Saturday 30 July 2011

Class and the lack of.

As i have made my way through the political blogosphere i have begun to notice certain things. Most importantly is how terribly middle class it is, oh sure, there is a left right divide, and there are some really smart people out there who knows where it is at, but when it comes to class, and all those areas that surround it, there is a genuine lack of real knowledge by experience.

Oh the right i grant its ridiculous, i mean most of those people have never seen a poor man, and those who have, have probably seen the extreme rural poor of South America or Africa, and this tends to mean they over-right the grievances of the poor at homes for they often do not realize the bleakness of estate existence and the strange kind of intelligence that it brings.

On the left however it is almost as bad, these people are not anti poor, but they certainly don't know what it is like to be in that position most of the time. Claiming benefits one day is not enough to understand it, because its not just about having poor income which too many people on the left fail to understand. This is worrying because it reduces our arguments firstly to abstract, and when things become abstract there is almost no point in arguing over it intellectually because all arguments can quickly become esoteric.

I am not much better, i am of middle class stock, but i lived in small houses most of my life, and i went to a proper state school, one that wasn't on the up but a ten year slump, and one which has spawned a lot of amazing music because of its heavy mix of working class kids, second generation immigrants and a sprinkling of the white middle classes, i but a lot of that cultural mixing for the successes of Hot Chip and the XX in recent years. I genuinely became friends with working class people, for many years, and although it might seem matter of factual to many, i still think it might be worth putting up a bit of what i learned.

1. Everyone knows people one way or another, i met people several estates over who could make links to friends of mine, the whole "say my name and they wont touch you" stuff actually worked. There is a huge emphasis on who knows who and because of this an estate is a highly socialized environment, as i suppose you may expect from such a lifestyle, but while middle class friends might have friends of friends that you can herald too, it is not the same as the smaller world that are these estates.

2. Look them in the eye and be honest, unless you don't know them and your on the street in which case avoid all contact. Okay first part. The whole middle class trying not to notice stuff has a major inferiority effect on a lot of people, it makes it look like you think your better than them, and almost all working class people believe that a little bit, they do feel inferior. And if you handle matters badly you will get words. So first things first, if there is some nicety you don't want to bring up with someone just say it, because they can tell your thinking something that isn't too nice and not talking is treating them like an idiot. On the other hand if this is someone you don't know on the street, don't make eye contact, especially if he is in the 13 to 19 bracket as it feels to them like your seriously disapproving of them. And there is a good chance that its gonna make them react, badly.

3. Arguments are fleeting. Obviously don't make anything an issue of respect or such, but remember that at times it might be better to get a bit loud and proud with this person. Its not that it will necessarily resolve the issue but they might get a bit of respect for you and its not gonna be held as a grudge anyway. So if its going that way over something silly, don't back down because you look like someone who doesn't deserve respect and push on because it wont be held against you later. So long as you don't go around looking for fights.

4. Be direct. All that word play bullshit from the middle class way of doing things doesn't count for shit here. You may as well say exactly what you think, how you think. Anything else just sounds like waffle and if there is one thing we learn from politics is that the public hate waffle.

If anyone for any reason comes across this i hope its of some help next time your down the Ash Burton estate, and remember, if any group starts giving you trouble, say Conor knows you.

Friday 29 July 2011

Phone Hacking

The News of the World Phone Hacking Scandal is in many ways a symptom of the rise of market based negative liberty, the idea that the public show what is in their interest by putting their money in it. This is probably a much more genuine feeling within these boardrooms than we might wish to think, and it is to be expected considering the trend of business elites (though other groups are guilty.) to recast themselves as public servants by offering the public what they want. In many ways this is the final destination of Hayek's theories, all our desires are fulfilled by the invisible hand of the market.

While the actions committed could be considered horrific we must understand that these are corporations, and it is the duty of the corporation to maximise profits, if doing such low things were what was necessary to sell papers, then that is what it must do. We should not expect anything more of them, not until either those founding laws are changed or we move to a different style of economy. But remember if a company has to choose between breaking human lives and losing money, they will take the former, it is what they are supposed to only care about after all, anything else is a deviation from the expectations of the shareholder, which leads them open to a tidal wave of lawsuits. 

What might be most telling about the whole affair is how the Right have sought to turn this into Lefty bitching, which considering the range of phone hacking scandals is a rather disgusting move on their part, I think it suggests that other tabloids have been involved in similar illicit activity and there is genuine fear that they might get uncovered, I speak on this because I remember talking to a more conservative friend of mine, who talks while half laughing about his work with the conservative party. - "It is all one big gentlemen’s club, they cover each others backs, but the moment it gets impossible to deny, it all becomes fair game."  I think we are hitting a part where this one exposed secret might leak onto a few others if the Right are already getting so riled up over Murdoch bashing as they seem to be forgetting that this company in fact ruined scores of lives for no reason other than short term profits.

Still, we cannot expect any different from them, the sooner we realize this the sooner we can move on to getting something genuinely better, and i do not mean some kind of peer review system, the masses of corporate atrocities of the last few decades, are showing increasingly that the corporation is not some divine instrument of our holy market, merely a psychopath whose only thought about you is how to get you to give them more of your money.

Media and Politics: Mutual Problems

I may be an egalitarian along economic principles but in terms of social interactions I am all about equity. By this I mean that in public debate, from governance to science, such matters cannot be subjected to the tyranny of the majority. While it is necessary that everyone is both involved and contributing to society, and we should all have an equal say come Election Day, we should not simply go with public preconceptions, it is that thinking that has lead to the stagnation of western civilization as we know it today.

