Good old Mary H. She provided as fine a summary of our current disenfranchisement as I’ve read anywhere. There’s no end of books, filled with labored prose, that try to say in 200 pages what she managed in under 3000 words.
If I read her article correctly, she ended with a suggestion that some sort of pushback to our political disenfranchisement is underway. I don’t see it. Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.
For me, the defining event of the past decade was not Brexit or Trump, but the passive way most ordinary people in the West accepted covid lockdown (after lockdown after lockdown) and other impositions on our liberty. We really were “sheeple”. You can bet the “elites” noticed.
People complied with lockdowns for two reasons – they were not optional, and were also they right approach at the time. You’re right to mention covid however, because that was an unfortunate intervention that derailed the Johnson post Brexit government and the plans they had. That may or may not have been successful, but I’m certain the political landscape and nation state described above would be unrecognisable from what it is today, and that is a distopian wilderness across all parties.
The fact that lockdown were not optional is neither here nor there. If the people hadn’t complied, they wouldn’t even have started.
As to their necessity, well… What can I say. After the first scare at the very beginning, all they produced was partygate.
Only those who believed in the right of the state to act as a jailer complied. Like many I was forced . After that I lost permanently all respect for and interest in the state and the politics of the state. I went like many underground and there I still am. Life then becomes clear and confusion ends.
My loyalty is to the land itself and no more to those who rule it.
Only those who believed in the right of the state to act as a jailer complied. Like many I was forced . After that I lost permanently all respect for and interest in the state and the politics of the state. I went like many underground and there I still am. Life then becomes clear and confusion ends.
My loyalty is to the land itself and no more to those who rule it.
Lockdowns were not the right approach at the the time.
You cannot stop a virus, it is better to let everyone acquire natural immunity.
For most people the COOF was no worse than a nasty cold.
The lockdowns were driven by ego maniacs like Hancock who belongs in jail.
Good Lord, after all we’ve been through and here we actually have more than one person who thinks the natural immunity approach was the correct one. You crazy people, you.
I’m not crazy.
Natural immunity is a FACT.
You haven’t been keeping up.
Just about everyone now realises that the
government’s approach was seriously flawed and yet here we are with people like you STILL stuck in the past and ignoring reality.
What is wrong with you ?
People like you are dangerous, your stupidity and ignorance and blind acceptance of the government diktats puts EVERYONE in danger.
Er, methinks you’ve been asleep in this debate. Firstly Sweden never had a lockdown, and has had one of the better covid records. Peru did and one of the highest rates of mortality.
People would have responded by limiting contact anyway but this would not have been a blunt legal instrument incapable of dealing with individual circumstance.
I’m not crazy.
Natural immunity is a FACT.
You haven’t been keeping up.
Just about everyone now realises that the
government’s approach was seriously flawed and yet here we are with people like you STILL stuck in the past and ignoring reality.
What is wrong with you ?
People like you are dangerous, your stupidity and ignorance and blind acceptance of the government diktats puts EVERYONE in danger.
Er, methinks you’ve been asleep in this debate. Firstly Sweden never had a lockdown, and has had one of the better covid records. Peru did and one of the highest rates of mortality.
People would have responded by limiting contact anyway but this would not have been a blunt legal instrument incapable of dealing with individual circumstance.
Good Lord, after all we’ve been through and here we actually have more than one person who thinks the natural immunity approach was the correct one. You crazy people, you.
Just exactly what plans did Johnson’s administration have ?
To complete BREXIT, to stop the boats ?
Johnson was only in government for his own sake not the people of Britain.
The fact that lockdown were not optional is neither here nor there. If the people hadn’t complied, they wouldn’t even have started.
As to their necessity, well… What can I say. After the first scare at the very beginning, all they produced was partygate.
Lockdowns were not the right approach at the the time.
You cannot stop a virus, it is better to let everyone acquire natural immunity.
For most people the COOF was no worse than a nasty cold.
The lockdowns were driven by ego maniacs like Hancock who belongs in jail.
Just exactly what plans did Johnson’s administration have ?
To complete BREXIT, to stop the boats ?
Johnson was only in government for his own sake not the people of Britain.
Read ‘Eugypius’ who reports the reaction of the German political elites to the acceptance of lockdowns, masking etc. Public opinion, they note, can – and should – easily be reformed by nudging and appeals to safety.
‘Climate’ of course is next on the menu.
Yes, and that was the point of the exercise. It was a compliance experiment, and those who imposed it got what they wanted. Now they can move in any direction they wish (and it won’t be a positive, healthy thing for society), because too many simply did what they were told, unquestioningly. Those who did ask questions were vilified, often by their very own families. Now that it’s obvious to even the most willing believers that the Covid response wasn’t really a response at all, but a test, it’s too late.
I agree but unless you’re quite new to UnHerd you must have encountered this here before, with much doubling and “tripling down” of late. The imperfectness and extremity of the anti-Covid response is treated by some as conclusive evidence of a sinister global conspiracy, while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. These views often come from otherwise sensible commenters, and going against the anti-vax herd will earn you reliable downvotes. Cheers.
Oh I’m fully aware of the herd that comes across from TCW with this stuff, it’s an echo chamber of extremities that has no place in a more intellectual arena.
“while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. ”
THERE IS NOT A MASSIVELY HIGHER DEATH COUNT AMONG THE UNVACCINATED.
THAT IS A LIE AND THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.
What is wrong with people like you ?
Why are you shouting in all caps as if that does anything but establish your head-on-fire intemperance about the whole issue, while revealing your deep emotional and ideological investment in being right against any and all evidence?
Not that it can make a dent in your zealotry, but there’s a link to detailed documentation below.
Why not use caps ?
Because some of the posters here are a bit dense and it might help them.
You have no evidence against what I say and neither does Roobie K.
Is the government Behaviour Insights Team paying you two stooges ?
BECAUSE IT IS RUDE DUDE. And doesn’t help to make your case outside of the rabid anti-vax herd you clearly belong to. You can’t even glance at the data I spoon-fed you below. That pretty well proves your eyes and mind are not open and that attempting to use logic or data to persuade you is a waste of time. Perhaps your unhinged, far-right sources will eventually come around and provide you with backtracking evidence in a form you’re able to accept. Until then, good luck using ranting and raging as form of desperate psychological self-soothing.
RUDE ?
Who cares?
Go on do tell me.
What is far right, you commie ?
You are the one ranting and RK started this by calling Allison’s post garbage.
Get off your high horse you prig.
Quoting a report or a set stats is not evidence.
It depends who authored it.
Dear me – too many shouty-crackers posters being allowed into a formerly sensible forum. People shout because they are unwilling to listen: online, in the pub or anywhere else. A few months ago silly people like this who strayed into Unherd were simply ignored & took their megaphone ‘diplomacy’ elsewhere. If you engage with them you only encourage the nastiness. Let them stew with their own kind on cruder forums…
RUDE ?
Who cares?
Go on do tell me.
What is far right, you commie ?
You are the one ranting and RK started this by calling Allison’s post garbage.
Get off your high horse you prig.
Quoting a report or a set stats is not evidence.
It depends who authored it.
Dear me – too many shouty-crackers posters being allowed into a formerly sensible forum. People shout because they are unwilling to listen: online, in the pub or anywhere else. A few months ago silly people like this who strayed into Unherd were simply ignored & took their megaphone ‘diplomacy’ elsewhere. If you engage with them you only encourage the nastiness. Let them stew with their own kind on cruder forums…
BECAUSE IT IS RUDE DUDE. And doesn’t help to make your case outside of the rabid anti-vax herd you clearly belong to. You can’t even glance at the data I spoon-fed you below. That pretty well proves your eyes and mind are not open and that attempting to use logic or data to persuade you is a waste of time. Perhaps your unhinged, far-right sources will eventually come around and provide you with backtracking evidence in a form you’re able to accept. Until then, good luck using ranting and raging as form of desperate psychological self-soothing.
I don’t have a “deep and emotional and idealogical investment in being right”.
I really don’t care what you or RK think.
There is no point in me arguing with fools
but I’d call you out anyway.
I certainly venture outside the mainstream media, which should be evident by my presence here alone. But why make the opposite mistake of consuming an only MSM diet by crediting everything that floats inside your bubble? The lunatic fringe may provide an interesting counterweight to establishment tunnel-vision, but rabbit holes have unreliable perspectives too.
