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Sunday 21 October 2018

Why "Nasty" Is The New Normal

Cartoon by Wendy Cockcroft of man kicking homeless man
The way I see it, there was a time when all the incidents we consider to be downright horrible were condemned and the people who committed them were censured. Today, we've got elected politicians cheering such incidents on on when not putting the boot in themselves. What has happened to our society? I have a few ideas. WARNING: I will not pull any punches. As usual.
There are five reasons I reckon we've forgotten how to care for one another as a society:

  • Decline of Christianity
  • Neoliberalism
  • Identity politics 
  • Foreign troll farms 
  • Media capture

Let's take a closer look.

Decline of Christianity


Back in the day, most of us in the West would have described ourselves as Christians, or claimed to guided by Judeo-Christian moral principles. Today, many scandals later, not so much. The thing is, we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Now that we're not doing the God thing any more, why be guided by His morality when you can just invent your own? For this reason, we can look right through the homeless people we encounter on our streets every day instead of demanding that the council house them, and that the government provide the funding. No, it must be their own fault they're in that situation, right?

The cost of not caring


The cost of not caring is high:

The Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) report provides two case studies of individuals with multiple needs both with recent episodes of homelessness, for whom drug treatment and detox costs, and mental health support costs, were reduced from £16,000 to £2,700 and £32,000 to £3,000 in moving from a state of homelessness with more piecemeal support, to stable accommodation with a more comprehensive and coordinated support provision.- Evidence review of the costs of homelessness by Department for Communities and Local Government

They've known this since 2012 but the number of homeless has increased following the introduction of the Bedroom Tax, the roll-out of Universal Credit*, and the benefit sanctions regime. People are actually dying as a result of "welfare reform," but where's the outcry? Ken Loach made a film about it and the horror goes on; we're still voting Tory in enough numbers to get them back in to office on the grounds that they're a lesser evil than Labour, I kid you not. I'm not saying, "Vote Labour," I'm saying that people don't find the Tories objectionable enough to not vote for them any more. I'm conservative and I can't stand them. I'd rather go to the Saudi embassy after slagging off the Crown Prince than vote Tory. But why has our society imbibed its values even though they're hurting us?

Exceptionalism


While atheism is the new philosophical kid on the block we haven't been able to complete the transition from belief in a higher power to belief in nothing. Exceptionalism is one of those things that fills the God-shaped hole in our lives. The idea that our nation is good and moral means that whatever it does is good and moral even if it looks evil and immoral to everyone else. The cumulative impact of those policies that caused actual harm and the denial that they were really all that bad is one of the main reasons why nasty attitudes have moved from the fringe to the mainstream. After all, if the country's exceptionalism justifies nasty attitudes, why should that end there? When individuals and groups present themselves as exceptional, they bring nasty attitudes and behaviours with them.

Neoliberalism


In my last post, What Is The Overton Window And Why Should We Care About It?, I explained how the spectrum of what is acceptable to the public had shifted to the right and continues to do so. This is because of the pernicious influence of neoliberalism, a Thatcherite position, which is now being described as "moderate." It is not. Thatcher was no moderate.

They have three weapons they deploy to devastating effect:
  • ownership and control of much of the media
  • agenda for change attractive to moderates
  • chameleon-like ability to blend with other viewpoints
This is how neoliberals present themselves as the adults in the room, but it doesn't mean they actually are.

Principle over practicality



So they've got principles. Goodie. So do I, but I don't create my own reality and expect everyone else to sit back and observe, as Karl Rove said:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." - Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush, by Ron Suskind for the New York Times

This mad belief that they're on a mission — regime change, freeing up the invisible hand of the market, etc., is what drives the policies that prove so destructive; they're not interested in facts but in faith that what they're doing is ultimately for the greater good. We'll see down the line, we just have to trust that they're working for the good of all. This is the same madness behind Brexit, by the way.

The price of principles


Such high-minded principles have a price, but we ordinary folk are the ones who ultimately foot the bill. So it is that in the name of securing the nation's jobs, evangelical Pat Robertson is warning us not to impose sanctions, etc. on the Saudis for fear that it might jeopardize arms sales. The resulting backlash is, of course, including Christians in general in the ire directed at Robertson, thereby decreasing Christianity's influence on socio-political discourse. Great job, Pat! Neoliberalism has a lot to answer for, it really does.

Identity politics


The trouble with identity politics is that picking one team basically means you didn't pick "the other." In a political environment in which only two horses may run in the race, picking a third one makes you a traitor to either or both of the other two.

The political spectrum we have now would basically lump together everything that's not capitalist to alt-right or call it "liberal socialist." Pick a side, there is no middle any more.

...Identity politics has created a host of disturbing new norms in which hate is accepted as par for the course. Basically, if you don't pick one side, you must, by default, be on t'other. Anyone on "our" side is acceptable no matter what he or she says or does; they are sanctified and purified by membership of and loyalty to the team. - How Identity Politics And Fake News Killed Conservatism, by Wendy Cockcroft for On t'Internet

This is a feature, not a bug, and the authoritarianism each side attributes to the other is actually a problem for both:

The trouble with taking an overly simplified view of politics in which “left” or “right” equals “those who disagree with me” is that you end up creating an imaginary boogeyman in an image that has no basis in reality. People who blather on about America’s radical left either can’t or won’t accept that their own fringe views are not as mainstream as they believe they are. There are some nutty progressives around, I spend a great deal of time making fun of them. I’m no more keen on the big L liberals, and don’t get me started on the idealistic left that does exist; they’re more interested in advancing their ideology than in meeting people’s needs. The point is that, as much as I love to bash the fascist alt-right, I’ve got little time for their counterparts on the other end of the political see-saw; I can’t abide authoritarians, whatever flavour they come in. - Identity Politics Is Destroying America, by Wendy Cockcroft for Medium

Personally, I present myself as a conservative as shorthand for "Believes in and upholds traditional values," not as a particularly political identity. That it confuses people on the right is their problem. Their constant whining about "the left" annoys me. Bad behaviour is not okay.


