often saw attacking the EU as a "win-win" scenario back home, which provided a convenient scapegoat. That long-stoked sense of the EU as the "bad guy" led to large segments of the British population having a natural antipathy towards Europe.
An ancient divide
The historic division of Tories and Whigs after the Civil War now translates as the division between "leavers" and "remainers".
The referendum, as the survey mentioned at the start explained, seems to have created another historic "shift" in party allegiances. In effect, Brexit has destroyed the two-party system that has existed since 1945. What we are now seeing is a realignment of historic divides, a "culture war" that first appeared at the time of Charles I.
Theresa May's efforts to hold the Conservative Party together are fruitless. As the saying goes "the centre cannot hold". Something has to give somewhere.
Historic comparisons are never exact, and Conservative thinking of the likes of the ERG is fundamentally different from those Tories that supported the monarchy during the Civil War. In many ways, the actions of the hard-right Libertarians within the Tories today mirror the puritanical motivations of the "Roundheads" (later "Whigs"). This is what makes the ideological comparison confusing and complicated.
But in reality, in spite of the ERG's "Roundhead" tactics, their aims are purely reactionary, and in that way, are historically-consistent with Tory ideology. They represent people who are descendants of the landed gentry. Their agenda is to "finish the project" in Britain that Thatcher began, and they can only do that with Britain outside the EU. Their motivations are about "taking back control", but not giving to parliament, but to a centralized government. They are indifferent to the fate of British industry, as they see it more as a threat to their own narrow interests.
Meanwhile, "remainers" represent a social outlook more in common with historic Whigs. As it was the merchant class that were the natural supporters of parliament after the Civil War, it is "remainers" today who see parliament as the voice of moderation. Those that see parliament today as remote and out-of-touch are the same people who see "remainers" as cosmopolitan rootless liberals; similar accusations would have been thrown at Whigs by Tories back in the day.
It is an old divide between an open and closed view of the world; change versus tradition.
Those who voted for "change" by voting to leave the EU are only fooling themselves about their motivations: all the evidence is that it was a vote of desperation, a vote to make things "how they used to be" - in other words, for traditional values.
The only thing for certain now is that the divide that was exposed by the referendum will be there for a long time to come, in one form or another.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Friday, January 18, 2019
Brexit: a constitutional crisis, "Civil War" comparisons and Theresa May's narcissism
The purpose of any government and any parliament is to make decisions and implement policy.
It is clear now that Britain's executive and legislative are in a complete constitutional stalemate on Brexit, where the executive cannot agree with the legislature, and the legislature cannot agree with the executive.
The executive - the government - is headed by Theresa May, who has effectively taken unilateral control of all decisions on Brexit since coming to power.
Her party lost full control of parliament - the legislature - eighteen months ago, but Theresa May seems never to have noticed, with her continuing to act as though having almost unlimited powers. In spite of the self-evident necessity to come to some kind of cross-party agreement when running a minority government, her approach has been divisive and autocratic from the start. She sees things only from the perspective of survival, through exploiting divisions in her enemies combined with the fear of the alternative: the classic approach of an autocrat.
The number of blows and setbacks she has received has become almost difficult to keep up with, but with parliament voting down her agreed deal with the EU by an unprecedented margin - yet her government still staying in power - the sense of constitutional crisis has become irrefutable.
By all historical precedents and conventions, any Prime Minister with a sense of decency and self-awareness would have stood down after such an enormous defeat, made possible only through masses of backbenchers on her own side turning against her. But Theresa May is someone whose character seems as immovable as granite when it comes to facing reality.
It is self-evident that the only way to resolve the impasse between the government and parliament is through a fresh election.
What is so cravenly-hypocritical about May's resistance to new elections now (which she saw as only "heightening divisions") is that only eighteen months ago she called for a new election when she already had a majority. Her justification then was that parliament was somehow "blocking" her government's strategy on Brexit (itself a disingenuous accusation), and that she needed a larger majority to ensure she got legislation through parliament. This was already the strategy of someone who clearly had little real sympathy for democratic principles, and only saw "democracy" as useful when it was useful to her.
Now though, when the chaos is worse than ever because parliament cannot decide and the government cannot pass legislation as a result, May claims that elections only "heighten divisions". So she has gone from wanting elections eighteen months ago because parliament was divided, to now claiming that elections only create divisions. She wanted elections eighteen months ago to make her more powerful; now she wants to prevent them (even though they are self-evidently needed more than ever) in order to cling on to power.
She bears all the hallmarks of a power-obsessed narcissist, who will twist logic into contortions in order to justify her own selfish actions.
May's evident obsession to cling to power appears to stem from a fundamental aspect of her character. She is deeply-traditional by temperament and, as a "dyed in the wool" conservative, sees her position as Prime Minister as one of "duty".
That sense of "duty" she appears to interpret into an almost sacrosanct sense of mission: that she was "chosen" to lead the country through Brexit, and in her role as Prime Minister she is uniquely endowed with the responsibility to decide on the right path of the country.
The problem, when one thinks about this mindset for more than a few seconds, is that same sense of "duty" is what any despot in history also has used to justify their actions.
"Duty" quickly can become corrupted into doing whatever one can to achieve your aims: it might start with dissemination, then using fear, dirty tricks and before long someone can become paranoid and will only listen to advice from those they trust. This is the slippery slope, and Theresa May has shown more than enough evidence of displaying these characteristics.
A "personal rule"?
There is a case to be made that this is the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War of the mid 17th century.
Charles I got into problems with parliament because he began to act as a despot. At the time, monarchs had a great deal more power to do as they pleased. Charles I, typical of monarchs of the time, saw his right to rule as "God-given". It was his "duty" to rule as much as it was his God-given right, and if parliament were preventing him from doing so, then he saw it as his role to put them right. This was the basic reason for his attempt to arrest troublesome parliamentarians, which quickly escalated into outright war between the two factions.
Charles I was a deeply-proud man, and even after losing the war and under house arrest, he still refused to make serious compromises; instead, he stalled and dragged out time by exploiting the weaknesses and divisions within his opponents, flattering one faction in at attempt to win favour and isolate another, meanwhile blaming his opponents as the ones causing all the problems. While this was going on, he was still trying to organize supporters into a military counter-strike. Eventually, parliament's patience (and their gullibility) was exhausted.
Now that May's deal was voted down in parliament, May has claimed she is ready to listen. Given that this approach would have evidently made more sense after she lost her majority in parliament eighteen months ago, scepticism of her sincerity is not unwarranted.
She had already delayed the vote by a month since December, for the blatantly cynical motive to move the timing closer to the Brexit "cliff" at the end of March, and thus intimidate parliament into backing her deal. Her justifications to parliament before the vote amounted to same thing: intimidation, and threatening that the choice was her deal or the chaos of "no deal".
As parliament didn't buy this line, May's new tactic is for parliament to show the necessity to compromise, but also by highlighting the evident differences between the different factions. In this way, while she claims that her "red lines" (that were the reason for the unacceptable "deal" with the EU in the first place) are inviolate, it is others that must give ground.
She sees her "red lines" as part of her "duty" to implement the "will of the people", conflating what she wants into what she thinks the country wants. In this twisted rationale, if parliament is against her, then it is, by extension, against the people as well.
The cause of this constitutional crisis is clear: Theresa May.
Now that she has technically opened negotiations with parliament, her motives are as transparently-cynical as ever. The negotiations are not there to allow for genuine compromise; only to provide May with the narrative that she "tried" to work with a divided parliament, but because parliament refused her deal and couldn't agree on a compromise, a "no deal" Brexit became inevitable. Her primary aim is that it is not Theresa May who gets blamed for any "no deal" scenario, but someone else. She will happily deflect the blame onto the stubbornness of the opposition in parliament, or even better, the EU. Due to aspects of her personality, she seems to have little genuine ability to compromise, and just stall for as long as necessary, when the blame can be transferred from her to a convenient scapegoat. This is the same tactic used time and again by the autocrat.
We are now in a situation in Britain where the parliament is divided between May's supporters and her opponents, whose own allegiances are hazy and sometimes cross party lines. The parliamentary system is broken, and the country is ran by someone who is only interested in her own survival - for what purpose, it is unclear.
With the military reserves now on stand-by in the result of a "no deal" Brexit, with companies being gagged by Theresa May's government through NDAs, and with the very real threat of shortages and transport chaos, all the signs are that Britain has reached an institutional "tipping point". There seems no way back from the current crisis.
The question is: what on earth comes next?
It is clear now that Britain's executive and legislative are in a complete constitutional stalemate on Brexit, where the executive cannot agree with the legislature, and the legislature cannot agree with the executive.
The executive - the government - is headed by Theresa May, who has effectively taken unilateral control of all decisions on Brexit since coming to power.
Her party lost full control of parliament - the legislature - eighteen months ago, but Theresa May seems never to have noticed, with her continuing to act as though having almost unlimited powers. In spite of the self-evident necessity to come to some kind of cross-party agreement when running a minority government, her approach has been divisive and autocratic from the start. She sees things only from the perspective of survival, through exploiting divisions in her enemies combined with the fear of the alternative: the classic approach of an autocrat.
The number of blows and setbacks she has received has become almost difficult to keep up with, but with parliament voting down her agreed deal with the EU by an unprecedented margin - yet her government still staying in power - the sense of constitutional crisis has become irrefutable.