This has been a largely useless exchange and I’ll take a portion of the responsibility for that. We should all resist believing everything we think. Not every opinion is a gem, nor does even the most thorough and conscientious research reliably produce a complete truth.
I certainly venture outside the mainstream media, which should be evident by my presence here alone. But why make the opposite mistake of consuming an only MSM diet by crediting everything that floats inside your bubble? The lunatic fringe may provide an interesting counterweight to establishment tunnel-vision, but rabbit holes have unreliable perspectives too.
This has been a largely useless exchange and I’ll take a portion of the responsibility for that. We should all resist believing everything we think. Not every opinion is a gem, nor does even the most thorough and conscientious research reliably produce a complete truth.
‘MD’ in Private Eye has also been very informative in his coverage of the COVID situation Imo. He is also a working GP, which means he is a knowledgeable and experienced person, something I greatly appreciate, as it’s so very hard to find reliable information these days. It doesn’t of course mean he’s right about everything, but it does at least mean there is a greater likelihood of what he says being accurate and of value.
Thanks for this recommendation. I’ve found a YouTube video of Dr. Phil Hammond (anonymity gone) being interviewed by Simon Wessely for RSM. I think Hammond is almost unknown here in the States, though I can’t speak for the whole nation. I really appreciated his good humor and fairmindedness, exemplified by his willingness to admit error, such as leaving up a bad Covid-prediction tweet from January, 2020. I also admire his self-described guiding ethic: “intelligent kindness”, something he says has become more important to him as he’s gotten (this usage is considered correct on this continent) older. “Is it intelligent and is it kind? It’s that simple really”. Pretty close to that simple, I think–a good reminder for many, me included. I’ll look for his opinions and jokes from now on. Thanks, Mr. Butcher.
A zinger that Wessely quoted from Hammond’s writing: “The British thirst for freedom, individualism, and ignoring experts gives us great art and comedy but dreadful infection control”!
That applies just about as well to the US I’d say. After all, we did start out as a group of (mostly) English colonists raising their flag on an inhabited continent that was declared “unsettled”. Cheers.
Thanks for this recommendation. I’ve found a YouTube video of Dr. Phil Hammond (anonymity gone) being interviewed by Simon Wessely for RSM. I think Hammond is almost unknown here in the States, though I can’t speak for the whole nation. I really appreciated his good humor and fairmindedness, exemplified by his willingness to admit error, such as leaving up a bad Covid-prediction tweet from January, 2020. I also admire his self-described guiding ethic: “intelligent kindness”, something he says has become more important to him as he’s gotten (this usage is considered correct on this continent) older. “Is it intelligent and is it kind? It’s that simple really”. Pretty close to that simple, I think–a good reminder for many, me included. I’ll look for his opinions and jokes from now on. Thanks, Mr. Butcher.
A zinger that Wessely quoted from Hammond’s writing: “The British thirst for freedom, individualism, and ignoring experts gives us great art and comedy but dreadful infection control”!
That applies just about as well to the US I’d say. After all, we did start out as a group of (mostly) English colonists raising their flag on an inhabited continent that was declared “unsettled”. Cheers.
Why not use caps ?
Because some of the posters here are a bit dense and it might help them.
You have no evidence against what I say and neither does Roobie K.
Is the government Behaviour Insights Team paying you two stooges ?
I don’t have a “deep and emotional and idealogical investment in being right”.
I really don’t care what you or RK think.
There is no point in me arguing with fools
but I’d call you out anyway.
‘MD’ in Private Eye has also been very informative in his coverage of the COVID situation Imo. He is also a working GP, which means he is a knowledgeable and experienced person, something I greatly appreciate, as it’s so very hard to find reliable information these days. It doesn’t of course mean he’s right about everything, but it does at least mean there is a greater likelihood of what he says being accurate and of value.
Why are you shouting in all caps as if that does anything but establish your head-on-fire intemperance about the whole issue, while revealing your deep emotional and ideological investment in being right against any and all evidence?
Not that it can make a dent in your zealotry, but there’s a link to detailed documentation below.
He doesn’t because there is none. The reason being that the authorities refuse to release the data because they know full well it will blow the myth of higher deaths among the unvaccinated out of the water.
There’s some pretty thorough data here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
If you have the time and inclination, check out the death differentials among older patients.
Nothing that is known or can be known will persuade an anti-vax fundamentalist or head-on-fire alarmist, nor establish a full defense of the government response to Covid, especially the duration of some measures. I think there were points of overreach in how the thing was handled, and multiple legitimate grievances (mostly around long-term, forced shutdowns and prohibitions on voluntary gathering).
But there is infinitely more evidence of worse outcomes for the unvaccinated (unless they would, in fact, “rather die” than get jabbed) than for any counterclaims of widespread, adverse effects from the jab, let alone the illuminati conspiracy lunacy that is commonly spouted here.
Not so.
The countries with the most people vaccinated had the worst outcomes.
We know that the vaccines are harming people though I suppose you would deny that.
Vaccination rates were higher in Europe than the US, which had worse per-capita and total mortality. Vaccines can harm people but it quite rare, and far, far less of a risk for most (with significant exception for certain patients) than being un-shielded against severe Covid, especially if you are old or very fat, or both.
Vaccination rates were higher in Europe than the US, which had worse per-capita and total mortality. Vaccines can harm people but it quite rare, and far, far less of a risk for most (with significant exception for certain patients) than being un-shielded against severe Covid, especially if you are old or very fat, or both.
Not it isn’t. Your insistent and seemingly angry assertions don’t make anything true or untrue, however thoroughly you’ve convinced yourself that they do.
Stop projecting.
You are the emotional one, you cannot accept that you are so behind the curve that you don’t know what’s going on.
I’m not angry, I just like to point out when people wrong or lying.
.
Stop projecting.
You are the emotional one, you cannot accept that you are so behind the curve that you don’t know what’s going on.
I’m not angry, I just like to point out when people wrong or lying.
.
Not it isn’t. Your insistent and seemingly angry assertions don’t make anything true or untrue, however thoroughly you’ve convinced yourself that they do.
Not so.
The countries with the most people vaccinated had the worst outcomes.
We know that the vaccines are harming people though I suppose you would deny that.
He doesn’t because there is none. The reason being that the authorities refuse to release the data because they know full well it will blow the myth of higher deaths among the unvaccinated out of the water.
There’s some pretty thorough data here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
If you have the time and inclination, check out the death differentials among older patients.
Nothing that is known or can be known will persuade an anti-vax fundamentalist or head-on-fire alarmist, nor establish a full defense of the government response to Covid, especially the duration of some measures. I think there were points of overreach in how the thing was handled, and multiple legitimate grievances (mostly around long-term, forced shutdowns and prohibitions on voluntary gathering).
But there is infinitely more evidence of worse outcomes for the unvaccinated (unless they would, in fact, “rather die” than get jabbed) than for any counterclaims of widespread, adverse effects from the jab, let alone the illuminati conspiracy lunacy that is commonly spouted here.
I wouldn’t say he’s simply a villain but I do accept that he seems a bit sinister or untrustworthy–I wish he had fewer billions to himself, just as do with Musk and Bezos.
I wouldn’t say he’s simply a villain but I do accept that he seems a bit sinister or untrustworthy–I wish he had fewer billions to himself, just as do with Musk and Bezos.
It’s easy to reject the view that there are a few sinister and controlling individuals conspiring, less easy to reject the view that what people are sensing is an emergent phenomenon of structures of control which are insulated from influence by a wider public in the traditional democratic sense.
There are those on both sides who become irritated because they can only imagine such control as being reified and embodied in definable individuals. They miss the point.
That seems true enough to me. And I’ll even accept your implication that I’m among those missing the point, in some measure. I’m just not sure what specific, less-structurally-insulated time you’d like to return to. The surveillance state and globalized mega-interests are a newish and ominous development indeed. But I think there’s an underlying, oft-hidden or insulated Us within every large-scale Us vs. Them formulation. In other words, “they” are not simply doing it to “us”. We are participating, tacitly consenting, and many of us deriving selfish benefits from the structures we deride.
