March 31, 2011
Fight Back!
Last December and January a group of extremely dedicated bloggers and activists assembled an e-reader – Fight Back! - collecting some of the best writings related to the student protests.
Dan Hancox did huge amounts of spadework, but Laurie Penny, Guy Aitchison, Siraj Datoo, Cailean Gallagher, Aaron Peters, Anthony Barnett and Niki Seth-Smith all made huge contributions too.
I – on the other hand – was mostly useless, dealing rather badly with a relationship breakdown whilst engaging in some hardcore academic navel gazing. Nonetheless, the others were kind enough to put my name on the cover, which I didn’t really deserve at all.
The original e-reader ran to 350 pages with contributions from 43 authors (one of them being myself, where I did actually contribute something semi-useful in the form of a chapter). It picked up a staggering 13,000 downloads in its first four weeks. Thanks to this enormous demand, Fight Back! is now being launched as a proper book.
Here’s the press release, for your information.
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Fight Back! A Reader on the Winter of Protest
Tasha Bell, 16, describes her experience in a kettle: “The police have pushed us from the top of the road to the bottom, using their thick lines, their horses and their batons. The crowd has thickened, and now I’m not on the front line anymore I’m deep in the middle. I have no control. I can feel my phone vibrating and I’m trying to move my arm to get it but I can’t.”
Joanna Biggs (LRB) describes the UCL occupation: “I hear words like ‘alert’, ‘critique’, ‘offensive’ and even ‘Marxism’. At the edges of the room students sit around circular tables hunched over their laptops, as if they knew how much they look like the photogenic Harvard students of The Social Network.”
Laurie Penny in “You Say You Want a Revolution”: “There can be no question that the conditions are right for a youth movement. The young people of Britain are suffering brutal, insulting socio-economic oppression. There are over a million young people of working age not in education, employment or training, which is a polite way of saying “up shit creek without a giro”.
For review copies, interviews, or for details of the London launch event on 6 April, contact the publishing team on fightback@opendemocracy.net // 07824 807 142 // 07552 569 196
March 30, 2011
A Matter of Perspective
Imagine a private security firm whose agents shoot an innocent man 7 times on a crowded tube, at close range and without warning. Imagine this security firm systematically lies, attempting to cover-up what really happened. Imagine no agent ever stands trial for what happened.
Imagine the same security firm instigates a riot situation at an otherwise peaceful demonstration, its agents concealing their identities with premeditated intent. During the ensuing trouble, imagine one of the firm’s agents pushes a man to the ground, from behind, for no reason. He dies within the hour. The firm then lies to the media, and hires a tame pathologist (already scheduled to face misconduct hearing) who returns favourable results and destroys key evidence. Imagine the security firm’s agent never stands trial for this unprovoked attack – revealed after private footage is released to The Guardian - and at a later inquest his colleagues smear the victim, claiming he was drunk.
Imagine the same firm sends officers into deep cover, infiltrating activist groups. They act as agent provocateurs, conducting sexual relations with activists. One even gets married to an activist and has a child – whilst under cover.
Imagine this same firm is put in charge of policing another mass demonstration (despite its appalling earlier failures). Imagine the firm “kettles” the protest on Whitehall, keeping 15 and 16 year old children out in literally freezing conditions until midnight. Imagine the firm needlessly charges the kettled protestors with horses.
Imagine the same firm is yet again put in charge of managing another mass demonstration. When this protest turns violent, the firm again pointlessly charges demonstrators with horses – despite protestors having nowhere to go, because they’ve been kettled. At the same time, a student is batoned over the head and nearly dies from internal bleeding. The security firm attempts to prevent him being admitted to “their” hospital.
At this same demonstration, evidently peaceful protestors are prevented from leaving the riot zone. Security agents systematically lie to them about being able to go home. As the cold December night stretches on, packed-in demonstrators are advanced upon by horses, before being herded onto a bridge where space is so scarce many fear for their lives.
Imagine this same security firm is again put in charge of yet another demonstration. When activists proceed to stage an entirely non-violent protest inside a luxury department store, security agents promise them they can leave shortly without fear of being detained. That they are being kept inside purely for their own safety. But it’s a ruse: the security firm is simply taking the time to set up a kettle and detain nearly 200 activists they’ve just freely admitted on camera to be peaceful.
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Any private security company with such a record to its name would surely be unsuitable for rehire by the state. If such a firm did exist, it seems unimaginable there would not be widespread outrage about its receipt of public funds. But none of the above actually need to be “imagined”. I’ve simply described the recent record of the Metropolitan Police Force.
If you don’t go on protests, and you’ve never had bad experiences with the police, it can seem bizarre that the boys in blue arouse such hostility from some of my generation, and political activists in particular. You may think “if you’ve got nothing to hide, why conceal your face?” You may think “the police are fundamentally decent – you can trust them even if there are a few bad apples”.
But if the above press fairly strongly on your political awareness – because you’ve been on a lot of protests, or been on the receiving end of police trickery and force – then it all looks very different.