By all historical precedents and conventions, any Prime Minister with a sense of decency and self-awareness would have stood down after such an enormous defeat, made possible only through masses of backbenchers on her own side turning against her. But Theresa May is someone whose character seems as immovable as granite when it comes to facing reality.
It is self-evident that the only way to resolve the impasse between the government and parliament is through a fresh election.
What is so cravenly-hypocritical about May's resistance to new elections now (which she saw as only "heightening divisions") is that only eighteen months ago she called for a new election when she already had a majority. Her justification then was that parliament was somehow "blocking" her government's strategy on Brexit (itself a disingenuous accusation), and that she needed a larger majority to ensure she got legislation through parliament. This was already the strategy of someone who clearly had little real sympathy for democratic principles, and only saw "democracy" as useful when it was useful to her.
Now though, when the chaos is worse than ever because parliament cannot decide and the government cannot pass legislation as a result, May claims that elections only "heighten divisions". So she has gone from wanting elections eighteen months ago because parliament was divided, to now claiming that elections only create divisions. She wanted elections eighteen months ago to make her more powerful; now she wants to prevent them (even though they are self-evidently needed more than ever) in order to cling on to power.
She bears all the hallmarks of a power-obsessed narcissist, who will twist logic into contortions in order to justify her own selfish actions.
May's evident obsession to cling to power appears to stem from a fundamental aspect of her character. She is deeply-traditional by temperament and, as a "dyed in the wool" conservative, sees her position as Prime Minister as one of "duty".
That sense of "duty" she appears to interpret into an almost sacrosanct sense of mission: that she was "chosen" to lead the country through Brexit, and in her role as Prime Minister she is uniquely endowed with the responsibility to decide on the right path of the country.
The problem, when one thinks about this mindset for more than a few seconds, is that same sense of "duty" is what any despot in history also has used to justify their actions.
"Duty" quickly can become corrupted into doing whatever one can to achieve your aims: it might start with dissemination, then using fear, dirty tricks and before long someone can become paranoid and will only listen to advice from those they trust. This is the slippery slope, and Theresa May has shown more than enough evidence of displaying these characteristics.
A "personal rule"?
There is a case to be made that this is the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War of the mid 17th century.
Charles I got into problems with parliament because he began to act as a despot. At the time, monarchs had a great deal more power to do as they pleased. Charles I, typical of monarchs of the time, saw his right to rule as "God-given". It was his "duty" to rule as much as it was his God-given right, and if parliament were preventing him from doing so, then he saw it as his role to put them right. This was the basic reason for his attempt to arrest troublesome parliamentarians, which quickly escalated into outright war between the two factions.
Charles I was a deeply-proud man, and even after losing the war and under house arrest, he still refused to make serious compromises; instead, he stalled and dragged out time by exploiting the weaknesses and divisions within his opponents, flattering one faction in at attempt to win favour and isolate another, meanwhile blaming his opponents as the ones causing all the problems. While this was going on, he was still trying to organize supporters into a military counter-strike. Eventually, parliament's patience (and their gullibility) was exhausted.
Now that May's deal was voted down in parliament, May has claimed she is ready to listen. Given that this approach would have evidently made more sense after she lost her majority in parliament eighteen months ago, scepticism of her sincerity is not unwarranted.
She had already delayed the vote by a month since December, for the blatantly cynical motive to move the timing closer to the Brexit "cliff" at the end of March, and thus intimidate parliament into backing her deal. Her justifications to parliament before the vote amounted to same thing: intimidation, and threatening that the choice was her deal or the chaos of "no deal".
As parliament didn't buy this line, May's new tactic is for parliament to show the necessity to compromise, but also by highlighting the evident differences between the different factions. In this way, while she claims that her "red lines" (that were the reason for the unacceptable "deal" with the EU in the first place) are inviolate, it is others that must give ground.
She sees her "red lines" as part of her "duty" to implement the "will of the people", conflating what she wants into what she thinks the country wants. In this twisted rationale, if parliament is against her, then it is, by extension, against the people as well.
The cause of this constitutional crisis is clear: Theresa May.
Now that she has technically opened negotiations with parliament, her motives are as transparently-cynical as ever. The negotiations are not there to allow for genuine compromise; only to provide May with the narrative that she "tried" to work with a divided parliament, but because parliament refused her deal and couldn't agree on a compromise, a "no deal" Brexit became inevitable. Her primary aim is that it is not Theresa May who gets blamed for any "no deal" scenario, but someone else. She will happily deflect the blame onto the stubbornness of the opposition in parliament, or even better, the EU. Due to aspects of her personality, she seems to have little genuine ability to compromise, and just stall for as long as necessary, when the blame can be transferred from her to a convenient scapegoat. This is the same tactic used time and again by the autocrat.
We are now in a situation in Britain where the parliament is divided between May's supporters and her opponents, whose own allegiances are hazy and sometimes cross party lines. The parliamentary system is broken, and the country is ran by someone who is only interested in her own survival - for what purpose, it is unclear.
With the military reserves now on stand-by in the result of a "no deal" Brexit, with companies being gagged by Theresa May's government through NDAs, and with the very real threat of shortages and transport chaos, all the signs are that Britain has reached an institutional "tipping point". There seems no way back from the current crisis.
The question is: what on earth comes next?
Sunday, January 13, 2019
"The Hunger Games", and how Britain is ran like an empire
The trilogy "The Hunger Games" tells the story, seen though teenage perspective, of how an exploitative empire operates.
The fictional world of "The Hunger Games" is based in the land of Panem: an essentially "imperial" structure where the various districts all function for the purpose of providing for the "capitol", whose own inhabitants largely live dissolute lives that are disconnected from the other districts, and whose understanding of life in the districts is similarly disconnected. It is a deeply-hierarchical and centralized structure, where even the communications between, and thus understanding of, one district to the next is limited. In this way, the capitol controls Panem through a combination of media control, fear and manipulation.
The story at its heart is a classic description of how tyrannical empires work, which is what makes it a universal tale. Its historical inspiration stems from Rome, but there are deliberately-unsettling parallels with some aspects of modern life in America, which is what makes the story also a warning.
The disconnect between the "Beltway" and the rest of America is a common complaint, but the parallels between the exploitative description of life in "Panem" and life in a real-world "empire" come closer to the mark if we look at a different example across the water from America: life in the UK.
Exploiting the "districts" to indulge the capital
While there are certainly valid complaints about how too much power is held inside the "Beltway", the USA is still one of the most highly decentralized administrations in the developed world, where the states have considerable legal powers, separate from the centre. By contrast, Britain (and England in particular), remains one of the most highly-centralized administrations in the developed world.
At a fundamental level, Whitehall and Westminster are loathe to cede power, jealously guarding it within their claws. Simply, they do not trust local government.
Trained to believe in their own infallibility and the innate incompetence (and malevolence) of those outside of the centre, they have only given out a few crumbs of autonomy to the devolved administrations when absolutely necessary, to maintain the fiction of accountability. The centre's instinct is to horde power relentlessly, jealously guarding information (as it doesn't trust the motives of "outsiders"), with decision-making done in secret. There is little real sense of government being in service of "the people", beyond how government needs the people to be compliant and/or ignorant.
Apart from the deeply-hierarchical administrative structure, the wider structure of the economy is aligned primarily with the interests of the capital in mind. Money raised by the government in taxes is disproportionately spent on the inhabitants of the capital and the neighbouring regions (i.e. London and the South-east), with little going on public works in other parts of the country by contrast. This is then "justified" by to the disproportionate amount of wealth the capital generates, in spite of the fact that this vicious circle of wealth-hoarding only makes the inequalities between the capital and the other regions all the starker. This is what then creates the impression of a capital inhabited by people socially and economically disconnected from the rest of the country, whose interests are simply in the exploitation of everyone else.
As in "Panem", the UK's resources are also designed with the needs of the capital in mind, with an economic model that makes the capital richer and richer while slowly starving the regions of both manpower and resources. This economic model also attracts people to the capital because life in the regions for some has become intolerable, adding yet more to the dissonance between the "rulers" and the "ruled".
In this way, the UK has become one of the most unequal societies in Europe.
The question is:why?
Public schools and "indoctrination" - educating a different class
Britain is still a society where its ruling class (i.e. its top percentile) send its children away from their parents for the large part of their formative years for the purpose of "education". In this very specific way, it marks Britain's (and particularly, England's) ruling class as being self-segregating from the rest of society, using boarding schools as a way to "educate" their offspring in an closed environment through their formative years; away from the opposite sex, away from their family, and away from the rest of society.
It is important to emphasize how much the boarding school system is designed to entrench the cultural separation of a "ruling class" from the wider population. While those who have been part of the system will extol its virtues ("never did me any harm"), it is important to emphasize how this attitude is simply the product of long-term indoctrination - in other words, a form of psychological conditioning and "normalizing".
The "establishment" is a product of the boarding school, and cannot be understood without recognizing this essential ingredient. Until relatively recently, it was debatable whether boarding schools actually gave any meaningful education to its boarders at all. Boarding school was much more about "moral" education than anything else; in other words, about turning children into adults. This was largely done through the "school of hard knocks" approach, and it seems that parents were more likely than not complicit in understanding this reality. They more often than not put it to the back of their minds and saw the boarding school experience as just "one of those things". Then again, there were also some wealthy parents who were simply glad to have their children out of the way for a few years.
One generation's trauma and indoctrination got passed on to the next as a matter of simple tradition, with what we would now call psychological "conditioning" the name of the game. In this way, any memories of psychological and physical abuse are repressed as "character-building"; indeed, building characters that will ideally have hearts of stone.