That seems true enough to me. And I’ll even accept your implication that I’m among those missing the point, in some measure. I’m just not sure what specific, less-structurally-insulated time you’d like to return to. The surveillance state and globalized mega-interests are a newish and ominous development indeed. But I think there’s an underlying, oft-hidden or insulated Us within every large-scale Us vs. Them formulation. In other words, “they” are not simply doing it to “us”. We are participating, tacitly consenting, and many of us deriving selfish benefits from the structures we deride.
Oh I’m fully aware of the herd that comes across from TCW with this stuff, it’s an echo chamber of extremities that has no place in a more intellectual arena.
“while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. ”
THERE IS NOT A MASSIVELY HIGHER DEATH COUNT AMONG THE UNVACCINATED.
THAT IS A LIE AND THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.
What is wrong with people like you ?
It’s easy to reject the view that there are a few sinister and controlling individuals conspiring, less easy to reject the view that what people are sensing is an emergent phenomenon of structures of control which are insulated from influence by a wider public in the traditional democratic sense.
There are those on both sides who become irritated because they can only imagine such control as being reified and embodied in definable individuals. They miss the point.
Concerned? Are you afraid they might contaminate you in some way? Perhaps – just maybe – they’ve seen or understood something you haven’t or done so from a different perspective? We can do better than this.
I agree but unless you’re quite new to UnHerd you must have encountered this here before, with much doubling and “tripling down” of late. The imperfectness and extremity of the anti-Covid response is treated by some as conclusive evidence of a sinister global conspiracy, while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. These views often come from otherwise sensible commenters, and going against the anti-vax herd will earn you reliable downvotes. Cheers.
Concerned? Are you afraid they might contaminate you in some way? Perhaps – just maybe – they’ve seen or understood something you haven’t or done so from a different perspective? We can do better than this.
I’m not sure they’ll get away with it twice though.. the might I suppose. It just depends on whether the sheeple are stupid or complete cretins? I’d say the jury’s out on that one. Perhaps the next one will be “go to your bunkers and bring lots of baked beans and dehydrated water!”
To be honest I think it was much more banal than that- the sun was shining, and a lot of people were glad to stay at home and not go to their soul destroying jobs. A street near me that’s usually crawling with cars was full of families bicycling in the sunshine – it was a beautiful thing, despite the madness going on elsewhere.
To be honest I think it was much more banal than that- the sun was shining, and a lot of people were glad to stay at home and not go to their soul destroying jobs. A street near me that’s usually crawling with cars was full of families bicycling in the sunshine – it was a beautiful thing, despite the madness going on elsewhere.
Surely it was more than compliance experiment by the elite here. Historians will note that the Covid derangment began the very week that the new Brexit/Tory government began. Yes, it was (media induced) total panic by the Fool Boris that began the nightmare, an act of self destruction. But when you observe the full two years of the nightmare and the pro lockdown behaviour of the State’s public health blob, teachers unions, Labour and the constant hysterical fear induction and lies of the always NHS First BBC and mainstream media, there can be no doubt that lockdown was willed by them as as extension of the Brex derangment mania that was poisoning our society. Not all were conscious Leninists, but many many were. The fact that the progressives in the Blob were all actually profitting from the WFH, savings boosting lockdown makes their willingness to cripple the private sector and drown the State in impossible debt an act of criminal vandalism. By the time the Fool Johnson, who saw Covid as a way to behave in a Churchillian way and ride high in frit public opinion, was shaken awake, the damage was done. But we know who the pro lockdown forces were. And all were Remainiacs. A visceral hatred of Brex was a key factor in the Blob’s two year suffocation of the Brexit economy. They had vowed it would be a disaster. Here, on day one, was their chance to make it so.
I’m not sure they’ll get away with it twice though.. the might I suppose. It just depends on whether the sheeple are stupid or complete cretins? I’d say the jury’s out on that one. Perhaps the next one will be “go to your bunkers and bring lots of baked beans and dehydrated water!”
Surely it was more than compliance experiment by the elite here. Historians will note that the Covid derangment began the very week that the new Brexit/Tory government began. Yes, it was (media induced) total panic by the Fool Boris that began the nightmare, an act of self destruction. But when you observe the full two years of the nightmare and the pro lockdown behaviour of the State’s public health blob, teachers unions, Labour and the constant hysterical fear induction and lies of the always NHS First BBC and mainstream media, there can be no doubt that lockdown was willed by them as as extension of the Brex derangment mania that was poisoning our society. Not all were conscious Leninists, but many many were. The fact that the progressives in the Blob were all actually profitting from the WFH, savings boosting lockdown makes their willingness to cripple the private sector and drown the State in impossible debt an act of criminal vandalism. By the time the Fool Johnson, who saw Covid as a way to behave in a Churchillian way and ride high in frit public opinion, was shaken awake, the damage was done. But we know who the pro lockdown forces were. And all were Remainiacs. A visceral hatred of Brex was a key factor in the Blob’s two year suffocation of the Brexit economy. They had vowed it would be a disaster. Here, on day one, was their chance to make it so.
‘Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.’
I think we can draw some hope from the actions of the trade unions in recent times, the crucibles of the nation state, unmentioned but heavily implied here in MH’s definition of a nation state as formed through industrialistation. Who else could she mean when she talks about ‘meaningful working-class ability to hold [the elite’s] feet to the fire?’ These are the last serious institutions of resistance against the erosion of our living standards, our sense of having a collective voice and the ability to control our borders, all reasons why both Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey voted Leave. This power to withdraw our labour is pretty well all we have in the face of this disenfranchisement, and judging by the government’s attempts to enforce minimum service requirements that would make our anti-trade union laws worse or as bad as Russia’s, the unions must still considered a threat. In other words, by MH’s own analysis, unions helped give us a nation state; maybe they can bring it back.
PS They also helped bring down the Soviet Union and are an essential part of civil society, like Burke’s little battalions (before one of you brands me as a crazy commie)
Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.
The ones who will be the most shocked at their downfall will be the educated, professional managerial class (the laptop class in COVID terms). They’re about 30% of the population, and they think society exists for their needs mostly because their needs and the needs of the true elites have overlapped in recent years. They’re in for a rude awakening when the 1% finally kicks them to the curb.
‘Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.’
Yes that’s my suspicion also, despite the hopeful talk of some that workers from more unionised countries (i.e. any other country in Europe?) bring their solidarity with them..
Whole Foods, a subsidiary of Amazon, believes that “Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity” but they’re clearly suffering from Russian disinformation from the alt-right pipeline. Diversity is their our strength.
Very interesting that they are that frank about it. If the article you’re quoting from is the one I found (below) then it does also seem important to acknowledge that other factors like ‘distance in miles between the store and the closest union’ matter as well. So alongside lower immigration, affordable housing which is near the workplace might also strengthen the dreaded ‘team member sentiment.’
There must be some instances were immigrants do contribute to workplace solidarity though that might only apply to those who have arrived on a long-term basis? https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foods-unionization-heat-map-union
Very interesting that they are that frank about it. If the article you’re quoting from is the one I found (below) then it does also seem important to acknowledge that other factors like ‘distance in miles between the store and the closest union’ matter as well. So alongside lower immigration, affordable housing which is near the workplace might also strengthen the dreaded ‘team member sentiment.’
There must be some instances were immigrants do contribute to workplace solidarity though that might only apply to those who have arrived on a long-term basis? https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foods-unionization-heat-map-union
Whole Foods, a subsidiary of Amazon, believes that “Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity” but they’re clearly suffering from Russian disinformation from the alt-right pipeline. Diversity is their our strength.
‘Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.’
Yes that’s my suspicion also, despite the hopeful talk of some that workers from more unionised countries (i.e. any other country in Europe?) bring their solidarity with them..
No. Trade Unions today ARE a part of the Blairite progressive UK State, not a threat to it! The miners and shipbuilders are all gone long ago. The heart of the modern trade unionist movement is within the vast white collar public sector. They are on the streets now because they want to remove the hated Tories and to destroy baby Brexit. But if Labour gains power, trade unions will fall into line. The restoration of the nation state is not on their agenda. They embrace the internationalist pro EU Blairite New Order which still is deeply embedded in the UK State.