Increasing numbers in this country hold the justified opinion that the Met is a fundamentally mendacious and violent outfit. That it is untrustworthy and deceitful – and sometimes dangerous to the point of lethality. Is it surprising that increasing numbers see no point in trying to play by the rules that London’s Finest themselves so egregiously flaunt? This is a dangerous dance. But if your instinct is to side automatically with the police, remember that it takes two to tango.
March 27, 2011
On Violence and Recent Protest
As previously noted, I have no problem per se with political violence. Its use and justification must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, with reference to myriad factors such as likelihood to succeed, ability to justify harm to victims, long-term advantages gained, greater evils averted, and so on. Use and justification of violence – like any other tool of politics – depends on firstly the judgement of those who deploy it, and at a later stage the judgement of those (if different) who must assess it (and quite possibly, sentence it). As a general rule, it is wise to hope for better judgement than worse, and from all concerned.
Some situations allow for more judgement, particularly with regards to strategy, than others. The leaders of the ANC, or the ETA, or Hamas, typically control the means of violence in hierarchical command structures. A few men will decide when and where to use violence, and dictate orders to subordinates. In such cases, judgement (including strategic planning) is in the hands of specific individuals with relatively high degrees of control. In turn, moral judgement by other parties as to the justified or unjustified use of that violence will in large measure focus on the decisions of the commanding individuals. The same, incidentally, goes for the aparatus of the modern state – though for complex and important reasons we tend to shy away from recognising the deeply and necessarily coercive natures of the states we find ourselves in and under.
But certainly not all instances of political violence fit this model. When the so-called “Black Bloc” of anarchist militants attacked stores on Oxford Street yesterday they were not part of a (para)military organised hierarchy with a leadership exercising strategic-tactical judgement – still less the militant wing of the 250,000 peaceful marchers congregating in Hyde Park. When UK Uncut protestors launched their non-violent direct action against Fortnum and Mason, they can hardly be held responsible for the spontaneous vandalism that enthusiasts in the assembled crowd promptly launched.
In these latter cases the problem with considering the use of political violence from the perspective of strategic judgement in particular is that it quite simply doesn’t apply. Before Saturday’s outbursts of violent direct action no hierarchy of command could exercise the sort of command and control upon which strategic judgement is predicated. Yet after the violence talk of strategic judgement seems largely besides the point. Insofar as there was any, it was exercised by individuals or small groups in loosely organised ways, in a situation of mass happenings over which nobody had meaningful control.
In turn, this makes the task of passing retrospective moral judgement over the uses of political violence on Saturday a nuanced affair. For a start, we must distinguish between the actions of opportunistic vandals, committed anarchists, young enthusiasts caught up in the moment, and those goaded and provoked by police tactics (if any of the above indeed turn out to apply).
Nonetheless, it remains possible to assume a third-party perspective in order to analyse yesterday’s events. Specifically, we can adopt a position of hypothetical strategic judgement. It is quite sensible to ask: if I had absolute control over what actions people did and did not take yesterday, which would I permit? Personally, I would have preferred an entirely peaceful protest. Not because I’m opposed to all political violence (I’m not), but because yesterday’s outbursts were unambiguously counter-productive, and predictably so.
By contrast, my strong sense is that if the student movement had remained entirely peaceful at the end of last year, it would certainly have achieved absolutely nothing. The broken windows at Millbank and the riots in Westminster attracted levels of attention that peaceful marching never could have. And importantly, I believe that the student violence did not lead to the same outcomes that purely peaceful protest would have (failed to) achieve.
Certainly, the Parliamentary vote was passed and in that sense the student protests failed. Yet the carnage witnessed in Parliament Square – chronciled by myself, Jeremy Gilbert and others in Fight Back! – will have sent a shiver down many Coalition MPs’ spines. Lib Dems in particular must know that the ferocity of student anger means that particular constituency is lost for the very foreseeable future. Tory MPs must know deep down that if things can get that bad that quickly before the cuts have even started to bite, the next 4 years will contain some very difficult fights. Perhaps this will only make the present Government even more determined and bullish – but my sense is that it will quietly make key decision-makers more wary, and Lib Dems more skittish. And even if all of that is wrong, I still think that the student protests stood a better chance the way they actually happened than any peaceful alternative could have offered.
By contrast, Saturday’s march needed something entirely different. It needed the other face of protest: the face of hundreds of thousands of ordinary, reasonable and respectable people calmly registering their disapproval. As Paul Mason has noted, if you can get your entire workforce out to a Saturday demonstration, this means something. The scale of yesterday’s protest, quite obviously not made up of the “usual suspects”, would have been very powerful just because of its sheer size. If only it had been the main news story.
Instead, much coverage was given over to actions initially started by the “Black Bloc” idiots. I call them idiots because that is exactly what they are. Either they like to smash things just for the thrill (in which case they are Basic Idiots), or they are so politically deluded they think throwing paint bombs at TopShop will light the fuse of revolutionary explosion (in which case they are Advanced level Über-Idiots). Whichever camp of idiots yesterday’s Black Bloc thugs fell into, they did the anti-cuts campaign huge damage. By distracting attention to the loudly spectacular and meaningless away from the quietly awesome and meaningful they ruined it for everyone. Except the Tory Party.