Not even if it's by "our guy" and we're winning. The fact that some people think it is explains why our society is so degraded.

Foreign troll farms


I remember reading long ago, before there was an internet, about how the CIA had initiated a psychological warfare program and were testing it out. When an army captain expressed skepticism that it could do any good the CIA planted a story in the base newspaper that the wife of one of the officers had been raped. The resulting consternation changed the captain's mind. Fast forward to the twenty first century and we find foreign trolls spreading misinformation by posing as ordinary Joes updating their social media statuses.


You don't need to imagine what sort of impact they could have, that ship has sailed away with the US election and the Brexit vote. Result: end of America as sole superpower confirmed by Putin the puppetmaster. Whether or not a regime change will reverse this has yet to be seen but in a world where people openly laugh at Trump's hubris at the UN it will be a while before America gets its credibility back.

Blowback


These operations didn't come out of nowhere. They're the end result of decades of Western interference in Russian affairs.


Needless to say, they've brought that "expertise" with them onto the internet. Result: troll farms on our soil groomed and influenced by foreign state actors.

Media capture


The majority of the UK media is owned by six entities.

In Britain and Ireland, Rupert Murdoch owns best-selling tabloid The Sun as well as the broadsheet The Times and Sunday Times, and 39% of satellite broadcasting network BSkyB. In March 2011, the United Kingdom provisionally approved Murdoch to buy the remaining 61% of BSkyB;[83] however, subsequent events (News of the World hacking scandal and its closure in July 2011) leading to the Leveson Inquiry have halted this takeover.
Trinity Mirror own five major national titles, the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The Sunday People, and the Scottish Sunday Mail and Daily Record as well as over 100 regional newspapers. They claim to have a monthly digital reach of 73 million people.
Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) own the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, Ireland on Sunday, and free London daily Metro, and control a large proportion of regional media, including through subsidiary Northcliffe Media, in addition to large shares in ITN and GCap Media.
The Guardian is owned by Guardian Media Group.
Richard Desmond owns OK! magazine, the Daily Express, and the Daily Star. He used to own Channel 5; on 1 May 2014 the channel was acquired by Viacom for £450 million (US$759 million).[3]
The Evening Standard[84] and former print publication The Independent[85] are both owned by Russian businessman and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev. - Wikipedia

The majority of these is avowedly right wing. Even the nominally independent BBC has swung right, as evidenced here:


When they start giving more airtime to counter-speech I'll take that twaddle about exposing Bannon's twisted ideology to sunlight the better to oppose it. I came to that conclusion after reading that Tony Blair wants to build bridges to him for the same reason. Are you kidding me??! Presenting Bannon's views as part of everyday political discourse helps to normalise nastiness. That said, his views are the endgame of right wing thinking.

Since most of our media is right wing and they're presenting extremists as normal people with views that require detailed discussion, we shouldn't be surprised by the fact that people on the right are telling us to dial back our criticism of the Saudis over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.


We also shouldn't be surprised that calls to Do Something result in mass censorship in an effort to curtail egregiously nasty behaviour online.


Needless to say, this results in even more bad behaviour as frustrated people complain that they can't say anything any more. Presenting oneself as a victim and "the winner" is one of the tried-and-tested methods that extremists use to get people on board. When the press picks that up and uncritically runs with it, weird things happen:

Daniel HoSang says some people of color are drawn to the far-right because they “identify with the military, with nationalism, with patriotism, with conservatism.”
Wearing a Proud Boys hat, David Nopal, 23, came to the Seattle rally alone, like others. Nopal, whose parents crossed illegally from Mexico, said, “I’m very patriotic. The U.S. isn’t perfect, but we are a hell of a lot better than other countries.” - Why Young Men of Color Are Joining White-Supremacist Groups, by Arun Gupta for the Daily Beast
It was bad enough watching an epileptic plump for Brexit even though it's messing with the NHS now on the grounds that the Financial Times, the only paper he ever reads, is mostly in favour of it. He hasn't moved his money into an offshore account because he's a small landlord and barely makes ends meet as it is. Now this? But, like our POC Proud Boys, he doesn't think for himself.

Conclusion


If the main reasons for nasty attitudes being normal is that people don't think for themselves and just blindly accept what their media sources tell them things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. The removal of Paul Dacre from the Daily Mail is a good start, they're reporting the news, rather than "the propaganda" these days. However, what we need to do is encourage people to think for themselves, and that begins with compassion, logic, and the acceptance of empiricism as the arbiter of reality. This will hopefully result in a world in which we reward integrity, not mendacity, and selflessness, not selfishness. It's what I do in every blog post and I hope you will join me. Together, we can make a difference. Believe it as you work towards it.



*think of it as Basic Income for the poor.
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