The wider indoctrination at boarding school was to instill an innate sense of superiority: that the boarding children were there because they were superior, the elite. This was necessary in order to maintain the belief that the "establishment" was in a position of power because it was also necessary; without it, it was implied, Britain would face collapse. This attitude is still ingrained in those in positions of power today.
That superiority is passed on in different ways: such as seeing British education as the best; seeing British traditions as the best ("fair play" etc. etc.); and instilling a general self-confidence that is evident whenever speaking to someone who is a product of the system - the ruling class often excel at sounding as they know exactly what they're talking about even when they haven't got the faintest clue in reality. That breezy self-confidence is then reinforced by those lower in the social order having the in-built assumption that their social superiors must be right in what they're saying to have such self-confidence.
On such ingrained attitudes of deference to the ruling class, an empire is built. The mystique of deference is essential to maintain the illusion.
To prevent the ruling class from being in danger, thus the illusion is fed to the rest of society that their social superiors are more intelligent, more competent and more morally-upright people, while the reality is often the exact opposite. The First World War was the first real evidence of this, and the establishment had to adapt to survive.
On the flip side of this implicit superiority, is fed an innate distrust and arrogance towards those lower down in the social order. If the children at boarding schools are there because they are special, it follows that those who are less fortunate (and less educated) are there through their own failings. This is the essential morality of inequality. Those at the top are there by their own individual merit; those at the bottom are there through their individual failings.
Those less fortunate are undeserving of pity because the moral code instilled in them at boarding school is about "stiff upper lip" and removing sentimentality. This explains such behaviour as burning a fifty-pound note in front of a beggar. Such twisted morals were thought necessary to create a cohort that would take over the reins of power, seamlessly passed on from one generation to the next without any thought to changing the system.
As we can see, the boarding school system is the primary method of indoctrinating a ruling class to perpetuate the established system of inequality.
Destroying hope - neutering the threat through Thatcherism
Apart from a highly-centralized, exploitative system and an indoctrinated ruling class, there are other methods used to ensure that the "lower orders" know their place.
The onset of industrialization created a skilled working class, necessary for the operation of complex machinery. The danger that this led to was that an educated working class might also become more demanding. This became increasingly apparent throughout the 20th century, with strikes becoming more and more frequent as workers demanded a more equitable share in the cake.
The mythology of the "winter of discontent" created a bugbear that the "establishment" could use to reshape society into a form more in fitting to their wishes.
The "establishment" envisaged a society where the capital grew rich not from the output of factories, but from the manipulation of money. Done right, this would benefit the "establishment" enormously; meanwhile, the country's workforce could be restructured to benefit the capital better.
Workers' rights were sharply curtailed. The industries that provided the skilled and reliable work for those that lived in some regions were destroyed. As a result, many towns across those regions lost their primary source of employment, with the only other work on offer being unreliable, low-skilled and low-paid. This has remained the situation ever since.
But those populations did not revolt against the centre. The thing that empires fear most is "hope", and the destruction of industries in those regions effectively killed their hope and self-respect, leaving in its place only a sense of defeat and self-loathing. Those "defeated" populations turned in on themselves, falling back on the dark solaces of alcohol and drugs, turning to crime and violence against each other.
This was how the "establishment" created an underclass and another scapegoat.
Divide and rule - demonizing the poor
After removing the self-respect that skilled employment offered those formerly-industrialized regions, the resulting underclass was the ideal scapegoat in the new "individualistic" morality that the "establishment" were keen to engender.
After being the threat to the "establishment" when they had self-respect, as a defeated underclass, their self-loathing and violence was seen as the ultimate moral evil. After removing their industries, they were further divided by the Thatcher government selling off vast tracts of social housing to those who could afford it. This left "social housing" as the preserve of the dregs of society, creating the implicit connection of social housing with moral failure.
Manipulation from the centre had thus created a sense that the de-industrialized regions, as places of the "feckless poor" were places where nothing good was to be expected; a self-perpetuating myth was created by the centre that the regions were thus incompetent and that only the centre, the capital, was where ideas could come from, where growth came from.
Thus we also had, over the last forty years, a "brain drain" as well as an economic hollowing-out of the regions. Those born in the regions were encouraged to leave and pursue life in the capital as the place where everything happened; thus the formerly troublesome regions became the exploited "slaves" to the capital, in one form or another. Those born into that background had become indoctrinated into associating it with failure, and the capital with success. Exactly as "the establishment" intended.
Creating a false idol - a fake "opposition"
But even people with no hope can only go so long before they look for something else.
As we have seen, the manipulation of the working class began in earnest during the Thatcher era with the reorienting of morality against the idea of social housing and collective workers' rights, in favour of a more individualistic outlook.
This manipulation towards an individualistic morality through the media in the 1980s also coincided with the rising Euroscepticism in the press. The anti-European mood was explained through the same individualist lens; against European regulations that were "stifling" British business.
While the capital grew rich from restructuring the economy in its favour, those regions that remained without any stable industries after the capital's "reforms" simply fell further behind. By the time the financial crisis hit ten years ago, those deprived regions were looking for a scapegoat of their own for their troubles.
As the media had manipulated them into believing that it was somehow the EU's fault that their industries had collapsed thirty years ago and that European migrants were taking their jobs, it suited "the establishment" to use the EU scapegoat for the further inequalities that the centre was inflicting on the rest of the country. Instead of blaming "austerity", it was better that they blame the EU.
In this way, the "hope" that the long-defeated underclass had after decades of economic suffering, was that leaving the EU would somehow make their lives better. The fact that the people spreading this narrative were figures of selfsame exploitative "establishment" themselves was something that the media helpfully glossed over.
The hideous irony over "Brexit" is that during the referendum "the establishment" was in reality acting as both government and opposition. The winning side, while painting themselves as "insurgents", were in reality "establishment" extremists; far worse than even the relative "moderates" who were in government at the time. The "establishment" extremists were exploiting the sense of "hope" that had been kindled from a manipulative media; that manufactured "hope" they would then be able to crush when the time was right.
In the empire of the establishment's creation, they would even have a monopoly on "hope" itself.
The "Brexit" vision that won over many in the deprived regions is one that would create yet more inequality, cement the domination of the capital over the country yet further, with an agenda that seeks to enrich the voracious hierarchy on the backs of others' poverty.
The cruelest form of "hope" is the one that delivers the precise opposite.
The fictional world of "The Hunger Games" is based in the land of Panem: an essentially "imperial" structure where the various districts all function for the purpose of providing for the "capitol", whose own inhabitants largely live dissolute lives that are disconnected from the other districts, and whose understanding of life in the districts is similarly disconnected. It is a deeply-hierarchical and centralized structure, where even the communications between, and thus understanding of, one district to the next is limited. In this way, the capitol controls Panem through a combination of media control, fear and manipulation.
The story at its heart is a classic description of how tyrannical empires work, which is what makes it a universal tale. Its historical inspiration stems from Rome, but there are deliberately-unsettling parallels with some aspects of modern life in America, which is what makes the story also a warning.
The disconnect between the "Beltway" and the rest of America is a common complaint, but the parallels between the exploitative description of life in "Panem" and life in a real-world "empire" come closer to the mark if we look at a different example across the water from America: life in the UK.
Exploiting the "districts" to indulge the capital
While there are certainly valid complaints about how too much power is held inside the "Beltway", the USA is still one of the most highly decentralized administrations in the developed world, where the states have considerable legal powers, separate from the centre. By contrast, Britain (and England in particular), remains one of the most highly-centralized administrations in the developed world.
At a fundamental level, Whitehall and Westminster are loathe to cede power, jealously guarding it within their claws. Simply, they do not trust local government.
Trained to believe in their own infallibility and the innate incompetence (and malevolence) of those outside of the centre, they have only given out a few crumbs of autonomy to the devolved administrations when absolutely necessary, to maintain the fiction of accountability. The centre's instinct is to horde power relentlessly, jealously guarding information (as it doesn't trust the motives of "outsiders"), with decision-making done in secret. There is little real sense of government being in service of "the people", beyond how government needs the people to be compliant and/or ignorant.
Apart from the deeply-hierarchical administrative structure, the wider structure of the economy is aligned primarily with the interests of the capital in mind. Money raised by the government in taxes is disproportionately spent on the inhabitants of the capital and the neighbouring regions (i.e. London and the South-east), with little going on public works in other parts of the country by contrast. This is then "justified" by to the disproportionate amount of wealth the capital generates, in spite of the fact that this vicious circle of wealth-hoarding only makes the inequalities between the capital and the other regions all the starker. This is what then creates the impression of a capital inhabited by people socially and economically disconnected from the rest of the country, whose interests are simply in the exploitation of everyone else.
As in "Panem", the UK's resources are also designed with the needs of the capital in mind, with an economic model that makes the capital richer and richer while slowly starving the regions of both manpower and resources. This economic model also attracts people to the capital because life in the regions for some has become intolerable, adding yet more to the dissonance between the "rulers" and the "ruled".
In this way, the UK has become one of the most unequal societies in Europe.
The question is:why?
Public schools and "indoctrination" - educating a different class
Britain is still a society where its ruling class (i.e. its top percentile) send its children away from their parents for the large part of their formative years for the purpose of "education". In this very specific way, it marks Britain's (and particularly, England's) ruling class as being self-segregating from the rest of society, using boarding schools as a way to "educate" their offspring in an closed environment through their formative years; away from the opposite sex, away from their family, and away from the rest of society.