Yet, crucially, there is more to say. For although the actions of the Black Bloc started the trouble – as Ryan Gallagher has noted – it is undeniable that many others quickly joined the violence without premeditation. Likewise the kids who stuck it out in Trafalgar Square, or who angrily confronted police outside Fortnum and Mason, cannot be dismissed as merely extended members of the Black Bloc.
Rather, they were the people who don’t any longer see the point of maintaining peaceful protest if the opportunity to descend into confrontation arises. And at a certain level they have my sympathy, for two reasons. Firstly, my generation learned quite spectacularly in 2003 that even enormous peaceful demonstrations of over a million people can make precisely zero difference. Tony Blair invaded Iraq, and didn’t give a flying damn what any of us thought.
Secondly, anybody who has been on even a handful of protests – especially in London – knows full well that the police do not hesitate to use violence, and frequently instigate aggressive confrontational situations amidst previously jovial and peaceful atmospheres. At the G20 protests in 2009, trouble only started when the police moved in – and it is probably significant that following that experience increasing numbers of protestors are drawing the obvious conclusion: if you know the boys in blue will baton you regardless, why wait around passively for them to do it?
It is significant and telling that so many recent protests have seen flare-ups of violence. The Black Bloc has been around a long while now and they cannot alone explain this. A better explanation is that many people – especially the young – are angry, justifiably untrusting of the police, and contemptuous of the old (failed) channels of political expression. As the cuts really start to bite, their numbers must surely increase.
So whilst I regret yesterday’s violence – if I could have had my way, there would have been none at all – I can understand why these outbursts of wider political violence are happening. And they do not make me optimistic about the future.
March 23, 2011
Deep Pathologies
According to Liberal Conspiracy:
“The TUC held a 60-second ad contest, with a theme of public spending cuts, last month and received a record-breaking 41 entries.
Fourteen entries were shortlisted – many of which will be shown on the big screen in Hyde Park at the March for the Alternative.”
This is the winner:
I hope you will join me in agreeing that it is absolutely terrible.
What, exactly, is the video’s message? That ordinary people are in the position of pre-pubescent infants? If so, that’s hardly a very flattering portrayal. Indeed why exactly is this a father-daughter relationship at all? Are the makers of the video implying that our rulers and masters stand in relation to us as controlling parents – more precisely, exploitative and abusive parents? Come to think of it, who is the father figure supposed to represent, exactly? A banker? The Government? If these are metaphors, they are mixed indeed.
And if that weren’t all bad enough, there’s the bombshell closing slogan: “Don’t burden your kids with a lifetime of debt – Oppose the cuts”.
I had to think for a good few minutes to figure out exactly what this was supposed to mean . For it appeared to make no sense at all. But I now think the reasoning is supposed to be as follows: if we force the next generation to bear the brunt of austerity measures now, that is effectively saddling our children with the effects of debt, manifested through the cuts, and that’s not fair, so we must oppose the cuts, so as to prevent the effects of the debt, as experienced via the impact of cuts.
Which is not exactly snappy. But what is worse, the Coalition response is likely to be far more effective, to wit: we quite agree that we must not burden out children with a lifetime of debt! Indeed that’s precisely why we are making these cuts – to bring down the debt!
On every level this video is a disaster. Yet apparently it will be screened at the end of Saturday’s major anti-cuts march in London. Which very much presses the outstanding question: how is it that such a bad video could not only be dreamed up and filmed, but then selected by the TUC as their prize-winner and flagship piece of propaganda?
It would be nice to explain this away as merely the work of “iPhone-wielding wonks“. That it is merely the product of the mental narrowness exhibited by those who spend a lot of time in Westminster, but very little time meeting real people and their real political concerns.
Yet I strongly suspect there’s a deeper pathology at work here. Namely, that many on the left are frankly uninterested in clarity, accuracy or political efficacy. What they are interested in is lumping all their preoccupations together in one ungainly amalgamation of thinly veiled incoherence, and then shoving it down the throats of passers-by whilst expecting them to happily agree and acquiesce.
So, for example, it doesn’t matter whether the father figure is supposed to represent a greedy banker or the Government. Because in the minds of rather a lot of over-enthusiastic and naive leftists, there’s basically no difference between the two anyway. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if depicting ordinary working people as exploited children is offensive to ordinary people and thus strategically stupid. Because what takes priority is not strategy, but coming up with a (supposedly) funny dig at the powers that be (whoever they might be), regardless of whether it alienates the constituency that needs to be convinced.
In short, the point of the video appears not to be the promotion of a well-thought-out political strategy to fight the cuts. Its point appears to be an enthusiastic thumping of the political drum with unreflective self-assured and self-righteous pride. The pathology runs deep: so deep that people involved in political activism can not only come up with it, but that the TUC can in turn endorse a video which shrieks of an incoherence likely to cash out in practical political suicide.