Firstly, they’re not all white collar or pro-EU. Look at the RMT (whose leaders campaigned for Brexit) and look at the GMB, Usdaw, TSSA, NUM, FBU etc are all blue collar and whose members may well want the downfall of the Tory government because who wouldn’t want the removal of a government which has presided over the collapse of their living standards while giving them a high immigration low wage Brexit of more untrammelled globalisation which they never voted for? Perhaps you don’t think Starmer is any likelier to stop it, but at least there are people in the Labour party (unfortunately some of which have been sidelined since Corbyn left) who are serious about reindustralising this country and making it work for the people here. Where have the Tories been doing that? Not really ever would be my answer – all they’ve done is sold off our housing, industry and public sectors (bit by bit) to foreign capital.
Firstly, they’re not all white collar or pro-EU. Look at the RMT (whose leaders campaigned for Brexit) and look at the GMB, Usdaw, TSSA, NUM, FBU etc are all blue collar and whose members may well want the downfall of the Tory government because who wouldn’t want the removal of a government which has presided over the collapse of their living standards while giving them a high immigration low wage Brexit of more untrammelled globalisation which they never voted for? Perhaps you don’t think Starmer is any likelier to stop it, but at least there are people in the Labour party (unfortunately some of which have been sidelined since Corbyn left) who are serious about reindustralising this country and making it work for the people here. Where have the Tories been doing that? Not really ever would be my answer – all they’ve done is sold off our housing, industry and public sectors (bit by bit) to foreign capital.
Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.
The ones who will be the most shocked at their downfall will be the educated, professional managerial class (the laptop class in COVID terms). They’re about 30% of the population, and they think society exists for their needs mostly because their needs and the needs of the true elites have overlapped in recent years. They’re in for a rude awakening when the 1% finally kicks them to the curb.
No. Trade Unions today ARE a part of the Blairite progressive UK State, not a threat to it! The miners and shipbuilders are all gone long ago. The heart of the modern trade unionist movement is within the vast white collar public sector. They are on the streets now because they want to remove the hated Tories and to destroy baby Brexit. But if Labour gains power, trade unions will fall into line. The restoration of the nation state is not on their agenda. They embrace the internationalist pro EU Blairite New Order which still is deeply embedded in the UK State.
Everything I read today is depressing. There was a good article yesterday – I can’t remember where – pointing out that the entire G7 is headed up by leaders loathed or disliked by the majority of the population. Trudeau won two elections with less of the popular vote than the conservatives – like 32% of the voters. The rest of the leaders have similar numbers. And of course Ursula von whatever isn’t elected (she really looks like a Disney villain!). Yet somehow they rule over us. I would love an Unherd series on steps to fix democracies. For example I used to be opposed to proportional representation – but now I think it might be a solution to the urban / rural divide that is ailing most democracies.
Note that Trudeau’s minority rule (the real fringe minority?) is even slimmer than that as voter turnout was so apathetically and historically low. Essentially, he used scare tactics and the clean/unclean wedge of experimental transfections to coerce 32% of the laptop population of a few big Canadian cities to return his blackguard, blackface government. Like PJ, I was an inveterate defender of FPTP but now think PR or perhaps an electoral college is required to put some demos back in our captured democracies.
Note that Trudeau’s minority rule (the real fringe minority?) is even slimmer than that as voter turnout was so apathetically and historically low. Essentially, he used scare tactics and the clean/unclean wedge of experimental transfections to coerce 32% of the laptop population of a few big Canadian cities to return his blackguard, blackface government. Like PJ, I was an inveterate defender of FPTP but now think PR or perhaps an electoral college is required to put some demos back in our captured democracies.
Compare Denmark. In Denmark there is a category of holiday houses ‘summer houses’ which foreigners (EU or not) are not allowed to buy (mainly to stop Germans). They are in beautiful areas near the coast and enable Danes to enjoy the Danish summer. Imagine that here!
Tight immigration controls have supported high wages for workers of all sorts (except perhaps bankers, who are heavily taxed!) and a relatively less disfunctional society.
I forgot the Danish author wrote ‘We are not a nation, we are a tribe’ – and there is the difference.
Divided we fall. Mary is right. Britain is being pillaged. (Not by the Danes, this time).
I have Danish neighbours in London.
They paint very different picture of Denmark (especially immigration).
However, they say that Danish society is much more cohesive than UK.
I have Danish neighbours in London.
They paint very different picture of Denmark (especially immigration).
However, they say that Danish society is much more cohesive than UK.
…noticed? …noticed? ..sure they made billions out of it and you didn’t see it, as the nation’s wealth got scooped up by the 0.1%. At least Kuasi Kwarteng was open about it!
How it is possible to write so lucidly and well about the shattering of the nation state, its governance and laws and even culture, without referring to the events which triggered this seismic revolution BY DESIGN!! Its like writing about communist Russia without mentioning Lenin & 1917. Our nation state as was was completely demolished & dismantled by the progressive Blairite State after 1997. It in turn was serving the interests of the post Mastricht EU which demanded and got an NMI New Order; the eviseration of the power and accountability of national parliaments to bolster the federal centre. Look at their works. Supreme Court. Devolution. The creation of a vast unelected permanent Technocracy to sieze the reins of power from Ministers (hence Bank of England and interest rates, the NHS & Public Health – the dark army of wfh regulators, all committed to the EU precautionary principle.) Vast chunks of quasi public sector created too, notably the ponzi university scam in its drive for mass female employment. This was the New Order we still fail to recognise, as Mary just illustrated. There was more of course; the secondary wave of deliberate anti national policies, from EU legal supremacy and human rights; undeclared mass migration via free movement and onto the EU driven insanity of Net Zero Pol Potism which thrwtebs us with blackouts and degrowth. Why even write about Brexit so much? It was a just a people driven thing. Even the shabby Tories like May were majority Pro EU. It was not their fight. So we then watched on in horror as the pro EU Order of Remainiacs trashed and debased any notion of democractic respect/,accountability with their crude Parliamentary and legal coup. Brexit never even began! The Blob/Technocracy post Covid has just sat on its hands. Brex will be seen to be rather like a minor 1950s miner protest in some far flung corner of the Soviet Union. A Peasants Revolt that got chopped up as they always do. The EU/Blairite State Revolution had 30 years to embed itself and it is crazy to imagine that the Brexit Vote could overturn that New Order. To write as if the collapse of the nation state is some accident of history is all wrong. The very nature of power was redistributed to serve the wider EU agenda. That is the sorry State we have lived in for 30 years; and it is not broken. That progressive revolution still rules us. And you wonder why nothing changes? Why Tories are not Tories? Here is your answer.
It’s a two fold attack on government by the consent of the governed. First, the governered are too stupid and ignorant to give informed consent. We need a government of regulatory “experts” instead. Second, we don’t like the existing electorate, so we import a new one with untrammelled immigration of a new, more biddable, electorate. In both ways the elite get to do whatever they want. The old hoy paloi get nothing.
This is happening in both the UK and the US. Efforts to change direction are labeled “threats to our democracy” in the US. Durham’s Report is labeled nothing new, or partisan, because vilification of Republicans is required to carry off the plot. In the UK, even the Tories are getting with the program. You guys are screwed.
100 years ago if you disagreed with taxes, military conscription or forced labor you could vacate the city, leave the country or run for the hills.
The border, for most countries, was seldom more than a few hundred kilometers away.
The distance of transporting food stuffs by animal power couldn’t be more than the animal would consume over that distance. That defined the radius of most borders. Mountains, swamps and deserts defined the rest.
Now, you only have three options:
1) Go to sea in your boat.
2) Wait for Elon Musk to finish his rocket ship and you can go to Mars
3) Become homeless.
There are no more non-State options.
Every square inch of land has been mapped, claimed, titled and photographed.
Even if you don’t want to jockey for political status in the hierarchy of your current state, you can no longer opt out.
People complied with lockdowns for two reasons – they were not optional, and were also they right approach at the time. You’re right to mention covid however, because that was an unfortunate intervention that derailed the Johnson post Brexit government and the plans they had. That may or may not have been successful, but I’m certain the political landscape and nation state described above would be unrecognisable from what it is today, and that is a distopian wilderness across all parties.
Read ‘Eugypius’ who reports the reaction of the German political elites to the acceptance of lockdowns, masking etc. Public opinion, they note, can – and should – easily be reformed by nudging and appeals to safety.
‘Climate’ of course is next on the menu.