It is important to emphasize how much the boarding school system is designed to entrench the cultural separation of a "ruling class" from the wider population. While those who have been part of the system will extol its virtues ("never did me any harm"), it is important to emphasize how this attitude is simply the product of long-term indoctrination - in other words, a form of psychological conditioning and "normalizing".
The "establishment" is a product of the boarding school, and cannot be understood without recognizing this essential ingredient. Until relatively recently, it was debatable whether boarding schools actually gave any meaningful education to its boarders at all. Boarding school was much more about "moral" education than anything else; in other words, about turning children into adults. This was largely done through the "school of hard knocks" approach, and it seems that parents were more likely than not complicit in understanding this reality. They more often than not put it to the back of their minds and saw the boarding school experience as just "one of those things". Then again, there were also some wealthy parents who were simply glad to have their children out of the way for a few years.
One generation's trauma and indoctrination got passed on to the next as a matter of simple tradition, with what we would now call psychological "conditioning" the name of the game. In this way, any memories of psychological and physical abuse are repressed as "character-building"; indeed, building characters that will ideally have hearts of stone.
The wider indoctrination at boarding school was to instill an innate sense of superiority: that the boarding children were there because they were superior, the elite. This was necessary in order to maintain the belief that the "establishment" was in a position of power because it was also necessary; without it, it was implied, Britain would face collapse. This attitude is still ingrained in those in positions of power today.
That superiority is passed on in different ways: such as seeing British education as the best; seeing British traditions as the best ("fair play" etc. etc.); and instilling a general self-confidence that is evident whenever speaking to someone who is a product of the system - the ruling class often excel at sounding as they know exactly what they're talking about even when they haven't got the faintest clue in reality. That breezy self-confidence is then reinforced by those lower in the social order having the in-built assumption that their social superiors must be right in what they're saying to have such self-confidence.
On such ingrained attitudes of deference to the ruling class, an empire is built. The mystique of deference is essential to maintain the illusion.
To prevent the ruling class from being in danger, thus the illusion is fed to the rest of society that their social superiors are more intelligent, more competent and more morally-upright people, while the reality is often the exact opposite. The First World War was the first real evidence of this, and the establishment had to adapt to survive.
On the flip side of this implicit superiority, is fed an innate distrust and arrogance towards those lower down in the social order. If the children at boarding schools are there because they are special, it follows that those who are less fortunate (and less educated) are there through their own failings. This is the essential morality of inequality. Those at the top are there by their own individual merit; those at the bottom are there through their individual failings.
Those less fortunate are undeserving of pity because the moral code instilled in them at boarding school is about "stiff upper lip" and removing sentimentality. This explains such behaviour as burning a fifty-pound note in front of a beggar. Such twisted morals were thought necessary to create a cohort that would take over the reins of power, seamlessly passed on from one generation to the next without any thought to changing the system.
As we can see, the boarding school system is the primary method of indoctrinating a ruling class to perpetuate the established system of inequality.
Destroying hope - neutering the threat through Thatcherism
Apart from a highly-centralized, exploitative system and an indoctrinated ruling class, there are other methods used to ensure that the "lower orders" know their place.
The onset of industrialization created a skilled working class, necessary for the operation of complex machinery. The danger that this led to was that an educated working class might also become more demanding. This became increasingly apparent throughout the 20th century, with strikes becoming more and more frequent as workers demanded a more equitable share in the cake.
The mythology of the "winter of discontent" created a bugbear that the "establishment" could use to reshape society into a form more in fitting to their wishes.
The "establishment" envisaged a society where the capital grew rich not from the output of factories, but from the manipulation of money. Done right, this would benefit the "establishment" enormously; meanwhile, the country's workforce could be restructured to benefit the capital better.
Workers' rights were sharply curtailed. The industries that provided the skilled and reliable work for those that lived in some regions were destroyed. As a result, many towns across those regions lost their primary source of employment, with the only other work on offer being unreliable, low-skilled and low-paid. This has remained the situation ever since.
But those populations did not revolt against the centre. The thing that empires fear most is "hope", and the destruction of industries in those regions effectively killed their hope and self-respect, leaving in its place only a sense of defeat and self-loathing. Those "defeated" populations turned in on themselves, falling back on the dark solaces of alcohol and drugs, turning to crime and violence against each other.
This was how the "establishment" created an underclass and another scapegoat.
Divide and rule - demonizing the poor
After removing the self-respect that skilled employment offered those formerly-industrialized regions, the resulting underclass was the ideal scapegoat in the new "individualistic" morality that the "establishment" were keen to engender.
After being the threat to the "establishment" when they had self-respect, as a defeated underclass, their self-loathing and violence was seen as the ultimate moral evil. After removing their industries, they were further divided by the Thatcher government selling off vast tracts of social housing to those who could afford it. This left "social housing" as the preserve of the dregs of society, creating the implicit connection of social housing with moral failure.
Manipulation from the centre had thus created a sense that the de-industrialized regions, as places of the "feckless poor" were places where nothing good was to be expected; a self-perpetuating myth was created by the centre that the regions were thus incompetent and that only the centre, the capital, was where ideas could come from, where growth came from.
Thus we also had, over the last forty years, a "brain drain" as well as an economic hollowing-out of the regions. Those born in the regions were encouraged to leave and pursue life in the capital as the place where everything happened; thus the formerly troublesome regions became the exploited "slaves" to the capital, in one form or another. Those born into that background had become indoctrinated into associating it with failure, and the capital with success. Exactly as "the establishment" intended.
Creating a false idol - a fake "opposition"
But even people with no hope can only go so long before they look for something else.
As we have seen, the manipulation of the working class began in earnest during the Thatcher era with the reorienting of morality against the idea of social housing and collective workers' rights, in favour of a more individualistic outlook.
This manipulation towards an individualistic morality through the media in the 1980s also coincided with the rising Euroscepticism in the press. The anti-European mood was explained through the same individualist lens; against European regulations that were "stifling" British business.
While the capital grew rich from restructuring the economy in its favour, those regions that remained without any stable industries after the capital's "reforms" simply fell further behind. By the time the financial crisis hit ten years ago, those deprived regions were looking for a scapegoat of their own for their troubles.
As the media had manipulated them into believing that it was somehow the EU's fault that their industries had collapsed thirty years ago and that European migrants were taking their jobs, it suited "the establishment" to use the EU scapegoat for the further inequalities that the centre was inflicting on the rest of the country. Instead of blaming "austerity", it was better that they blame the EU.
In this way, the "hope" that the long-defeated underclass had after decades of economic suffering, was that leaving the EU would somehow make their lives better. The fact that the people spreading this narrative were figures of selfsame exploitative "establishment" themselves was something that the media helpfully glossed over.
The hideous irony over "Brexit" is that during the referendum "the establishment" was in reality acting as both government and opposition. The winning side, while painting themselves as "insurgents", were in reality "establishment" extremists; far worse than even the relative "moderates" who were in government at the time. The "establishment" extremists were exploiting the sense of "hope" that had been kindled from a manipulative media; that manufactured "hope" they would then be able to crush when the time was right.
In the empire of the establishment's creation, they would even have a monopoly on "hope" itself.
The "Brexit" vision that won over many in the deprived regions is one that would create yet more inequality, cement the domination of the capital over the country yet further, with an agenda that seeks to enrich the voracious hierarchy on the backs of others' poverty.
The cruelest form of "hope" is the one that delivers the precise opposite.
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Brexit Britain: a moral and political crisis. How Brexit is destroying Britain from within
The sequence of events following the EU referendum has revealed the callous amorality that lurks at the dark heart of British politics.
Brexit has shown itself to be a ravenous beast of an idea.
Part of the destructive power of Brexit is its ability to be both an idea that is a chameleon (that it means different things to different people), and also has a seemingly-unique ability to bring out the innate divisions in British society, from top to bottom. It is a poison and a cancer on the body politic and society overall, its only ability to corrupt and destroy.
In this sense, Brexit is a political creature of chaos, as seductive and divisive as any ideology from the fork-tongued mouth of "the serpent".
Biblical hyperbole aside, the singular crisis that Britain finds itself in is a result of a series of decisions. It could be argued that some of these decisions were ones that could have been predicted long ago, if a solid analysis had been done of the nature of British politics. In other words, the singular crisis that the body politic finds itself in was entirely predictable before the referendum, once the terms of the referendum itself were decided.
One of the decisions that made a difference was the nature of the referendum question that was originally posed. The battle over the wording of the question itself was explained in great detail in one chapter of Tim Shipman's book "All Out War".
In the end, having the question about the issue with one option or another ("remain" or "leave") effectively gave the "leave" side a sort of ideological"free pass". While Cameron thought the referendum would be simple to win from an establishment point of view, the very chameleon-like nature of the "leave" option was the problem that the "remain" side could never tackle.
With "leave" being an essentially emotive vote, it meant almost whatever the "leave" voter wanted it to mean. From a philosophical and even semantic point of view, the referendum question was meaningless in any practical sense.
The referendum question really was a choice of "stay as we are" or "do something else". But what "else" were the 17 million people voting for? In this sense, "leave" could only ever be a negative vote i.e. "not remain", because there were a plethora of reasons and paths that voters may have all voted "leave" for. For the referendum vote to "leave" to make any rational sense (and for the government to know what on earth its legitimate course of action should be), a follow-up vote to choose from the most likely "leave" options would have been the only rational and democratic path to take. It was not taken (because David Cameron never thought he would "lose"), and the result of that is the chaos Britain finds itself in.