Welcome to politics on the left. Abandon all hope, ye who enter.
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Indeed what makes it all even more shocking is that there are manifestly better videos on offer, and yet which were passed over for the big prize.
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UPDATE – Here’s how to do it properly (nsfw):
March 9, 2011
That Egypt Thing
During the Egyptian uprising, I didn’t have much to say. Far too much was being said already, and little of it well-informed. I was, of course, struck by the fervent optimism and passionate belief espoused by almost all on the Left. For this uprising – we were assured by many – was a truly democratic revolution, by a people yearning to be free. These were Democrats In Waiting, slaving beneath the Yoke of Tyranny. We had only to wait for The People to cast off Their shackles and a New Age of Democratic Freedom* would dawn.
Amidst the excitement and hubristic proclamation, it seemed to me consistently unwise to pass any judgements during the heat of the moment. For three considerations in particular seemed, if anything, to tell in the direction of pessimism about Egypt’s prospects.
Firstly, that the entire Middle East sits atop a pile of what Flying Rodent so aptly labels “democracy kryptonite”, aka oil. Given this particularly pressing truth, the long arm of America was never likely to withdraw its hand. After half a century of careful investment and planning, the US was hardly going to let things go all Venezuela in a key military and economic hotspot. At least, not if it could help it – and so on into the future.
Secondly, and closely connectedly, even the most cursory glance at the political situation during the Egyptian uprising revealed that the army always held the final balance of power. It was clearly with the support of the army that Mubarak would stand, or fall. In the end he fell. And now the army’s ruling council runs Egypt, following what was technically a military coup d’etat. Of course, it is quite possible that the army will cede power following elections in September. But it’s actually unclear whether there will be any elections in September. And as there has been no effective opposition in Egypt for decades, it’s also unclear whether will be any viable political alternatives on offer even if the ballots go ahead.
Furthermore, a kindergarten knowledge of history reminds us that never, ever, anywhere, has a ruling section of society willingly and freely given up power to those beneath it. Political revolutions – by which I mean proper revolutions, not eventualities which see nasty Mr Mubarak go to Sharm el Sheikh and his generals simply take over the running of affairs – are achieved by the forceful and bloody seizure of power by one group from another. The army is highly unlikely to let power go to any whom it does not approve of. Now at this point, note that democracies tend not to flourish when the military is the primary political power within a state. Now further note that for decades the primary source of American leverage over Egypt has come in the form of military aid. Things, to put it mildly, do not point in the direction of Hope and Change.
Thirdly, given that Egypt has no history or tradition or functioning democratic governance, the transition to any such regime is likely to be precarious. This is a country without democratic norms; a country where ordinary people have not yet had time to adapt to a political system which involves putting enormous amounts of trust and responsibility into the hands of parties whom one did not vote for. (Because the logic of democracy is that nobody’s favoured candidates can win every election, every time.) It is a country in which those who hold the strings of power, patronage and influence have not yet evolved the mechanisms of reciprocal deferred trust when out of power. The arrangements whereby electoral losers amongst the elite abstain from recourse to violence and thuggery, on the guarantee that their interests will not suffer too much in the short term and that they’ll get another meaningful shot at power shortly.
All of which is not to say that Egyptians – or Arabs, or Muslims – “cannot do democracy”. That is a piece of crass racism, against which we recall that less than a century ago respectable British individuals in respectable British newspapers urged the folly of democratic systems. Men who called for the imperative of strong rule; the clarity and good governance provided by Messrs Hitler and Mussolini during times of straightened economic woe. But it is to say that democracy is a difficult, complicated thing. It takes time to emerge, and requires favourable historical, geographical, social, economic and political settings. At present, Egypt appears to have none of these – albeit in significant part thanks to the grubby paws of The Land of the Free.
But then blaming everything on America just won’t do, either. For bound-up in the over-excited and premature rhetoric of Democracy and Freedom for Egypt was often the assumption that here was a democratic people simply yearning to be free. The implicit assumption being that They (what, all of them? young and old? rich and poor? muslim and christian?) were really just like Us. And that when They were given power, They would behave just like Us – a situation happily dovetailing with their new Democratic Freedom.**
But recent reports show that this is all a little too lazy. With dead Coptic Christians following religious clashes with sections of the majority Muslim population, this appears to be a society which hasn’t had the good fortune (and placatory economic development) to get beyond the bloody religious frenzies that our own blessed Isles used to play such sanguinary host to. And then there’s the International Women’s Day march in Tahir Square, which saw angry men charging the marchers, dragging them to the floor, beating and sexually harassing them, as police and army watched from the sidelines.