Yes, and that was the point of the exercise. It was a compliance experiment, and those who imposed it got what they wanted. Now they can move in any direction they wish (and it won’t be a positive, healthy thing for society), because too many simply did what they were told, unquestioningly. Those who did ask questions were vilified, often by their very own families. Now that it’s obvious to even the most willing believers that the Covid response wasn’t really a response at all, but a test, it’s too late.
‘Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.’
I think we can draw some hope from the actions of the trade unions in recent times, the crucibles of the nation state, unmentioned but heavily implied here in MH’s definition of a nation state as formed through industrialistation. Who else could she mean when she talks about ‘meaningful working-class ability to hold [the elite’s] feet to the fire?’ These are the last serious institutions of resistance against the erosion of our living standards, our sense of having a collective voice and the ability to control our borders, all reasons why both Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey voted Leave. This power to withdraw our labour is pretty well all we have in the face of this disenfranchisement, and judging by the government’s attempts to enforce minimum service requirements that would make our anti-trade union laws worse or as bad as Russia’s, the unions must still considered a threat. In other words, by MH’s own analysis, unions helped give us a nation state; maybe they can bring it back.
PS They also helped bring down the Soviet Union and are an essential part of civil society, like Burke’s little battalions (before one of you brands me as a crazy commie)
Everything I read today is depressing. There was a good article yesterday – I can’t remember where – pointing out that the entire G7 is headed up by leaders loathed or disliked by the majority of the population. Trudeau won two elections with less of the popular vote than the conservatives – like 32% of the voters. The rest of the leaders have similar numbers. And of course Ursula von whatever isn’t elected (she really looks like a Disney villain!). Yet somehow they rule over us. I would love an Unherd series on steps to fix democracies. For example I used to be opposed to proportional representation – but now I think it might be a solution to the urban / rural divide that is ailing most democracies.
Compare Denmark. In Denmark there is a category of holiday houses ‘summer houses’ which foreigners (EU or not) are not allowed to buy (mainly to stop Germans). They are in beautiful areas near the coast and enable Danes to enjoy the Danish summer. Imagine that here!
Tight immigration controls have supported high wages for workers of all sorts (except perhaps bankers, who are heavily taxed!) and a relatively less disfunctional society.
I forgot the Danish author wrote ‘We are not a nation, we are a tribe’ – and there is the difference.
Divided we fall. Mary is right. Britain is being pillaged. (Not by the Danes, this time).
…noticed? …noticed? ..sure they made billions out of it and you didn’t see it, as the nation’s wealth got scooped up by the 0.1%. At least Kuasi Kwarteng was open about it!
How it is possible to write so lucidly and well about the shattering of the nation state, its governance and laws and even culture, without referring to the events which triggered this seismic revolution BY DESIGN!! Its like writing about communist Russia without mentioning Lenin & 1917. Our nation state as was was completely demolished & dismantled by the progressive Blairite State after 1997. It in turn was serving the interests of the post Mastricht EU which demanded and got an NMI New Order; the eviseration of the power and accountability of national parliaments to bolster the federal centre. Look at their works. Supreme Court. Devolution. The creation of a vast unelected permanent Technocracy to sieze the reins of power from Ministers (hence Bank of England and interest rates, the NHS & Public Health – the dark army of wfh regulators, all committed to the EU precautionary principle.) Vast chunks of quasi public sector created too, notably the ponzi university scam in its drive for mass female employment. This was the New Order we still fail to recognise, as Mary just illustrated. There was more of course; the secondary wave of deliberate anti national policies, from EU legal supremacy and human rights; undeclared mass migration via free movement and onto the EU driven insanity of Net Zero Pol Potism which thrwtebs us with blackouts and degrowth. Why even write about Brexit so much? It was a just a people driven thing. Even the shabby Tories like May were majority Pro EU. It was not their fight. So we then watched on in horror as the pro EU Order of Remainiacs trashed and debased any notion of democractic respect/,accountability with their crude Parliamentary and legal coup. Brexit never even began! The Blob/Technocracy post Covid has just sat on its hands. Brex will be seen to be rather like a minor 1950s miner protest in some far flung corner of the Soviet Union. A Peasants Revolt that got chopped up as they always do. The EU/Blairite State Revolution had 30 years to embed itself and it is crazy to imagine that the Brexit Vote could overturn that New Order. To write as if the collapse of the nation state is some accident of history is all wrong. The very nature of power was redistributed to serve the wider EU agenda. That is the sorry State we have lived in for 30 years; and it is not broken. That progressive revolution still rules us. And you wonder why nothing changes? Why Tories are not Tories? Here is your answer.
It’s a two fold attack on government by the consent of the governed. First, the governered are too stupid and ignorant to give informed consent. We need a government of regulatory “experts” instead. Second, we don’t like the existing electorate, so we import a new one with untrammelled immigration of a new, more biddable, electorate. In both ways the elite get to do whatever they want. The old hoy paloi get nothing.
This is happening in both the UK and the US. Efforts to change direction are labeled “threats to our democracy” in the US. Durham’s Report is labeled nothing new, or partisan, because vilification of Republicans is required to carry off the plot. In the UK, even the Tories are getting with the program. You guys are screwed.
100 years ago if you disagreed with taxes, military conscription or forced labor you could vacate the city, leave the country or run for the hills.
The border, for most countries, was seldom more than a few hundred kilometers away.
The distance of transporting food stuffs by animal power couldn’t be more than the animal would consume over that distance. That defined the radius of most borders. Mountains, swamps and deserts defined the rest.
Now, you only have three options:
1) Go to sea in your boat.
2) Wait for Elon Musk to finish his rocket ship and you can go to Mars
3) Become homeless.
There are no more non-State options.
Every square inch of land has been mapped, claimed, titled and photographed.
Even if you don’t want to jockey for political status in the hierarchy of your current state, you can no longer opt out.
Last edited 11 months ago by tim richardson
J Bryant
11 months ago
Good old Mary H. She provided as fine a summary of our current disenfranchisement as I’ve read anywhere. There’s no end of books, filled with labored prose, that try to say in 200 pages what she managed in under 3000 words.
If I read her article correctly, she ended with a suggestion that some sort of pushback to our political disenfranchisement is underway. I don’t see it. Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.
For me, the defining event of the past decade was not Brexit or Trump, but the passive way most ordinary people in the West accepted covid lockdown (after lockdown after lockdown) and other impositions on our liberty. We really were “sheeple”. You can bet the “elites” noticed.
John Dellingby
11 months ago
It’s quite obvious that the people running this country at all levels despise ordinary citizens who fund their salaries and lifestyles. Why on Earth for example, should British workers at the lower and medium ends of the earning spectrum be expected to compete with the rest of the world to earn a living or develop their careers due to the salary threshold for a visa being £21k per year? Should be at least triple that.
Not to mention yesterday’s incident on Blackfriars Bridge where the Met are happy for Just Stop Oil criminals to prevent people paid by the hour or self-employed from earning a living, but will arrest anyone who takes issue with them doing so. Had people been using similar tactics against large scale migration or the cost of living, I doubt they’d be met with such generosity by the Met.
Even when they do report it, they go to a loon like Piers Corbyn and effectively appoint him as the figurehead of the whole movement in order to discredit it.
Even when they do report it, they go to a loon like Piers Corbyn and effectively appoint him as the figurehead of the whole movement in order to discredit it.
If you triple salaries that means the cost of our exports must increase to pay for them and who will buy British if they can buy cheaper. It will also push up costs within the UK and so there will be others demanding pay increases. It is not the answer. Britain cannot survive without imports and therefore exports must pay for imports.
If you triple salaries that means the cost of our exports must increase to pay for them and who will buy British if they can buy cheaper. It will also push up costs within the UK and so there will be others demanding pay increases. It is not the answer. Britain cannot survive without imports and therefore exports must pay for imports.
John Dellingby
11 months ago
It’s quite obvious that the people running this country at all levels despise ordinary citizens who fund their salaries and lifestyles. Why on Earth for example, should British workers at the lower and medium ends of the earning spectrum be expected to compete with the rest of the world to earn a living or develop their careers due to the salary threshold for a visa being £21k per year? Should be at least triple that.
Not to mention yesterday’s incident on Blackfriars Bridge where the Met are happy for Just Stop Oil criminals to prevent people paid by the hour or self-employed from earning a living, but will arrest anyone who takes issue with them doing so. Had people been using similar tactics against large scale migration or the cost of living, I doubt they’d be met with such generosity by the Met.