It thus gave fertile ground for opportunistic ideologues to take advantage of the chaos.
With there being three different major campaigns for "leave", and all having their own distinct agendas, how was it even philosophically possible to explain that 17 million people voted for the exact same idea when they voted to "do something else"? How can anyone know what "else" they all wanted? It is impossible.
How many of those 17 million voted for a WTO option, or an EFTA option, or any one of dozens of possible alternatives? No-one knows, and no-one can know. Because not one of those options were ever clearly shown as the "people's will", the end result was always going to be a semantic nonsense without a further democratic clarification.
This explains how, once "leave" won and the Article 50 process was triggered, the chaotic situation that parliament finds itself it was almost inevitable. With no one option having a majority in parliament, the resulting stalemate (arguing while Britain slides ever closer to the abyss) only means that Britain is doomed to leave without a deal.
This is how we got into a situation where Brexit became the ultimate death of British democracy in Westminster, and the beginning of a reign of Whitehall autocracy in Theresa May.
Theresa May's strategy has been to act as a virtual dictator on the terms of Brexit, somehow seeing herself as the extraordinary arbiter of the (still unclear) "people's will".
Brexit itself seems to have poisonous effects on anyone that wields its unusual power, giving Theresa May a hard-faced sense of mission, dismiss any advice that contradicts her own perception, while also confusing her enemies and sowing discord at the same time.
Meanwhile, Brexit seems to have taken a very obvious physical and mental toll on the Prime Minister, making her appear even more gaunt and preoccupied; a troubled soul that is immovable and yet feeble, her empathy seemingly leeched away by the poison of Brexit; sustaining her political survival but at the cost of her humanity and judgement.
Apart from May herself, Brexit's power seems only to create and exacerbate division. Her party are split down the middle, seemingly more united in their dislike of her "deal" than in their own vision of the alternative. It is a party that seems to be waiting for Brexit to finally tear it asunder when the time comes.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn seems to be using Brexit for its own self-centred reasons, some hoping secretly that a "no deal" Brexit might lead to a kind of new "socialist revolution".
The DUP see Brexit as an opportunity to have control of the government by their own form of political extortion.
As the chaos in parliament continues, the country hurtles headlong towards the cliff because no-one in charge can decide in which other direction to go. The house is burning down, but those in charge can't decide which exit to use.
If this isn't an absolute indictment of the rotten state of Britain's body politic, then what else is?
Brexit has shown itself to be a ravenous beast of an idea.
Part of the destructive power of Brexit is its ability to be both an idea that is a chameleon (that it means different things to different people), and also has a seemingly-unique ability to bring out the innate divisions in British society, from top to bottom. It is a poison and a cancer on the body politic and society overall, its only ability to corrupt and destroy.
In this sense, Brexit is a political creature of chaos, as seductive and divisive as any ideology from the fork-tongued mouth of "the serpent".
Biblical hyperbole aside, the singular crisis that Britain finds itself in is a result of a series of decisions. It could be argued that some of these decisions were ones that could have been predicted long ago, if a solid analysis had been done of the nature of British politics. In other words, the singular crisis that the body politic finds itself in was entirely predictable before the referendum, once the terms of the referendum itself were decided.
One of the decisions that made a difference was the nature of the referendum question that was originally posed. The battle over the wording of the question itself was explained in great detail in one chapter of Tim Shipman's book "All Out War".
In the end, having the question about the issue with one option or another ("remain" or "leave") effectively gave the "leave" side a sort of ideological"free pass". While Cameron thought the referendum would be simple to win from an establishment point of view, the very chameleon-like nature of the "leave" option was the problem that the "remain" side could never tackle.
With "leave" being an essentially emotive vote, it meant almost whatever the "leave" voter wanted it to mean. From a philosophical and even semantic point of view, the referendum question was meaningless in any practical sense.
The referendum question really was a choice of "stay as we are" or "do something else". But what "else" were the 17 million people voting for? In this sense, "leave" could only ever be a negative vote i.e. "not remain", because there were a plethora of reasons and paths that voters may have all voted "leave" for. For the referendum vote to "leave" to make any rational sense (and for the government to know what on earth its legitimate course of action should be), a follow-up vote to choose from the most likely "leave" options would have been the only rational and democratic path to take. It was not taken (because David Cameron never thought he would "lose"), and the result of that is the chaos Britain finds itself in.
It thus gave fertile ground for opportunistic ideologues to take advantage of the chaos.
With there being three different major campaigns for "leave", and all having their own distinct agendas, how was it even philosophically possible to explain that 17 million people voted for the exact same idea when they voted to "do something else"? How can anyone know what "else" they all wanted? It is impossible.
How many of those 17 million voted for a WTO option, or an EFTA option, or any one of dozens of possible alternatives? No-one knows, and no-one can know. Because not one of those options were ever clearly shown as the "people's will", the end result was always going to be a semantic nonsense without a further democratic clarification.
This explains how, once "leave" won and the Article 50 process was triggered, the chaotic situation that parliament finds itself it was almost inevitable. With no one option having a majority in parliament, the resulting stalemate (arguing while Britain slides ever closer to the abyss) only means that Britain is doomed to leave without a deal.
This is how we got into a situation where Brexit became the ultimate death of British democracy in Westminster, and the beginning of a reign of Whitehall autocracy in Theresa May.
Theresa May's strategy has been to act as a virtual dictator on the terms of Brexit, somehow seeing herself as the extraordinary arbiter of the (still unclear) "people's will".
Brexit itself seems to have poisonous effects on anyone that wields its unusual power, giving Theresa May a hard-faced sense of mission, dismiss any advice that contradicts her own perception, while also confusing her enemies and sowing discord at the same time.
Meanwhile, Brexit seems to have taken a very obvious physical and mental toll on the Prime Minister, making her appear even more gaunt and preoccupied; a troubled soul that is immovable and yet feeble, her empathy seemingly leeched away by the poison of Brexit; sustaining her political survival but at the cost of her humanity and judgement.
Apart from May herself, Brexit's power seems only to create and exacerbate division. Her party are split down the middle, seemingly more united in their dislike of her "deal" than in their own vision of the alternative. It is a party that seems to be waiting for Brexit to finally tear it asunder when the time comes.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn seems to be using Brexit for its own self-centred reasons, some hoping secretly that a "no deal" Brexit might lead to a kind of new "socialist revolution".
The DUP see Brexit as an opportunity to have control of the government by their own form of political extortion.
As the chaos in parliament continues, the country hurtles headlong towards the cliff because no-one in charge can decide in which other direction to go. The house is burning down, but those in charge can't decide which exit to use.
If this isn't an absolute indictment of the rotten state of Britain's body politic, then what else is?
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Theresa May: the survival instinct and the "talisman" of Brexit
If Theresa May has one overlying quality, it is an indomitable survival instinct.
While her personality flaws are legion (and have been commented on by this author), she seems to have a strange knack for outwitting her enemies. What is so odd about this is that she seems otherwise so incompetent, with an unnerving ability to antagonize her existing enemies and create yet new ones. And yet, when it comes to the crucial moment, she seems to possess an almost supernatural ability to survive politically.
She can be wounded, but as yet possesses an inability to accept her own demise. When necessary, she manages to find a way to expose the weaknesses of her opponents and at the same time muster enough loyalists around her to see them off.
It is that, or that she is just plain "lucky" in her choice of enemies.
In a sense David Cameron was "lucky" to have got as far as he did before he needed to resign. In his time as Prime Minister, he rolled the dice one too many times, thinking that his run of good fortune was almost endless; his over-confidence was eventually exposed.
With Theresa May, however, we are dealing with a different form of political animal; a political creature that, with an almost ghoulish quality to its character, seems almost indestructible to normal, mortal means.
To use a more symbolic analogy, she has sent her troops needlessly into a near-defeat in battle, but was not overthrown by them; has removed or forced out countless of her courtiers; has ruled over her land as an impenetrable, immovable and incompetent autocrat; and now has survived an attempt at her overthrow from within.
All this she has achieved by making repeated, insincere claims to heed her followers' advice at the critical moment, which mollify her critics, but then are seemingly "forgotten" by her a short time later.
It's hard to judge if she is knowingly, repeatedly deceitful or just completely lacking in self-awareness of her actions. But the fact that she repeats the same behaviour again and again suggests it can only be the former, which makes her followers either appallingly gullible or just held in hock to her rule from fear alone. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is "fear" (of the alternative) that is the key to May's unusual power (more on this is a moment).
Is is possible for a person so inept and yet wield such powers of fortitude and survival? Perhaps "Brexit" can explain a lot of it.
The "talisman" of Brexit
Many have spoke about how Brexit has utterly changed the political landscape of Britain.
Something else that it has also done is change the nature of political leadership. For whoever is Prime Minister during the "Brexit process" can also claim, through the extraordinary circumstances of the referendum, to be the sole arbiter of the nation's will.
In this way, parliament has become an irrelevance since the referendum, as the Prime Minister can claim (and has) that parliament would be subverting the vote of the referendum if it opposes her. This was the very claim she made when she called the snap election last year, and this claim has been repeated whenever it criticized whatever actions on Brexit she unilaterally decided. As far as Theresa May was concerned, she seemed to see her rule as a "higher duty" to the nation, regardless of what parliament, or even many in her own party, wanted.