Certainly, these events are too isolated to tell us anything about “Arab culture” (or if you like, “Muslim mores”). Societies, religions, peoples and cultures are complex (and there’s plenty of violent hatred against women in the UK too, let’s not forget). To infer anything from the above in terms of positive substantive content would, again, be crass racism or outright stupidigy. But these happenings are nontheless enough to put the lie to the naively optimistic (and self-servingly convenient) assumption that They are just like Us, sharing Our Values, the outward political expression of which will necessarily be Democracy and Freedom.***
Those whom this piece is primarily aimed at will likely mistake the above for a sort of petty schadenfreude. They will think that I am indifferent about the sufferings and poor prospects of ordinary Egyptians, in service of some wider self-satisfied political cynicism. But that is wrong. I would genuinely like for it to be the case that Egypt could enjoy the prosperity, security and advantage of a nation like Britain (for all its faults). It sincerely saddens me that so many people’s lives must be made abject by forces beyond their control (such as the profitability of the British arms and oil industries). The point, however, is that just because I would like it to be otherwise, it does not mean that it is otherwise. And I adapt my assessments accordingly. I have this funny idea that other people should do the same.
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*notice the marriage of two complex concepts, introduced unexplained and unsubstantiated as though nothing in the world could be more obvious.
** that conjunction again.
*** in for the third, whatever it actually means.
March 1, 2011
Gew-gaws
For reasons I’m not entirely sure of, I’m subscribed to the emails of the “Yes to Fairer Votes” campaign. I tend to delete messages on sight, because if I want ill thought out tub-thumping, I can just log-on to the Compass website or read something by the nef.
But I’ve been trying to put my finger on what exactly it is about the upcoming referendum on voting reform that at best leaves me cold, and at worst makes me frustrated and angry. And I think I’ve worked out what it is.
A friend who knows about these things assures me that the political science literature indicates that moves towards proportional systems correlate with marginal increases in social democracy. Which, of course, is lovely. At least in and of itself. As a good leftist, I’m all for more social democracy.
But the important word in that paragraph is marginal. Because any improvements to our political system – and to our ever more unequal and unjust society – derived from voting reform are indeed going to be marginal. Especially given the way things appear to be going in terms of long-term political and economic direction. (And don’t forget that AV isn’t actually a proportional system, it’s just a marginally – that word again – less worse system than first-past-the-post).
So excuse me for not giving a fig about whether we get AV or not. Because in case you haven’t noticed, the wolves are at the door.
We live in a world in which national elected governments are increasingly unable – or unwilling (and therefore, in effect, unable) – to set economic and social policies as they would choose. Instead, tax rates, labour laws, redistributive policies, investment decisions, employment levels and decisions regarding national borrowing are increasingly subordinate both to the direct and indirect demands of global economic actors that do not answer either to electorates or their representatives.
What the great crash of 2008 taught multinational capitalist behemoths was that they can do whatever they want, and nation-states will bail them out if they fail. Indeed if they do fail, they can just keep doing whatever they want. Including leaning on national governments (directly or indirectly) to uphold and enforce domestic economic arrangements that benefit ever more detached sections of well-off individuals and private corporate actors.
What the great bail-out of 2008 has revealed is that it is certainly not multi-national corporate entities who will pay for the great mess. It is the little people whose collective will has less and less impact upon the determination of available economic – and thereby, social – futures. So because global financial capitalism collapsed under the weight of its own hubris, the British health service must be destroyed, British education must become a socially exclusive and divisive good, inequality must grow, unemployment must rise, care for the vulnerable must be taken away, the social safety net must be removed and millions of people’s lives must suffer.
Amidst all this destruction, the financial behemoths – in whose name your health service is being taken away, your social settlement renegotiated beyond your control – see fit to pay their privileged and favoured sons and daughters bonuses which could keep some families fed and sheltered for several years. Indeed, the terms of our new economic and social settlement are so unjust, so grotesque ,and so deeply unequal that this unashamed self-aggrandisement is simply the unreflective norm for its perpetrators. And rapidly it is becoming the unreflectinve norm – last gasp editorial outrage aside – for the rest of us, too.
It is usually false when people say that it makes no difference which party is in power. British society tends to be a somewhat fairer and less unjust place under Labour than Tories (recent obsessions with spying on everybody and dropping bombs on brown people not withstanding). But when it comes to caring about whether we have, in five years’ time, FPTP or AV to elect a marginally preferable centre-right Labour leadership to replace a vociferously destructive Coalition of right-wing ideologues, seems to me gloriously irrelevant.
And indeed for many its irrelevance may be precisely its attraction. Focusing on the gewgaws and shiny baubles of polling results, campaign tactics and collective enemy-hating serves as a far more enjoyable political pastime than staring into the abyss of what the present bunch of elected representatives is actually doing. It also puts to one side the frankly terrifying promise of a world in which it is increasingly irrelevant which bunch of bastards are elected to rule, and how they are elected, because their room for manoeuvre is so drastically – and increasingly – limited by the realities and dominant conceptions of the ever more global new economic order.
But having said all that, there is perhaps one reason to care about the AV referendum. Which is that a loss would be a terrible blow to the Lib Dems, and would indeed be a fine poke in the eye for Nick Clegg. Clegg. That scion of immense privilege; that craven political bastard-child. The man who under the guise of a Liberal party has enabled and assisted the reversal of a welfare state the likes of which his political forbearers dreamt of, and fought to make reality.