Amy Horseman
11 months ago
Interesting piece, Mary, but none of it really matters if you do set aside the context of what you refer to as “Covid” but others would refer to as psychological warfare. In March 2020, less than two months since “Brexit Day”, virtually every nation in the world fell, lockstep, into imposing the most horrific attack on the rights and freedoms on people that the modern world has ever known. Even in wartime, people were not forced to close their businesses for months on end. They were not terrorised into staying indoors for two years. Schools did not close. People were not bullied into walking around with their mouths and noses covered with a piece of cloth. Hospitals did not make sudden, radical changes to how people were treated resulting in millions of deaths. People were not told they could kill someone simply by walking in a park. All this was imposed at the same time by almost every government in the world, proving that they are (at best) in collusion with each other and (at worse) controlled by some other undefined entity. So we now know that modern democracy is a sham, a theatrical performance. This very week, the “World Health Assembly” is meeting in Geneva to give itself powers to restrict the movement and rights of all people of WHO member states whenever it decides there’s a “public health emergency of international concern”, when we now know such a thing cannot even exist. In the future, our “governments” will say, “it’s not us mandating these medical interventions, it’s the WHO.” Anyone who remotely cares about bodily sovereignty – let alone national sovereignty – should be screaming from the rooftops about this. Yet the mainstream media is silent. No one I speak to even knows it is happening. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a power grab, happening in plain sight. Please research it and write about it. It’s the most dangerous elephant in the room right now. David Bell has written about it, eloquently and passionately – search for his piece on the “Brownstone Institute” website. On a more positive note, though, I do not believe the “nation state” can ever truly be over. It can be attacked and suppressed and overruled, but it will always exist in some form as a natural order in which societies organise and boundary themselves. It will just be reordered and redefined once we get past this fascistic period we’re going through.
Great comment… All other issues have been dwarfed by the successful roll out of the authoritarian Covid hoax. Given that the pseudo science of it all is being, depressingly, accepted as unquestioned history, it can only be a matter of time before, the WHO facilitated, Round 2.
Quite likely 2025, I think, when Moderna’s lab in Oxfordshire will be up and running, ready to coercively inject billions more ‘vaccines ‘. It’s also the time predicted by Bill Gates/John Hopkins Institute in October 2022 from their Catastrophic Contagion’ jolly, the follow up to their ‘Event 201’ in October 2019, which curiously anticipated Covid months later. All there, in plain sight, on respective websites.
Yes good comment about Moderna’s lab. They have just produced an mRNA flu vaccine for which our UK Government has paid them over £1 Billion for a product that hasn’t even been tested yet. Wait!! they are testing it on 50 volunteers??? Something isn’t quite right here. What Government in any state of mind would pay upfront for a product that has not been rigidly tested.
Incidentally the Factory that Moderna are using is the relatively new Vaccine, Manufacturing, and Innovation Centre at Harwell that was built as a state of the art facility for future pandemics and as expected sold out by the Tories to the Americans as they are with most of our Tech Companies.. Sovereignty, Nation State? Pah!
It was when I understood the implications of moderna’s name (MODE RNA) and read their investment opportunity brochures that I really woke up to the game plan. There is a vast difference between medicine to improve our health and genetic tinkering. The eugenicists don’t want to make us well, they want to experiment on us to achieve their dream of artificially creating human life.
It was when I understood the implications of moderna’s name (MODE RNA) and read their investment opportunity brochures that I really woke up to the game plan. There is a vast difference between medicine to improve our health and genetic tinkering. The eugenicists don’t want to make us well, they want to experiment on us to achieve their dream of artificially creating human life.
Yes good comment about Moderna’s lab. They have just produced an mRNA flu vaccine for which our UK Government has paid them over £1 Billion for a product that hasn’t even been tested yet. Wait!! they are testing it on 50 volunteers??? Something isn’t quite right here. What Government in any state of mind would pay upfront for a product that has not been rigidly tested.
Incidentally the Factory that Moderna are using is the relatively new Vaccine, Manufacturing, and Innovation Centre at Harwell that was built as a state of the art facility for future pandemics and as expected sold out by the Tories to the Americans as they are with most of our Tech Companies.. Sovereignty, Nation State? Pah!
‘This fascistic period we are going through’ – where did this come from? The intolerance of outliers is astonishing and even frightening. We live in a world of Karen’s.
How very apposite that it should be Geneva, a city infamous for the burning witches*in the 16th century.
In 1515 it is estimated that 500 or so were incinerated, 80% of whom are thought to have been women.
In 1571 there was another burst of excitement but only 29 were burnt**on this occasion .Frankly the city should be as infamous as Auschwitz, but somehow has avoided criticism.
Perhaps the machinations of the wretched WHO will change this?
(* A very popular spectator ‘sport’, for obvious reasons.)
Governments of the western democracies were surprised, but delighted, by the rapid compliance of their populations to the imposition of severe lockdown measures and the accompanying removal of so many freedoms and rights in such a short time. The ruling Woking Class elites, already abhorring ‘nation state’ concept in favour of the ‘global village’ paradigm, found it easy to continue the onslaught on freedom of speech and other freedoms by precipitating and consolidating the Woke Era to suppress and control us in a manner never before encountered in democratic societies. Covid lockdown in 2020 boosted their confidence that they could accelerate this change agenda. Such oppression is/was of course familiar to people to lived/live under dictatorship and tyrannical systems of governance – e.g. Stalinist Russia, North Korea, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Hitler’s Germany, East Germany, etc. We have arrived! We are global!
Well said! It’s totalitarianism and it’s coming to a location near you. Substack has many well-written and well-researched articles on this and I recommend Mattias Desmet’s book, the Psychology of Totalitarianism.
You are right about the threat to our liberties, but wrong about the collusion in any organised way. It is simply the “me-too” way of thinking that is so common in politics, journalism, media. Independent thinking is discouraged by a force of social.pressure brought largely by social.media
Who knows. Either Anders Tegnall had some tennis balls, or someone had him BY the tennis balls. They were big jab pushers though. Look up their “rolled-up sleeve” campaign. Quite chilling! (Can’t fool the auto censor by inserting the word “tennis”. Very clever!)
Who knows. Either Anders Tegnall had some tennis balls, or someone had him BY the tennis balls. They were big jab pushers though. Look up their “rolled-up sleeve” campaign. Quite chilling! (Can’t fool the auto censor by inserting the word “tennis”. Very clever!)
Great comment… All other issues have been dwarfed by the successful roll out of the authoritarian Covid hoax. Given that the pseudo science of it all is being, depressingly, accepted as unquestioned history, it can only be a matter of time before, the WHO facilitated, Round 2.
Quite likely 2025, I think, when Moderna’s lab in Oxfordshire will be up and running, ready to coercively inject billions more ‘vaccines ‘. It’s also the time predicted by Bill Gates/John Hopkins Institute in October 2022 from their Catastrophic Contagion’ jolly, the follow up to their ‘Event 201’ in October 2019, which curiously anticipated Covid months later. All there, in plain sight, on respective websites.
‘This fascistic period we are going through’ – where did this come from? The intolerance of outliers is astonishing and even frightening. We live in a world of Karen’s.
How very apposite that it should be Geneva, a city infamous for the burning witches*in the 16th century.
In 1515 it is estimated that 500 or so were incinerated, 80% of whom are thought to have been women.
In 1571 there was another burst of excitement but only 29 were burnt**on this occasion .Frankly the city should be as infamous as Auschwitz, but somehow has avoided criticism.
Perhaps the machinations of the wretched WHO will change this?
(* A very popular spectator ‘sport’, for obvious reasons.)
Governments of the western democracies were surprised, but delighted, by the rapid compliance of their populations to the imposition of severe lockdown measures and the accompanying removal of so many freedoms and rights in such a short time. The ruling Woking Class elites, already abhorring ‘nation state’ concept in favour of the ‘global village’ paradigm, found it easy to continue the onslaught on freedom of speech and other freedoms by precipitating and consolidating the Woke Era to suppress and control us in a manner never before encountered in democratic societies. Covid lockdown in 2020 boosted their confidence that they could accelerate this change agenda. Such oppression is/was of course familiar to people to lived/live under dictatorship and tyrannical systems of governance – e.g. Stalinist Russia, North Korea, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Hitler’s Germany, East Germany, etc. We have arrived! We are global!