So "Brexit" has become something almost esoteric or "supernatural" in its power: a simple word with a meaning that somehow bestows extraordinary power on its wielder. "Brexit" means whatever its wielder wants it to mean. This is why the meaningless phrase "Brexit means Brexit" is in fact as meaningful in its meaninglessness as Theresa May requires. It means nothing, or it means everything.
"Brexit" in itself is simply an instrument - or talisman, if you like - of power. To stretch the esoteric meaning even further, this is why Andy Serkis' take on "Brexit" was, for all its satirical meaning, still so unnervingly close to the bone.
As well as being a symbolic instrument of power, it is also a poison. Brexit has undeniably poisoned the social fabric of the country, perhaps for ever.
But in the meantime, it has given Theresa May an unusual power and a strange aura of political invincibility. The symbolic "talisman" of Brexit protects Theresa May from all enemies, confounding them at the crucial moment by creating an aura of fear.
She can be wounded by her opponents, but as the wielder of the Brexit "talisman", it also has the power of exposing the fear that others have of the alternative. Theresa May's plan might be awful, but she can still exploit the remainers' fear of "Hard Brexit" and the Brexiteers' fear of "No Brexit" without being overthrown by either (or both) in the process. In the middle of this are those on the government "payroll", whose combined loyalty and fear of any other leader than May are enough to see off her opponents. This is the symbolic power that "Brexit" has over those who oppose its wielder; it exploits their fear.
Equally, the counter-intuitive maxim that my enemies' strength is their weakness; my weakness is my strength rings true here. The Brexit "talisman" even serves May as her ultimate protection regardless of her apparent weakness, for as long as she wields the ultimate power over Brexit, she cannot be safely removed.
In this way, the "talisman" of Brexit defends May's position by playing up her apparent frailty, and exploiting fear in another way. May also uses her own frailty as an instrument of power, appealing to her enemies' sense of pity. In this way, Brexit can make its wielder even seem as a victim or a hostage to her enemies' mercy - portraying May as a creature of pity that allows her to continue with her power, tricking her enemies into granting her clemency for as long as the Brexit "talisman" requires.
May can only be removed from power once the "power" of Brexit itself has passed; in other words, she is politically immovable before "Brexit Day". But by that point of course, Brexit's potential for destructive power will have reached its peak, because if parliament do not agree to May's autocratic "deal", we are instantly into "no deal" and the nightmare scenario.
To continue the talisman analogy, a "no deal" Brexit will have destroyed not only its "wielder" (Theresa May), but the whole land as well. "Mordor" consumes "Middle-Earth". Perhaps the Brexit "talisman" wants to destroy Britain.
This was why David Cameron opened Pandora's Box when he allowed the issue of Europe to dictate his tenure. Brexit is a poison that cannot be satisfied; it is an "instrument of power" that is as seductive as is it dangerous.
Once it is wielded, its only purpose can be to destroy.
While her personality flaws are legion (and have been commented on by this author), she seems to have a strange knack for outwitting her enemies. What is so odd about this is that she seems otherwise so incompetent, with an unnerving ability to antagonize her existing enemies and create yet new ones. And yet, when it comes to the crucial moment, she seems to possess an almost supernatural ability to survive politically.
She can be wounded, but as yet possesses an inability to accept her own demise. When necessary, she manages to find a way to expose the weaknesses of her opponents and at the same time muster enough loyalists around her to see them off.
It is that, or that she is just plain "lucky" in her choice of enemies.
In a sense David Cameron was "lucky" to have got as far as he did before he needed to resign. In his time as Prime Minister, he rolled the dice one too many times, thinking that his run of good fortune was almost endless; his over-confidence was eventually exposed.
With Theresa May, however, we are dealing with a different form of political animal; a political creature that, with an almost ghoulish quality to its character, seems almost indestructible to normal, mortal means.
To use a more symbolic analogy, she has sent her troops needlessly into a near-defeat in battle, but was not overthrown by them; has removed or forced out countless of her courtiers; has ruled over her land as an impenetrable, immovable and incompetent autocrat; and now has survived an attempt at her overthrow from within.
All this she has achieved by making repeated, insincere claims to heed her followers' advice at the critical moment, which mollify her critics, but then are seemingly "forgotten" by her a short time later.
It's hard to judge if she is knowingly, repeatedly deceitful or just completely lacking in self-awareness of her actions. But the fact that she repeats the same behaviour again and again suggests it can only be the former, which makes her followers either appallingly gullible or just held in hock to her rule from fear alone. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is "fear" (of the alternative) that is the key to May's unusual power (more on this is a moment).
Is is possible for a person so inept and yet wield such powers of fortitude and survival? Perhaps "Brexit" can explain a lot of it.
The "talisman" of Brexit
Many have spoke about how Brexit has utterly changed the political landscape of Britain.
Something else that it has also done is change the nature of political leadership. For whoever is Prime Minister during the "Brexit process" can also claim, through the extraordinary circumstances of the referendum, to be the sole arbiter of the nation's will.
In this way, parliament has become an irrelevance since the referendum, as the Prime Minister can claim (and has) that parliament would be subverting the vote of the referendum if it opposes her. This was the very claim she made when she called the snap election last year, and this claim has been repeated whenever it criticized whatever actions on Brexit she unilaterally decided. As far as Theresa May was concerned, she seemed to see her rule as a "higher duty" to the nation, regardless of what parliament, or even many in her own party, wanted.
So "Brexit" has become something almost esoteric or "supernatural" in its power: a simple word with a meaning that somehow bestows extraordinary power on its wielder. "Brexit" means whatever its wielder wants it to mean. This is why the meaningless phrase "Brexit means Brexit" is in fact as meaningful in its meaninglessness as Theresa May requires. It means nothing, or it means everything.
"Brexit" in itself is simply an instrument - or talisman, if you like - of power. To stretch the esoteric meaning even further, this is why Andy Serkis' take on "Brexit" was, for all its satirical meaning, still so unnervingly close to the bone.
As well as being a symbolic instrument of power, it is also a poison. Brexit has undeniably poisoned the social fabric of the country, perhaps for ever.
But in the meantime, it has given Theresa May an unusual power and a strange aura of political invincibility. The symbolic "talisman" of Brexit protects Theresa May from all enemies, confounding them at the crucial moment by creating an aura of fear.
She can be wounded by her opponents, but as the wielder of the Brexit "talisman", it also has the power of exposing the fear that others have of the alternative. Theresa May's plan might be awful, but she can still exploit the remainers' fear of "Hard Brexit" and the Brexiteers' fear of "No Brexit" without being overthrown by either (or both) in the process. In the middle of this are those on the government "payroll", whose combined loyalty and fear of any other leader than May are enough to see off her opponents. This is the symbolic power that "Brexit" has over those who oppose its wielder; it exploits their fear.
Equally, the counter-intuitive maxim that my enemies' strength is their weakness; my weakness is my strength rings true here. The Brexit "talisman" even serves May as her ultimate protection regardless of her apparent weakness, for as long as she wields the ultimate power over Brexit, she cannot be safely removed.
In this way, the "talisman" of Brexit defends May's position by playing up her apparent frailty, and exploiting fear in another way. May also uses her own frailty as an instrument of power, appealing to her enemies' sense of pity. In this way, Brexit can make its wielder even seem as a victim or a hostage to her enemies' mercy - portraying May as a creature of pity that allows her to continue with her power, tricking her enemies into granting her clemency for as long as the Brexit "talisman" requires.
May can only be removed from power once the "power" of Brexit itself has passed; in other words, she is politically immovable before "Brexit Day". But by that point of course, Brexit's potential for destructive power will have reached its peak, because if parliament do not agree to May's autocratic "deal", we are instantly into "no deal" and the nightmare scenario.
To continue the talisman analogy, a "no deal" Brexit will have destroyed not only its "wielder" (Theresa May), but the whole land as well. "Mordor" consumes "Middle-Earth". Perhaps the Brexit "talisman" wants to destroy Britain.
This was why David Cameron opened Pandora's Box when he allowed the issue of Europe to dictate his tenure. Brexit is a poison that cannot be satisfied; it is an "instrument of power" that is as seductive as is it dangerous.
Once it is wielded, its only purpose can be to destroy.
Monday, December 10, 2018
Narcissism and politics: Theresa May (Part 2)
A few months ago there was a dark rumour in political circles that some figures in the government were secretly orchestrating a "no deal" Brexit that would cause as much chaos as possible; both causing chaos within Britain and also across the EU.
The theory followed a hypothetical series of events where the government (i.e. Theresa May) would cynically lead the EU towards the impression of agreeing to a deal, only to sabotage it at the last minute, leaving the EU with as little time to prepare for the chaos as possible, and leaving Britain dependent on American logistical support until the period of "no deal" chaos passed. Such a scenario would turn Britain into a de facto American "client state" where what remained of government infrastructure and assets would be sold off in a "fire-sale", with the British economy as a kind of Libertarian dystopia. This would also leave the EU in a state of economic turmoil as an added "bonus".
The scenario that Britain currently finds itself in is due to the actions of its Prime Minister, Theresa May. Thanks to her actions:
The theory followed a hypothetical series of events where the government (i.e. Theresa May) would cynically lead the EU towards the impression of agreeing to a deal, only to sabotage it at the last minute, leaving the EU with as little time to prepare for the chaos as possible, and leaving Britain dependent on American logistical support until the period of "no deal" chaos passed. Such a scenario would turn Britain into a de facto American "client state" where what remained of government infrastructure and assets would be sold off in a "fire-sale", with the British economy as a kind of Libertarian dystopia. This would also leave the EU in a state of economic turmoil as an added "bonus".