The Press by the 1960's was a force of morality; the reporters put a moral to their story as they tried to make sense of what was occurring in the world for those at home. As the 60's progressed many new entrants to the field of journalism were believes in the core values of the 60's and sought to change the world is showing the injustices abroad to spur domestic audiences into action. A good example of this would be the Biafra civil war in Nigeria where the Starving African motif was developed and has since been used to spur the aid campaigns for decades. What began was a moralizing the world were there became good (War Victims and Rebels primarily) and bad (Western Backed dictatorships and general totalitarianism).

As for the Domestic front, well by the 70's the same basic moral system was developing as a narrative, a slew of expose's on various old established institutions (Unions, Police forces, Hospitals and businesses) began to show that while many of these vanguards to society were supposed to look after us, some were, and many could be greedy and self interested, putting us at risk.  Though done with the best interests, what this would gradually create was a kind of pseudo egalitarianism and appraisal of individuality that would erode the ideals of the welfare state but more importantly serve to ultimately paralyze both Journalism and Politics as a force for good.

How this occurred was largely by politicians and journalists being consumed in their own fire. Firstly the rise of the New Right, now there are many forces at play here, such as Evangelical Christians and the Lower Middle classes depending on country. But I would say what largely triggered this was the resurgence of classical liberalism under the guise of modernity of Neoliberals. It is basically the same thing as classical liberalism never mind the guff, it’s about equity over equality, of there being no more than the individual and powers (And I mean all powers but mainly state in this context) must be limited to ensure the liberty of the individual. How did it come back? Reagan and Thatcher, both cast themselves as political outsiders, untainted by the establishment who were going to come in and liberate the creative’s in our society so that their work could better everyone. I won't go into the fallacies of that today, but the point here is that it was a throw back of the 60's, tearing down the old institutions so that power would be wielded by the forces of change, which were driven by the promise of reward of the sweat of their own brow.

The Right were then in part lucky and in part just impressive in a dark, depressing sort of way. This was a potent combination that would tap into the aspirations of many skilled working classes and many more artsy middle class left voters who had been educated by the same ideas that came from the 60's. This was followed up in England by the selling off of council homes which made a lot of the working classes wealth holders for the first time as they bought their homes cheap but could sell them for a much higher price as the market readjusted. Meanwhile the Unions were defeated, old press moguls were forced out while new more aggressive business types moved in like Murdoch. Both Thatcher and Murdoch despised the idea of elitism and saw it as nothing but self serving cliques disguised as public servants. Though no hard time can be pinned down I would say that as we neared the end of the 80's what we had seen was a beaten system, the state had been thrown into disrepute first by journalists then by oligarchs and ministers. Since then, people have had increasing lack of faith in politicians, the Oligarchs of Neoliberals have steadily grown more unpopular and now in light of the Phone Hacking Scandal we begin to see the last vestiges of respect for the journalistic establishment (At the very least on the tabloid side) worn away. Still, to understand why it has taken 20 years for this to occur, well, it was simply a longer journey, but I still cannot help but feel that as it is they who report the news it is also they who can paint themselves in the best light.

The Long Journey starts with the death of morality in journalism. The Rwandan Genocides are where the moral vision of journalism came crashing to an end, this was a situation where both groups within disgusting fault, Hutu and Tutsi had both engaged in a disgusting genocide conflict that had wrought untold destruction on Rwanda and general instability on the region. In this mess, there became no way to moralise and without such a narrative to follow the Journalists began to loose their power. When they lost their power, the same virus of individual freedom began to take hold.

You see while Neoliberals holds many factors akin to that of Classical Liberalism, it probably holds more in similarity with that of Isaiah Berlins Negative liberty only held in an absolutist manner. You see when it turned out elites were all allegedly self interested and the Individual was raised above all else all that then mattered was satisfying one’s self interest. The game became an acceptance that everyone was basically greedy and so we needed to strike a balance of mutual self interest, everything became a transaction, I mean today what we hear about hospitals is often rather eerie. Patients have become consumers and Doctors have become providers, they are now selling a service, the Doctor has no elevated status as a healer, he is just another provider.

The Individual has become the consumer, the consumer only wishes his needs be satisfied, but he alone will decide what he needs, and he is his own small god. This is truly a disastrous thing to happen in the modern age for us, because while I do not believe you need overarching authority to be a moral person I do think that when people are never challenged on their preconceptions you get stagnation. Right now we have so many ineffective policies that are just impossible to resolve by a matter of rational discourse, take Drugs policy, it is no more than a money trap, most experts agree that many drugs are not nearly as harmful as public preconceptions have of them and even those that are not are not being dealt with by a "war" on drugs. Yes we go on, with cross party consensus. We are spilling billions into a campaign that is not even getting results and no-one questions it, because that would go up against peoples wishes. Journalists have almost utterly given up in offering real opinions, most of journalism now is rigid left right biases and even those are contradictory positions to hold in many ways, you certainly can't deviate from the mean.

I suppose the final destination of this has been the stat isocracy we have today. Ultimately the real political power is in statistics companies as they monitor public opinion to which politicians will act accordingly, which I reiterate is a bad thing, many people were deeply against decriminalising homosexuality in the 1970's but in the face of this Roy Jenkins still did it, and it was the right thing to do, very few would dispute that today. But without people brave enough to do the right thing we will be stuck in a world of sophistries, where what is important is how something is conveyed not how correct something is. This is why above all we need equity in ideas, without the brightest in their fields being listened too we will end up with a lot of very flawed preconceptions that may have no bearing on how our society actually operates.

Phew that took a while, thanks for bearing with me on this; I wanted this to be out before I did anything more relevant to what is going on today as it can act as a reference point to future articles.