Well said! It’s totalitarianism and it’s coming to a location near you. Substack has many well-written and well-researched articles on this and I recommend Mattias Desmet’s book, the Psychology of Totalitarianism.
You are right about the threat to our liberties, but wrong about the collusion in any organised way. It is simply the “me-too” way of thinking that is so common in politics, journalism, media. Independent thinking is discouraged by a force of social.pressure brought largely by social.media
Many good points, but how do you explain different covid policies of Sweden?
Amy Horseman
11 months ago
Interesting piece, Mary, but none of it really matters if you do set aside the context of what you refer to as “Covid” but others would refer to as psychological warfare. In March 2020, less than two months since “Brexit Day”, virtually every nation in the world fell, lockstep, into imposing the most horrific attack on the rights and freedoms on people that the modern world has ever known. Even in wartime, people were not forced to close their businesses for months on end. They were not terrorised into staying indoors for two years. Schools did not close. People were not bullied into walking around with their mouths and noses covered with a piece of cloth. Hospitals did not make sudden, radical changes to how people were treated resulting in millions of deaths. People were not told they could kill someone simply by walking in a park. All this was imposed at the same time by almost every government in the world, proving that they are (at best) in collusion with each other and (at worse) controlled by some other undefined entity. So we now know that modern democracy is a sham, a theatrical performance. This very week, the “World Health Assembly” is meeting in Geneva to give itself powers to restrict the movement and rights of all people of WHO member states whenever it decides there’s a “public health emergency of international concern”, when we now know such a thing cannot even exist. In the future, our “governments” will say, “it’s not us mandating these medical interventions, it’s the WHO.” Anyone who remotely cares about bodily sovereignty – let alone national sovereignty – should be screaming from the rooftops about this. Yet the mainstream media is silent. No one I speak to even knows it is happening. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a power grab, happening in plain sight. Please research it and write about it. It’s the most dangerous elephant in the room right now. David Bell has written about it, eloquently and passionately – search for his piece on the “Brownstone Institute” website. On a more positive note, though, I do not believe the “nation state” can ever truly be over. It can be attacked and suppressed and overruled, but it will always exist in some form as a natural order in which societies organise and boundary themselves. It will just be reordered and redefined once we get past this fascistic period we’re going through.
Simon Neale
11 months ago
Two very gloomy predictions follow from this excellent analysis. The first is that our national sense of who we are is being discernibly eroded by the volume of immigrants and the attemps by the media and other opinion leaders to deal with it. Just have a look at ourselves as reflected by the BBC, for example. The worse it gets, the worse it is going to get.
Second, the justified complaints of those who think Brexit has failed will be used in a concerted attempt to reverse the process. Sir Keir is doubtless putting together a plan to save us from our past “mistakes”.
…if only. Keir Starmer is Tory light.. a tiny bit more tax and tiny bit more social services. Corbyn was GB’s last chance to remake itself just like Sanders was America’s last chance.. it’s all downhill from here (to the cliff edge)..
The great thing about Corbyn and Sanders is that they so love the sounds of their own voices that they would walk over the cliff without noticing. Then we could go back to trying to be a free society
The great thing about Corbyn and Sanders is that they so love the sounds of their own voices that they would walk over the cliff without noticing. Then we could go back to trying to be a free society
…if only. Keir Starmer is Tory light.. a tiny bit more tax and tiny bit more social services. Corbyn was GB’s last chance to remake itself just like Sanders was America’s last chance.. it’s all downhill from here (to the cliff edge)..
Simon Neale
11 months ago
Two very gloomy predictions follow from this excellent analysis. The first is that our national sense of who we are is being discernibly eroded by the volume of immigrants and the attemps by the media and other opinion leaders to deal with it. Just have a look at ourselves as reflected by the BBC, for example. The worse it gets, the worse it is going to get.
Second, the justified complaints of those who think Brexit has failed will be used in a concerted attempt to reverse the process. Sir Keir is doubtless putting together a plan to save us from our past “mistakes”.
Chris Keating
11 months ago
Bit of a laugh thinking that you could take back control when you had none in the first place. Everything is decided around you and you are then propagandised into thinking that you had some sort of say in the matter.
The Nation is falling away because the people that run it have deigned that the welfare of the Nations citizens is of no interest to them. A large number of the population are not aware that this is the case and still cling to the idea that their Nation is for them, but they are slowly realising the ugly truth.
The Nation has been stolen by a caste that uses power and connections for their own personal enrichment and could not give a fig for anyone else.
The fact that Britain is declining and unable or more likely unwilling to ensure the welfare of its people yet has billions to spare promoting war all over the planet is further evidence of the ethical bankruptcy of the Nation.
I think that the Nation is important and it will be revived but it will require a group interested in running it equitably to make it work. How you get them in and remove the current bunch of parasites is another question that will not be easily solved . Hopefully it won’t be the French solution but I think that is a distinct possibility.
The French solution ushered in the pathological society of individuals and liberalism shorn of the Imago dei – the kind of Gnostic materialism which has produced the society that Mary so eloquently describes….unless you mean the Frankish solution…Perhaps we need a Charlemagne
I used to accept the standard depiction of Stalin as some kind of irrational master.
He did however get one thing right. If you want to get rid of an lite lass you also have to deal with their families
Minor quibble with para 2 Chris.
Compared to say, 1990, “Welfare” (in strict monetary terms, of course) has soared, financed to a great extent by massive relative reductions in defence and debt payments, and the Banking boom of the mid-Blair years.
Banks are going bust, interest rates are now rising and defence commitments will also uptick in the wake of Ukraine/Russia. But welfare is practically a fixed cost, and only guaranteed to get bigger year on year.
Any attempt to manage down welfare/immigration and of course health in line with the nation’s ability to pay will be met with major organised rebellion on the street. The police force – diminished, demoralised and largely leaderless – will be unable to meet that threat. That I concede is really the extent of Conservative interest.
Labour have more skin in the game in terms of Welfare as a means of vote harvesting, across unemployed, the religiously conservative and public sector. In fact welfare successfully welds all these Labour interest groups permanently together in such a way that it might even guarantee them natural largest party status in a short space of time.
Way to go, Conservatives! But how long can this gravity-defying stunt continue?
My concern is this; outsiders Bank, WEF etc seem prepared to lend us the money to commit national suicide until the job is done. MSM journalists are their propagandists, and the civil service – Blairite it seems to a man and woman – seem determined to become the power within. The way the three work in concert has been shown to good effect in the unprecedented swift downfall of Truss/Kwarteng (challenging the current financial orthodoxy), and the endless hobbling of “Brexiteers” Johnson, Braverman and Raab.
“Pour décourager les autres”, indeed. Take control? They were having a laugh…
The French solution ushered in the pathological society of individuals and liberalism shorn of the Imago dei – the kind of Gnostic materialism which has produced the society that Mary so eloquently describes….unless you mean the Frankish solution…Perhaps we need a Charlemagne
I used to accept the standard depiction of Stalin as some kind of irrational master.
He did however get one thing right. If you want to get rid of an lite lass you also have to deal with their families
Minor quibble with para 2 Chris.
Compared to say, 1990, “Welfare” (in strict monetary terms, of course) has soared, financed to a great extent by massive relative reductions in defence and debt payments, and the Banking boom of the mid-Blair years.
Banks are going bust, interest rates are now rising and defence commitments will also uptick in the wake of Ukraine/Russia. But welfare is practically a fixed cost, and only guaranteed to get bigger year on year.
Any attempt to manage down welfare/immigration and of course health in line with the nation’s ability to pay will be met with major organised rebellion on the street. The police force – diminished, demoralised and largely leaderless – will be unable to meet that threat. That I concede is really the extent of Conservative interest.
Labour have more skin in the game in terms of Welfare as a means of vote harvesting, across unemployed, the religiously conservative and public sector. In fact welfare successfully welds all these Labour interest groups permanently together in such a way that it might even guarantee them natural largest party status in a short space of time.
Way to go, Conservatives! But how long can this gravity-defying stunt continue?