The scenario that Britain currently finds itself in is due to the actions of its Prime Minister, Theresa May. Thanks to her actions:
- The British government spent nearly two years negotiating with itself - due to May's own perpetual stalling tactics. The government's position to start serious negotiations with the EU was then only agreed after Mrs May forced her own position on to her government (i.e."Chequers").
- Due to her "red lines", this position was then rejected by the EU. This resulted in May unilaterally deciding on her government's new position without consulting her own government or parliament. The consequent "deal" she unilaterally agreed with the EU was thus a result of May's "red lines", which forced the EU to demand terms that May must surely have known the British parliament would find unacceptable.
- When May tried to convince parliament to ratify her "deal", she dealt with them in the same way as her own government: to cajole and disseminate to make them accept the unacceptable, or face "no deal". When it was clear that parliament would not agree to the deal, her tactic was to delay the vote to the last possible moment - and subvert democracy in the most cynical way - or allow the country to descend into chaos (see hypothetical scenario above).
Put in this light, May's actions resemble those of an unashamed autocrat working to blatantly undermine the democratic system. She has little moral regard for the idea of the democratic process, and ultimately sees herself as the sole arbiter of the land.
Worse than that, she seems to have lost any rational sense of perspective, seeming not to care about the political damage she is doing to her party, her government and parliament, and seems to care little about the wider damage she is doing to the economy and to people's lives in general.
How to lose friends and alienate people
This author has written before about Theresa May's personality, and how there seems to something "off" about her behaviour and her judgement. All the evidence points to her being someone who seems to want to go out of her way to annoy friends and enemies alike, inadvertently or otherwise.
This singular ability to alienate herself from those she engages with is truly exceptional in the annals of political leadership; even Nixon had better judgement and charisma. It seems the only ones she can retain the loyalty of are those that have entirely self-serving and amoral ambitions, or are too cowardly to want to give up their own ministerial status. The combined result of this is governmental positions that are filled by incompetents; the natural consequence of being ruled by a narcissist is some kind amoral personality cult where rationalism and intelligence are the main enemy.
In pursuing her "deal" outside of democratic consent or transparency, she has alienated both wings of her party against her by her own terrible judgement, as well as losing what little respect the grassroots of the party had left for her. As she never wanted to engage with the opposition, she lost any chance of gaining their support long ago, and has managed to also lose the confidence of the DUP, so she now is ruling a government with no functional majority, even on paper.
And now that she no longer has the backing of parliament, she seeks "rule by extortion" instead: threatening the chaos of "no deal" if it doesn't support her deal - a deal that is only so awful to contemplate because May's stubbornness made it so.
The events of the last few weeks have shown that Theresa May is someone who cannot be reasoned with. She does not listen, is incapable of admitting she is wrong, and cannot be trusted.
Her stubbornness is now legendary, but then this is compounded by the fact that even when she has changed her mind on something (such as calling for an early election), she makes it even worse by refusing to admit the obvious. Such "crazy-making" behaviour is an indication of pathological narcissism.
One of the other indicators of narcissism is a lack of "emotional intelligence": the ability to see things from another's point of view, and use human empathy and persuasion to explain your point of view.
It is clear that Theresa May lacks "emotional intelligence" in spades: she seems incapable of understanding how her government's policies might harm other people's lives, from her stance on EU migration to the "hostile environment" and the government's pursuit of austerity and welfare reform. Instead, she only focuses on the job she has tasked herself with doing, with no real regard to the effects of its wider, human impact. The countless stories of lives destroyed by her government's policies seem to have no effect on her. This is evident in her obsession with reducing migration, which she pursues relentlessly long after her colleagues have given up on it as a fool's errand. To have such a blinkered perspective is a sign a dysfunctional personality.
Then there is other evidence such as how she reacts spontaneously in the face of a human crisis (e.g. the Grenfell fire), where she demonstrated a chronic inability to do what any normal person would do (which Jeremy Corbyn then demonstrated) - to emotionally engage with the victims.
Equally, this lack of emotional intelligence is evident from the many anecdotes of those who have had to endure conversations with her. European politicians have been invited to a meeting with her, only to discover she had nothing to say; likewise, the many stories of her frosty (or sphinx-like) demeanor in meetings with her colleagues make the phrase "Ice Queen" that has been thrown around to describe her seem apt. And let's not forget her famous "death stare".
It is a common perception that politicians are wont to lie and disseminate rather than admit an uncomfortable truth, but May manages to do this is in such a cringe-worthy and blatantly dishonest way (e.g. demonstrated by facial contortions), that you wonder why she bothers. Politicians are wont to avoid answering uncomfortable questions, but May manages to do this in such a cringe-worthy and leaden way that it makes conversation with her almost physically-painful to endure.
A reign of fear
The natural result of this lack of "emotional intelligence" is that when narcissists are in a position of power, what they fall back on to maintain their hold is fear: fear of the alternative or fear of the unknown. In this manner, the atmosphere of rule under the narcissist is akin to a "reign of terror".
This was evident when Downing Street was ruled under the guidance of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.
Since the 2017 election, May has fell back on her other advisors and her her whips to hold the party together. "Fear" was used by May herself to justify calling the snap election; in that case it was "fear of Jeremy Corbyn" that was the main threat she used. It worked (just about), but the result was a ruling government that was held together not by shared respect for Theresa May but by fear she stoked of the alternative: a reign of fear created by May herself.
It is this "reign of fear" that then allows May to dictate and control events beyond any measure of accountability, as we have seen with her dictatorial management of Brexit.
Her stubbornness is now legendary, but then this is compounded by the fact that even when she has changed her mind on something (such as calling for an early election), she makes it even worse by refusing to admit the obvious. Such "crazy-making" behaviour is an indication of pathological narcissism.
One of the other indicators of narcissism is a lack of "emotional intelligence": the ability to see things from another's point of view, and use human empathy and persuasion to explain your point of view.
It is clear that Theresa May lacks "emotional intelligence" in spades: she seems incapable of understanding how her government's policies might harm other people's lives, from her stance on EU migration to the "hostile environment" and the government's pursuit of austerity and welfare reform. Instead, she only focuses on the job she has tasked herself with doing, with no real regard to the effects of its wider, human impact. The countless stories of lives destroyed by her government's policies seem to have no effect on her. This is evident in her obsession with reducing migration, which she pursues relentlessly long after her colleagues have given up on it as a fool's errand. To have such a blinkered perspective is a sign a dysfunctional personality.
Then there is other evidence such as how she reacts spontaneously in the face of a human crisis (e.g. the Grenfell fire), where she demonstrated a chronic inability to do what any normal person would do (which Jeremy Corbyn then demonstrated) - to emotionally engage with the victims.
Equally, this lack of emotional intelligence is evident from the many anecdotes of those who have had to endure conversations with her. European politicians have been invited to a meeting with her, only to discover she had nothing to say; likewise, the many stories of her frosty (or sphinx-like) demeanor in meetings with her colleagues make the phrase "Ice Queen" that has been thrown around to describe her seem apt. And let's not forget her famous "death stare".
It is a common perception that politicians are wont to lie and disseminate rather than admit an uncomfortable truth, but May manages to do this is in such a cringe-worthy and blatantly dishonest way (e.g. demonstrated by facial contortions), that you wonder why she bothers. Politicians are wont to avoid answering uncomfortable questions, but May manages to do this in such a cringe-worthy and leaden way that it makes conversation with her almost physically-painful to endure.
A reign of fear
The natural result of this lack of "emotional intelligence" is that when narcissists are in a position of power, what they fall back on to maintain their hold is fear: fear of the alternative or fear of the unknown. In this manner, the atmosphere of rule under the narcissist is akin to a "reign of terror".
This was evident when Downing Street was ruled under the guidance of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.
Since the 2017 election, May has fell back on her other advisors and her her whips to hold the party together. "Fear" was used by May herself to justify calling the snap election; in that case it was "fear of Jeremy Corbyn" that was the main threat she used. It worked (just about), but the result was a ruling government that was held together not by shared respect for Theresa May but by fear she stoked of the alternative: a reign of fear created by May herself.
It is this "reign of fear" that then allows May to dictate and control events beyond any measure of accountability, as we have seen with her dictatorial management of Brexit.
The Gothic mood music and almost ghoulish quality to aspects of her character make it feel as if hers is a government of the undead. Ever since the election of eighteen months ago, her "zombie government" has been losing ministers at a rate of attrition unprecedented in British political history. As government presides over a state of institutional stasis, the country is slowly falling apart, society slowly disintegrating thanks to her government's amoral social policies, and the economy outside of London is barely functional.
It is a government that literally has no purpose but power for the sake of power, with Theresa showing every sign of narcissistic delusion about the necessity of her own position. As far as she is concerned, she seems to feel it is her moral obligation to rule.
It is a government that literally has no purpose but power for the sake of power, with Theresa showing every sign of narcissistic delusion about the necessity of her own position. As far as she is concerned, she seems to feel it is her moral obligation to rule.
Theresa May's personality - and the innate strain of narcissism that seems to run through it - is the primary cause of the chaos that Britain faces. Two and half years ago, the future of Britain after the referendum was unclear; but it was not certain that it would be chaotic. It is only Theresa May's dysfunctional personality that has made it so.
It is hard to imagine how the Brexit process, after the referendum, could have been handled any worse.
