thezeit-blog1

[thezeit-blog1]

The Tragedy of the Middle Class

There is something deeply twisted about the way that ordinary people support policies that line the coffers of the wealthiest in the country. It is a sickening thing to observe to someone who knows that this is not only unhelpful but actively damaging to us all. It is akin to watching the sheep voting for the wolves to mind them as they sleep.  The middle-class was a term that applied to the better off and better educated, comprised of the professionals or business persons; those that did not participate in manual labour. Now though, the term ‘middle-class’ should be entirely obsolete. It no longer means anything useful. As the economy has developed and the UK has moved towards a service/ knowledge based economy, what we feel fits the criterion of being middle-class has expanded to incorporate almost everyone as the manufacturing industry has declined and been outsourced. This fact has been seized upon by the media and their wealthy, powerful owners in order to sell an idea of wealth and hope which is unrealistic to the masses. Because everyone thinks they are wealthy, or could be, they are more resistant to socialist policies because they think they are benefiting from the GDP figures they hear on the news. The money made by the country is the money made by them. But it isn’t. It hasn’t been this way for 30 years. The wealth of those deemed to be ‘middle-class’ has been stagnant in real terms since Thatcher.

As is the case with the American dream across the pond, the hope of people to raise above their situation is manipulated by those that are already affluent. The fact that ordinary American’s supported the abolition of  the ‘death tax’ after a extensive media onslaught by the wealthy is perhaps the most famous example. This tax only applies to 0.2% of Americans. This is a cruel and perverse manipulation of ordinary people.

#politics #pom16

[thezeit-blog1]

Why we need more racism

My wise and dear friend chastised me for saying the inflammatory statement above. His opinion on the matter was that by being deliberately provoking with this phrase, despite my intentions to make a wider point about offence itself, I was being patronising. I wish to agree entirely with his assessment and publicly state that I sincerely respect his input. The offence I will no doubt cause is therefore in spite of his best efforts. So that being said...

 GAGGED PEOPLE STILL THINK

If you shut people up, you close the argument down. But this isn’t where the argument stops. This isn’t conditioning, you do not get to eliminate discussion entirely. The downfall of Communist and Totalitarian states has, thankfully, been in large part due to the presence of those that cannot be silenced. Maybe 95% can be goose-stepped into submission but that 5% which is remaining will no doubt be the most pissed off and the most determined of the whole bunch. These are the people you really want to watch out for. In order to keep these people in check you’ll need something more determined than video footage of King-jong-un single-handedly fighting off American Imperialism with only a winning smile and his big-boy pants.

 HOW NOT TO BUILD A TOTALITARIAN STATE

Posters, video and photo-shoots are all very well and good but any structure without a margin-for-error is highly vulnerable. What’s really needed is a way of accommodating and placating these rebellious intentions. Yes, you may be able to kill a lot of them but eventually even your allies will start questioning your benevolent intentions as the chairs at the table get emptier every week. These resistant minorities exist in every system, in every society and in every time and place. They are not necessarily those we might consider to have the best intentions, sometimes they are resistant to the idea of democracy, sometimes they have nationalist sentiments and sometimes they may very well be racist. The totalitarian state is an apt comparison because that is essentially what we are attempting to create. We have tried to construct an inclusive totalitarian state in the form of language. It is an attempt at thought control but couldn’t be further from it.

 WHERE WE ARE HEADING

We have tried to plug the holes in the boat with fingers and masking tape whilst the water steadily rises around us. This stubborn 5% will not be shut-up and so the system is in turmoil as those that were once friends of the system begin to fear for themselves as the seats at the table evaporate. Eventually the 5% begins to grow as the demands of the well intentioned ‘liberal’ demagogues increases exponentially. Town councils start to wonder whether they should ban the word ‘blackboard’ in schools (a real thing that happened). Citizens feel that they cannot legitimately question whether certain towns have taken the noble attempt to integrate communities to such an extent where the cultures of the original occupiers feel under threat. As the demands grow and the debate shuts down, those that feel they are threatened by the regime begin to increase and they wonder whether they themselves are the ones that will soon be attacked. As Trevor Philips, the equality campaigner, has pointed out, those that are not necessarily racist begin to believe themselves to be so. They count themselves among the oppressed minority and soon the 5% begins to swell. As with the downfall of communist states, as with the downfall of inclusive societies. Soon we find that elections with seemingly predictable outcomes begin to defy the pollsters as the oppressed ranks attempt to throw off the shackles of those that constrain them in the unmonitored space of the voting booth. Whether these new politicians stand for them is truly doubtful, but they stand against the ‘political class’ and so they gladly throw in their lot with those that seek to overthrow a system that threatens the people with whom they now identify.