And suddenly, the AV vote acquires a certain sort of meaning – even if only a human, all-too-human one.
February 6, 2011
Notice to Serve
If there’s one thing more boring than blogging, it’s blogging about blogging. Nonetheless, I will try and say something interesting.
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My self-imposed blogging sabbatical is not entirely due to a lack of time. I’ve been busy in the past, and that has never stopped me before. There are two, more fundamental reasons I’ve opted to cut back – or perhaps, two facets of one more fundamental problem.
Firstly, blogging about politics – for that is what this website has been dedicated to for over two years – increasingly bores me. At one level, this is because daily politics – and the bulk of blogging reaction to it – is boring.
Each day and week brings a superficially fresh piece of outrage perpetrated by the Conservative Party/the DailyMail/some idiot celebrity/the Government/some idiot rightwing blogger or commentator/the police/whatever [substitute leftwing alternatives to suit preference]. On the surface at least, the issue prompting comment is usually in some way different to whatever happened the week before (“selling off the woodlands”/ “destroying the NHS”/ “being a horrible bigot” / “lying and abusing positions of power”). But the game of political blogging is tiresomely repetitive.
The predictable daily reaction is to get into an outraged indignant lather of denunciation. Or to sarcastically mock with varying degrees of cynicism. Or to dissect at tedious length in predictable detail why The Enemy is wrong (and usually evil). All these reactions share a common feature: total practical impotence and wider irrelevance. No doubt, for a couple of years this has sustained me, and I’ve found it interesting to watch others do the same. Increasingly I feel I’m living in electronic groundhog day.
What I’m really complaining about is quite simply most political bloggers’ hobby. People go on and on, expressing the same outrage and indignation at the Daily Mail/Tory Party/Richard Liddle-Phillips [substitute left-wing alternatives to suite preference] day-in-day out, because they enjoy it. Rather like many people enjoy campaigning for a political party, or going to big political conferences. It’s about tribalism, and the fun of political group-think and purported engagement. But it bores me more and more with each passing day.
Quite self-consciously, this blog has attempted to do something a bit different for at least the past 18 months. Namely, to analyse political events through the filter of an academic training I’m lucky enough to still be receiving. For a while this has served at least two purposes. One, it helped me get clearer on my own ideas by applying them. Two, I liked to think of it as public-service pedagogy; the dissemination of interesting ideas for those who might be interested in them but who lack my privileged background.
But I only have so much in my repertoire, and the last few months have seen me falling into the trap of repetition. This bores me, to the point whereby it outweighs the appeal of offering any free pedagogical service. Not least because I have to question the extent to which this is really about sharing interesting ideas. Or about wanting people to think I’m clever, whilst advancing my career in various ways.
Which brings me to the second set of general considerations.
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I’ve also decided to cut back blogging because it has begun to feel like a duty, an obligation. Rather than writing just for pleasure, or to share ideas, or seek critical reaction, I increasingly write to secure my “status”, as an ever-more-popular blogger [see the sidebar]. That, and because I’ve been trying to build this blog as a personal tool of complementary professional development for so long that to abandon it feels like a major wasted investment.
And I really don’t like this situation. I am extremely adverse to the role of duty and obligation in most human life, in what philosophers narrowly define as “moral theory” and beyond. For most of the good outcomes secured by imposing duties on people can be achieved by alternative means: for example, by encouraging dispositions in people such that they want to do some action from their own volition, rather than feeling they must do so because they are beholden to some external power, sanction, condemnation or failure.
Duty is an unhealthy concept to be beholden to, a sort of moral pathology. Things should be done because they are in themselves good things to do, not because they are your “duty”. The concept and experience of duty creates and fosters a psyche of meekness, dependency, constraint and subjection to overbearing command. It also opens the door for the extraction of fulfilment. This can be done by others: those who perceive your failure of “duty” and coercively extract compliance, or inflict “justified” punishment. Or it can be done by your own self: the mechanisms of repression, guilt and self-loathing so easily generated in complex human animals. Nietzsche saw something very profound when he noted that Kant’s categorical imperative “stinks of cruelty”.
Morality and life is, of course, about other people. But morality and life is also about yourself. The criterion of how to live might be primarily ordered around the question “what is good for others?” – but the question “what is healthy for me?” should never leave the picture. And if we can secure the first by healthier means with regard to the second, then that ought to be done. It may be a fact about us that we cannot do without duty entirely. But that is no reason not to do without duty as much as possible.
To retreat from philosophy and come back to the manner at hand; for this blog – which started as a source of pleasure and enjoyment – to transmutate into a source of duty and obligation is something I’ve decided not to continue tolerating. Perhaps this will mean I’ve wasted two years of investment. But as they say to smokers, it’s never too late to quit.
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Not, actually, that I’m going to stop blogging. For despite the above, regular writing has a particularly important function in my life: it is a form of exercise.
I’ve decided I’m going to try and live off of my brain. And being ambitious, I’ve decided I’m going to go as far as that can possibly take me. So my brain needs exercise. You wouldn’t try and become a top athlete without regular training; the same goes for anyone serious about thinking.