May's most recent actions in delaying parliament's vote on her "deal" as long as possible only serve to extend the wider chaos in the country even further to the brink, as the value of the economy collapses further, businesses are unable to plan, and people are left in a state of paralyzing trauma. It is as though Theresa May has declared a kind of psychological warfare on her own population, regardless of her actual intentions.
Seen in this objective light, Theresa May's behaviour can be seen as nothing more than selfish and self-defeating: the actions of an irrational narcissist.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Tumblr's adult content ban: the decline of liberalism and the subversion of free-will
The news that the website "Tumblr" is to introduce a ban on adult imagery is the latest indication that we are currently experiencing a historic swing away from liberal values towards conservative values.
The revealing thing about this news is that the linked article mentions how the decision was provoked by an Apple technical glitch, resulting in inappropriate (and illegal) imagery being sent to the website. So it appears it was Apple's error, resulting in the "Tumblr" app being removed from Apple's software, that was the cause of the problem.
As the article describes, this leaves a whole segment of adult society who used Tumblr for a variety of personal reasons, without a place to share and communicate with other like-minded souls. As the article says, the website served as a "safe space" for some of the more unorthodox people in society to express their sexuality.
Without a place like Tumblr, the only other known online venues for such activity would in the realm of pornographic websites, which bring with it a whole different type of behaviour and interaction: the type of "behaviour" that Tumblr was there to avoid.
In this way, the inherent assumption by those behind the decision is a lazy labeling of diverse and unorthodox subcultures and communities into the broader label of "porn". In other words, it makes no real attempt to distinguish one form of sexual expression from another, which is as intellectually-lazy as assessing all people that have mental health issues as being "crazy".
Thus, it feels as though we are regressing back decades into a socially-conservative world were everything must be labelled and neatly boxed, where sexuality cannot be something ambiguous or imaginative, and everything is either blanketed as "porn" or "not porn".
Likewise, for those communities and subcultures that have been able to feel safe and at ease in their own identity by using facilities like Tumblr, it leaves them feeling as social outcasts. By just assessing their content as "pornographic" - and thus with the same label as the most "hardcore" content online - it implicitly defines them as being somehow freaks, perverts and amoral exhibitionists.
Subverting free-will
The reason it came to this is due to a steady subversion of liberal values by the "new right".
One of the evident trends in recent years, and exacerbated by social media at times, is how free speech and the issue of "causing offense" has become conflated. This has then been exploited by the "alt-right", resulting in a wave of moral outrages and a backlash against what is seen by conservatives as moral degradation.
The root of this stems from the time of the financial crisis, when the "alt-right" saw its birth on the back of perceived indulgence of both "liberal" establishment values and the campaign for greater equality of rights by the LGBT community.
At the same time as the TEA Party was growing in strength in its desire to redefine "liberal" values, the "alt-right" was conducting an undercover culture war against what it saw as an indulgent and morally abject society.
The "alt-right" was able to label itself as a "victim" of free speech at a time when "political correctness" made their views unpalatable or offensive. In reality, the views expressed by many in the "alt-right" were racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hateful; their views were deemed offensive because they spread hate. They were being deliberately provocative in many cases - a classic technique of Fascist movements - in order to be offensive and gain notoriety and attention. They succeeded.
But by twisting the same "liberal" values against the establishment itself, the "alt-right" were able to argue that their "community" was thus as "oppressed" as those marginal and unorthodox communities had been in the past (and in some cases, still were). Thus their ringleaders argued that the white community was now being "oppressed", that men were being "oppressed", and that the establishment was being led by the interests of "minorities" at the expense of the majority.
It is in this climate that pressure builds on the media and social media to "reflect reality". This explains how Trump's outrageous lies and exaggerations were never seriously challenged by the media, but were allowed to be disseminated freely, as long as the "opposing view" was given as well. In Britain, the same was true with the lies that were used by the "Brexit" campaign, and the wider culture wars that now consume Anglo-Saxon culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
So now the pendulum seems to be swinging in the favour of the conservatives and the reactionaries. Culture wars across social media have resulted in "echo chambers" on both sides, with the result that anything that someone might find disagreeable is termed "offensive content".
The only winners out of this are ultimately those who wish to restrict self-expression: the reactionaries and social conservatives.
The concept of free-will has been turned on its head, and used as a weapon by those, such as the alt-right, who seek to remove it.
Social media has thus become risk-averse as a means of financial self-preservation. At a time when news, comment and artistic content has become monetized, the result is an erosion of free-will. Whereas at one time, it was thought that technology would result in greater freedom, the reality has proven to be somewhat different.
The actions of "Tumblr" thus fit into this wider trend. The trend now is towards a wider consideration of social morality; the realm of the social conservative.
Whereas at one time people were encouraged to think about the effects of their actions on the environment, that same mindset has infected the social mores of the online world: now people are policed by social content and the nature of their posts, and asked to consider what effect their internet activity might have on wider society. This means the internet is no longer about free-will, but about social morality; the precise opposite to its original meaning.
It is this climate that leaves very little space for those who have unconventional or alternative lifestyles, as those who use "Tumblr" are now finding out.
The revealing thing about this news is that the linked article mentions how the decision was provoked by an Apple technical glitch, resulting in inappropriate (and illegal) imagery being sent to the website. So it appears it was Apple's error, resulting in the "Tumblr" app being removed from Apple's software, that was the cause of the problem.
As the article describes, this leaves a whole segment of adult society who used Tumblr for a variety of personal reasons, without a place to share and communicate with other like-minded souls. As the article says, the website served as a "safe space" for some of the more unorthodox people in society to express their sexuality.
Without a place like Tumblr, the only other known online venues for such activity would in the realm of pornographic websites, which bring with it a whole different type of behaviour and interaction: the type of "behaviour" that Tumblr was there to avoid.
In this way, the inherent assumption by those behind the decision is a lazy labeling of diverse and unorthodox subcultures and communities into the broader label of "porn". In other words, it makes no real attempt to distinguish one form of sexual expression from another, which is as intellectually-lazy as assessing all people that have mental health issues as being "crazy".
Thus, it feels as though we are regressing back decades into a socially-conservative world were everything must be labelled and neatly boxed, where sexuality cannot be something ambiguous or imaginative, and everything is either blanketed as "porn" or "not porn".
Likewise, for those communities and subcultures that have been able to feel safe and at ease in their own identity by using facilities like Tumblr, it leaves them feeling as social outcasts. By just assessing their content as "pornographic" - and thus with the same label as the most "hardcore" content online - it implicitly defines them as being somehow freaks, perverts and amoral exhibitionists.
Subverting free-will
The reason it came to this is due to a steady subversion of liberal values by the "new right".
One of the evident trends in recent years, and exacerbated by social media at times, is how free speech and the issue of "causing offense" has become conflated. This has then been exploited by the "alt-right", resulting in a wave of moral outrages and a backlash against what is seen by conservatives as moral degradation.
The root of this stems from the time of the financial crisis, when the "alt-right" saw its birth on the back of perceived indulgence of both "liberal" establishment values and the campaign for greater equality of rights by the LGBT community.
At the same time as the TEA Party was growing in strength in its desire to redefine "liberal" values, the "alt-right" was conducting an undercover culture war against what it saw as an indulgent and morally abject society.
The "alt-right" was able to label itself as a "victim" of free speech at a time when "political correctness" made their views unpalatable or offensive. In reality, the views expressed by many in the "alt-right" were racist, misogynistic, homophobic and hateful; their views were deemed offensive because they spread hate. They were being deliberately provocative in many cases - a classic technique of Fascist movements - in order to be offensive and gain notoriety and attention. They succeeded.
But by twisting the same "liberal" values against the establishment itself, the "alt-right" were able to argue that their "community" was thus as "oppressed" as those marginal and unorthodox communities had been in the past (and in some cases, still were). Thus their ringleaders argued that the white community was now being "oppressed", that men were being "oppressed", and that the establishment was being led by the interests of "minorities" at the expense of the majority.
It is in this climate that pressure builds on the media and social media to "reflect reality". This explains how Trump's outrageous lies and exaggerations were never seriously challenged by the media, but were allowed to be disseminated freely, as long as the "opposing view" was given as well. In Britain, the same was true with the lies that were used by the "Brexit" campaign, and the wider culture wars that now consume Anglo-Saxon culture on both sides of the Atlantic.
So now the pendulum seems to be swinging in the favour of the conservatives and the reactionaries. Culture wars across social media have resulted in "echo chambers" on both sides, with the result that anything that someone might find disagreeable is termed "offensive content".
The only winners out of this are ultimately those who wish to restrict self-expression: the reactionaries and social conservatives.
The concept of free-will has been turned on its head, and used as a weapon by those, such as the alt-right, who seek to remove it.
Social media has thus become risk-averse as a means of financial self-preservation. At a time when news, comment and artistic content has become monetized, the result is an erosion of free-will. Whereas at one time, it was thought that technology would result in greater freedom, the reality has proven to be somewhat different.
The actions of "Tumblr" thus fit into this wider trend. The trend now is towards a wider consideration of social morality; the realm of the social conservative.
Whereas at one time people were encouraged to think about the effects of their actions on the environment, that same mindset has infected the social mores of the online world: now people are policed by social content and the nature of their posts, and asked to consider what effect their internet activity might have on wider society. This means the internet is no longer about free-will, but about social morality; the precise opposite to its original meaning.
It is this climate that leaves very little space for those who have unconventional or alternative lifestyles, as those who use "Tumblr" are now finding out.
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