 It is only with debate and the accommodation of these ideas that they can be confronted. It is better to be offended and confront the content than ban the words and see the rebellion grow.

#pom16 #rant #politics

[thezeit-blog1]

Elitism and non-words

In this post I intend to briefly argue that the term ‘elitism’ has become a non-word. What I mean by a non-word is a term that is too often utilised in casual political discussion as an emotive short-hand for ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. What is a political non-word and why are they important? Political non-words are rhetorical hand grenades, thrown without due care or sensitivity. I consider the term ‘freedom’ to be another such example. Both words are so excessively laden with emotive triggers that the mere mentioning of them- or in the case of freedom, the perceived restrictions upon it- that they essentially become a short-hand for intrinsically wrong. This is a dangerous misconception that plays into the hands of hacks, the politically ambitious rather than sincere, and, more generally, those that seek to propagate issue politics at the expense of core ideals. The danger of the use of such words is that they crumble under close inspection, as do the ideals that rest upon them. Far worse, they too often close down constructive debate entirely. The term ‘elitism’ The problems with this specific word might best be examined by considering this question: how might one eliminate elitism? The problem is that the term is so broad that it resists specific application to things we might consider good or bad. When we elect a political class we are essentially creating a political elite, albeit a democratically elected one. When we suggest that those with high educational qualifications have attained a level of knowledge beyond our own, or that they could be learned from, we have tacitly agreed to the establishment of an elite. These are still elites mind you, the difference here is that we consider these to be socially acceptable elites because they have been ‘earned’ their status or because we consider them to be of benefit to society as a whole. The point however is this: that some forms of elitism are acceptable, or even encouraged, in our society. Elitism and being patronised Perhaps the concern is that the term elitism has come to mean patronising. When in a previous lecture I was accused of being ‘elitist’ for my assertion that we cannot make the presumption that individuals on lower incomes are always capable of digging themselves out of a poverty trap, I was being told that I was being condescending. So what falls under the banner of condescension? If someone falls down in the street and I attempt to help them up is that an act of condescension? Am I presuming that they cannot do so themselves? In other words, when does the help or defense of an individual cross over into being patronising? Whilst this is perhaps a fine line it should be easy to see however, that there are some occasions where help can be offered but without intending offence. Nor should one feel justified in feeling offence in all such situations. Micro versus Macro If I was to proclaim that the continent of Africa required the removal of all debt obligations to dig itself out of poverty, would my actions be negatively or positively portrayed? What if I said the continent of Africa required increased levels of education in order to foster entrepreneurial talent? How about if I spoke to a lone woman from Chad and told her she was uneducated, most likely not entrepreneurial and required my help to remove herself from poverty? There is a great deal of difference between what is acceptable when speaking to a group or an individual. To speak of something as being unrealistic for all to do and for a single individual to achieve is on an entirely different scale. The two should not be confused. The malicious function of non-words

The problems with the use of these non-words are that they obstruct true intellectual analysis. They are a synchronised shoulder shrug: ‘America can’t enact public healthcare because it would obstruct freedom and liberty.’  ‘The criticising of our foreign policy is un-patriotic’. 

The debate grinds to a crawl at the use of these non-words. These terms are recycled rhetoric and it is creeping into casual discourse.

‘Those living in poverty are more likely to commit crime, less likely to instill their children with the skills to learn and are more likely to inherit poverty from their parents.’ If the tackling of this statement of unpalatable facts is met with a micro understanding of condescension, for a problem that exists on a macro scale, then we have shrugged our shoulders of our responsibility.

The real scare is that the parroting of such lines is of great benefit to the un-meritocratic elites that we would wish to rid ourselves of. It is a long held semi -truth that the individual can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Individual cases existing should not mean that the whole should be damned. This is the perpetuated myth of the American dream which is upheld by American elites and justifies the existence of the powerful; whether they inherited their wealth or not. The logical extrapolation of such a view is that those who are in poverty are there for a reason. That they are poorly educated because they are stupid not because they are poor. I would rather risk being condescending than let that happen.

#elitism #rant #pom16

[thezeit-blog1]

Testing

First blog post