Of course, most serious thinkers simply keep their written thoughts to themselves. And there’s much to be said for that – not least the face it saves. But I enjoy and benefit from (some of) the critical engagement frequent public writing receives. I also think there’s something interesting in the possibility of a fairly open and visible process of intellectual development, insofar as not many people have tried (or for contingent historical reasons, been able to try) this. And anyway, my amour propre outweighs my sense of shame; so why not see what happens?
What I need is a change of direction. If blogging about politics – or at least, blogging about politics in the way I and many others have been doing for the past couple of years – bores me, then I should blog about something else, or in a different way. Obviously, I won’t stop writing about politics tout court. But it’s time to see what else I can do.
The new status badges added to the side of this website indicate a statement of intent. I’ll mostly be trying to read things in those three domains, and to write accordingly. Of course, I wasn’t lying when I said I was busy. And I’m still on sabbatical for the foreseeable future. But let’s just see what happens, even if that turns out to be a healthy nothing.
January 28, 2011
Gray and Keys vs. the New Social Legitimacy
Andy Gray and Richard Keys have been removed from their positions at Sky Sports. This follows their sexist remarks about (assistant) referee Sian Massey, the emergence of derogatory off-camera “banter”, and a frankly bizarre rant by Keys on TalkSport radio.
The first thing to note is that nobody forced Sky Sports to get rid of these two. Neither did anybody threaten to coerce Sky physically, economically, or via the power of the state. Rather, we now live in a society which (finally) deems it unacceptable for public figures to speak in such outrageously derogatory terms about women. Public figures caught doing so are exposed to extreme normative disdain, and this can in turn lead to purposeful abandonment by their backing-organisations or institutions.
This shows the power of values and legitimacy in collective human life and interaction. Sufficient collective moral disapproval can alone be enough to stimulate decisive action. Keys and Gray went beyond the bounds of contemporary “normative legitimacy”, and have paid the price.
This affair is likely to sit very ill with the right-wing commentariat, especially hysterical “opinion” spouters like Mad Mel and Richard Littlejohn, but also the less manically deranged. The angry (and nuttier) right typically reacts to such events by bemoaning the power of “sinister” interest “lobbies” that are “taking over” our society. More specifically, such “lobbies” are controlling even our very language and public morality. We can no longer say what we want – some words themselves are off-limits.
Now as it happens in some measure I agree with these rightwing commentators. Because it is true that our very language and public morality has undergone profound change with regards to the status of women in particular. As a result, certain people can no longer say whatever the hell they like without expecting serious repercussion. Some words themselves are, indeed, now off-limits (in public).
Where I differ from the right – aside from disdaining the naively simplistic view that profound social change is orchestrated by “sinister lobbies” – is in thinking that with regards to women’s equality, this is actually a jolly good thing. For the alternative is one that we know well from recent – and indeed, long-standing – historical precedent.
Certainly, there’s still a long way to go before genuine female equality is achieved in this country. But I would much rather live in a world where it is at least the publicly stated goal and norm. A world where ignorant bigoted male patriarchs cannot throw their weight around as part of a process that keeps half the population in the position of chastised, marginalised, denigrated second-class citizens.
Equally, I would much rather live in a world where offensive, degrading, intimidating, dismissive, undermining nastiness cannot be shrugged off as “just banter”. Because as anybody who has ever met a bully knows, the excuse that verbal intimidation is “just a joke” is one of the most effective means to marginalize and undermine a victim. Whether Gray and Keys realise it or not, when they claim that “it’s only banter”, they choke-off the voice of protest and close-down the means of escape for those objecting to what they are being subjected to, in turn manipulating them into accepting what they rightfully wish to resist.
So I welcome the new (and it is very new – well within my short lifetime) social norm of something like gender equality. A social norm that draws the bounds of legitimacy far narrower than what fat old Jurassic boors can cope with. And I make no qualms about that: because if the bounds of legitimacy weren’t being redrawn this way, the winners would be people like Keys and Gray. And frankly, I see no reason to prefer that world than the one we’re moving towards.
January 27, 2011
BMJ Slams Coalition NHS Reforms
I am disgustingly busy at the moment, and for the next two months. So apologies for simply copying and pasting – but this deserves attention.
The British Medical Journal is currently running an editorial about NHS reform, called “Dr Lansley’s Monster”. It is accompanied by a picture of Frankenstein’s laboratory. Here are some passsages:
What do you call a government that embarks on the biggest upheaval of the NHS in its 63 year history, at breakneck speed, while simultaneously trying to make unprecedented financial savings? The politically correct answer has got to be: mad.
The scale of ambition should ring alarm bells. Sir David Nicholson, the NHS chief executive, has described the proposals as the biggest change management programme in the world—the only one so large “that you can actually see it from space.” (More ominously, he added that one of the lessons of change management is that “most big change management systems fail.”) Of the annual 4% efficiency savings expected of the NHS over the next four years, the Commons health select committee said, “The scale of this is without precedent in NHS history; and there is no known example of such a feat being achieved by any other healthcare system in the world.” To pull off either of these challenges would therefore be breathtaking; to believe that you could manage both of them at once is deluded.
Like all the other structural reorganisations of the NHS, this one aims to improve health outcomes. What’s lacking is any coherent account of how these particular reforms will produce the desired effects, a point only underlined by the prime minister’s attempts to justify the reforms earlier this week.
On GP commissioning:
Whatever the eventual outcome, such radical reorganisations adversely affect service performance. As Kieran Walshe wrote, they are “a huge distraction from the real mission of the NHS—to deliver and improve the quality of healthcare” that can absorb a massive amount of managerial and clinical time and effort. Even the earliest days of the transition have proved disruptive, with employees of the doomed primary care trusts and strategic health authorities choosing to jump ship rather than to go down with it.
With an estimated one billion pounds of redundancy money in their pockets, many of the survivors are likely to be employed by the new GP consortiums in much their same roles. It raises the question: if GP commissioning turns out to be simply primary care trust commissioning done by GPs, aren’t there less disruptive routes to this destination?
It ends:
Given their scale, securing these efficiency savings should take priority over the massive upheaval proposed in the new bill. For the time being, we agree with the King’s Fund that those GPs who are successfully involved in practice based commissioning should be given real rather than indicative budgets for some services and their performance monitored closely. All other proposals should be kept on hold, pending an evaluation of whether this iteration of GP commissioning can bear the responsibility that the new bill seeks to place on it. If it turns out that it can, then the full introduction of the government’s ambitious health reforms will have been delayed a few years. If it can’t, then the country—and its government—will have got off lightly.
When what is essentially the official mouthpiece for British doctors is expressing this kind of alarm at government policy, it indicates that a dispositionally conservative body is very out of step with the present administration. Which reinforces a point I’ve already made: that this is a government of radicals, led by some most unconservative Conservatives.
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(Hat-tip to Stuart White, on Facebook).
January 23, 2011
Thatcher or Kafka? A Question of Influence
Ignore – if you can – the intellectual incoherence of this Government’s economic policy. On the one hand it endorses free cross-border capital flows, relatively free-trade in goods and services, minimal financial regulation, and floating exchange rates. But it simultaneously seeks enormous restrictions on the supply of labour. When it comes to immigration, market mechanisms are deemed unacceptable.
The latest front in the war on immigrants is actually another attack on overseas students. In this case, eliminating the Tier 1 Post Study Work Visa that allows international students to live and work in the UK for up to 2 years after obtaining their UK degree or qualification.
As well as being particularly unfair on those who pursue professional degrees (Law, MBAs, Accounting) as it deprives them of the opportunity to receive qualifications through their training contracts, this is likely to disincentivise foreign students from coming to the UK.
The official Coalition position is that it only wants to deter students from staying after they’ve completed their degrees, thus reducing net worker migration. But this is very odd. After all, newly qualified graduates are likely to be the most economically productive and highly-skilled immigrants in Britain. Why, exactly, do we want to turn those people out? Especially as very few are likely to be eligible to claim state support if they can’t get work, hence will likely leave of their own accord.
Admitedly, I don’t know the foreign-student elasticity of demand for UK degrees. But unless the government can show that it is highly inelastic, we have to assume that this measure will have a deterrent effect upon foreign nationals planning to study in the UK in the first place.
So as well as losing potentially highly-skilled workers, we may also loose highly skilled students. Students who pay far more in fees than their domestic peers, at a time when sections of UK higher education funding are being cut by up to 80%. Students who – if they are graduates – make significant contributions to the output and performance of their academic departments, boosting UK institutions vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
It seems likely, therefore, that Coalition policy has little to do with economics, and lots to do with politics. Namely, that anti-immigration sentiment runs high (in no small part thanks to the propagandising efforts of both Labour and Conservatives) and this Tory-led government wants to be the anti-immigration party par excellence.
An apparent problem with this “strategy”, however, is that restricting immigration numbers will only assuage angry voters if they come to believe the immigration “problem” is being dealt with. But they will only come to think that if the dominant social and political narrative deems that immigration is no longer a “problem”.
Except, on this front, the national media has a significant ability to set the general tone and mood. But tabloid newspapers – or more precisely, their owners – have no interest in whether immigration is really “out of control”, or whether Britain is really “full”. What they care about is maintaining the perception that Immageddon looms, and pandering to it. Because that mantra shifts a lot of units.
The media has no incentive to change the anti-immigration narrative, regardless of whether or not the Government really does reduce immigration level. It’s worth remembering, after all, that New Labour’s own highly restrictive anti-immigration laws made absolutely no difference on this front.
Thus: the Tory-led government instigates anti-immigration policies which will not appease anti-immigration sentiment, but which may well exacerbate the UK’s dire economic conditions, in turn further fuelling anti-immigration sentiment. A sentiment which the Tories may (but equally, may not) be able to harness in future elections.
You are now forgiven for thinking: “The inspiration for the Coalition isn’t Thatcher at all. It’s Kafka”.