My concern is this; outsiders Bank, WEF etc seem prepared to lend us the money to commit national suicide until the job is done. MSM journalists are their propagandists, and the civil service – Blairite it seems to a man and woman – seem determined to become the power within. The way the three work in concert has been shown to good effect in the unprecedented swift downfall of Truss/Kwarteng (challenging the current financial orthodoxy), and the endless hobbling of “Brexiteers” Johnson, Braverman and Raab.
“Pour décourager les autres”, indeed. Take control? They were having a laugh…
Chris Keating
11 months ago
Bit of a laugh thinking that you could take back control when you had none in the first place. Everything is decided around you and you are then propagandised into thinking that you had some sort of say in the matter.
The Nation is falling away because the people that run it have deigned that the welfare of the Nations citizens is of no interest to them. A large number of the population are not aware that this is the case and still cling to the idea that their Nation is for them, but they are slowly realising the ugly truth.
The Nation has been stolen by a caste that uses power and connections for their own personal enrichment and could not give a fig for anyone else.
The fact that Britain is declining and unable or more likely unwilling to ensure the welfare of its people yet has billions to spare promoting war all over the planet is further evidence of the ethical bankruptcy of the Nation.
I think that the Nation is important and it will be revived but it will require a group interested in running it equitably to make it work. How you get them in and remove the current bunch of parasites is another question that will not be easily solved . Hopefully it won’t be the French solution but I think that is a distinct possibility.
Paul Ten
11 months ago
A fascinating account and, as ever, a great read from this author. I perhaps take issue with a couple of things. Firstly, the story on immigration doesn’t mean Brexit has failed. It might mean our government of the day has failed, or is unwilling to engage with all the issues to deal with the problem. But at least Brexit means we know where the accountability lies.
Secondly, the ‘softening’ of the nation state seems like a very Euro-centric view of the world. The USA, China and Japan, to name a few, don’t seem to have much need of cross-national emulsifiers. There is still a strong case to say that the EU is a vehicle for advancement of national interest. And people look to nation states for support, help, furlough money when things go wrong. The idea may have some more life in it yet.
Except Florida which is trying it’s own mini-version of Brexit and as a consequence, like us, has investment leaving the state and field full of unpicked fruit and veg.
Except Florida which is trying it’s own mini-version of Brexit and as a consequence, like us, has investment leaving the state and field full of unpicked fruit and veg.
Thirdly: it is not over yet! Popular pressure to reduce immigrant numbers will continue to build. I suspect it will be turbo-charged by the 2022 full year figures released tomorrow. Eventually either this government or a future one will have to act. When they do, it will only be possible because of national sovereignty over immigration rules.
This has been an ongoing saga since, at least, the sixties and, despite a clear and consistent mandate from the electorate, has been ignored by ALL of the establishment, whatever colour or creed they align with. Short of all out insurrection I do not see that changing any time soon, and let’s be honest, the British are not of a insurrectional bent. The point at which all this ‘chat’ and fine words becomes anything other than academic is, I fear, fast approaching, democracy is, if it ever truly existed, receding into the distant past.
And why would they “have to act”? People only “have to” do something when someone more powerful threatens them if they don’t. The point of Mary’s article is that the mass-democratic ability to threaten elites is coming to an end across the Western world.
The last time it was because UKIP support threatened to hand the election to Labour so Cameron had to commit to a referendum. I suspect just such a single-issue party will emerge soon.
The last time it was because UKIP support threatened to hand the election to Labour so Cameron had to commit to a referendum. I suspect just such a single-issue party will emerge soon.
I think you’ll find you are well under way.. now one of the few countries in the world to have no teal legal route for would-be asylum seekers and instant deportation of those arriving ‘illegally’ (no such thing but hey, who’s counting)..
This has been an ongoing saga since, at least, the sixties and, despite a clear and consistent mandate from the electorate, has been ignored by ALL of the establishment, whatever colour or creed they align with. Short of all out insurrection I do not see that changing any time soon, and let’s be honest, the British are not of a insurrectional bent. The point at which all this ‘chat’ and fine words becomes anything other than academic is, I fear, fast approaching, democracy is, if it ever truly existed, receding into the distant past.
And why would they “have to act”? People only “have to” do something when someone more powerful threatens them if they don’t. The point of Mary’s article is that the mass-democratic ability to threaten elites is coming to an end across the Western world.
I think you’ll find you are well under way.. now one of the few countries in the world to have no teal legal route for would-be asylum seekers and instant deportation of those arriving ‘illegally’ (no such thing but hey, who’s counting)..
Yes, i think that interpretation on a global scale is nearer the mark. Nevertheless, MH’s analysis also provides some penetrating and vital insights into how and why we are where we are. It also demonstrates – in the event anyone should make the mistake of thinking otherwise, which commentors sometimes do – where she stands on many of the key political issues which face us.
One thought that occurs during the reading of this article: were those engaged in the changing political landscape of the 19th & 20th centuries quite so aware of the underlying shifts in cultural tectonic plates? Mass media obviously plays a part, but the MSM can’t be relied upon to reflect these shifts. Thank goodness, therefore, for Unherd. Much as we rail against some of its annoyances (technically and editorially), when articles such as this bring a clarifying lens to both the bigger and smaller pictures – in effect unifying them – the minor complaints pale into insignificance.
..a few comments on your few comments…
Brexit meant GB no longer had the ‘Dublin Agreement’ to rely on.. that was the end of any hope of controlling immigration.
You forget the US and China are themselves ‘unions’ of many, quite diverse states just as India is.
States’ rights are as live an issue in the US as they are in the EU, perhaps even more so.. look at the abortion issue these.
Although whether the US is a nation state is open to question. Arguably, like Switzerland it is a pre-nationalist confederation that has only partially moved towards Hamilton’s federalist concept of a unified nationality.
Thirdly: it is not over yet! Popular pressure to reduce immigrant numbers will continue to build. I suspect it will be turbo-charged by the 2022 full year figures released tomorrow. Eventually either this government or a future one will have to act. When they do, it will only be possible because of national sovereignty over immigration rules.
Yes, i think that interpretation on a global scale is nearer the mark. Nevertheless, MH’s analysis also provides some penetrating and vital insights into how and why we are where we are. It also demonstrates – in the event anyone should make the mistake of thinking otherwise, which commentors sometimes do – where she stands on many of the key political issues which face us.
One thought that occurs during the reading of this article: were those engaged in the changing political landscape of the 19th & 20th centuries quite so aware of the underlying shifts in cultural tectonic plates? Mass media obviously plays a part, but the MSM can’t be relied upon to reflect these shifts. Thank goodness, therefore, for Unherd. Much as we rail against some of its annoyances (technically and editorially), when articles such as this bring a clarifying lens to both the bigger and smaller pictures – in effect unifying them – the minor complaints pale into insignificance.
..a few comments on your few comments…
Brexit meant GB no longer had the ‘Dublin Agreement’ to rely on.. that was the end of any hope of controlling immigration.
You forget the US and China are themselves ‘unions’ of many, quite diverse states just as India is.
States’ rights are as live an issue in the US as they are in the EU, perhaps even more so.. look at the abortion issue these.
Although whether the US is a nation state is open to question. Arguably, like Switzerland it is a pre-nationalist confederation that has only partially moved towards Hamilton’s federalist concept of a unified nationality.
Last edited 11 months ago by Sam Sky
Paul Ten
11 months ago
A fascinating account and, as ever, a great read from this author. I perhaps take issue with a couple of things. Firstly, the story on immigration doesn’t mean Brexit has failed. It might mean our government of the day has failed, or is unwilling to engage with all the issues to deal with the problem. But at least Brexit means we know where the accountability lies.
Secondly, the ‘softening’ of the nation state seems like a very Euro-centric view of the world. The USA, China and Japan, to name a few, don’t seem to have much need of cross-national emulsifiers. There is still a strong case to say that the EU is a vehicle for advancement of national interest. And people look to nation states for support, help, furlough money when things go wrong. The idea may have some more life in it yet.
Judy Englander
11 months ago
I believe the key is the notion of boundaries/borders. A well functioning democracy has to be homogeneous enough to enable participation. It is based on equal citizenship and solidarity which can’t thrive if the electorate is broken down into warring identity groups and constantly diluted by uncontrolled mass immigration.
I see a clear link between the hatred of national borders/boundaries and the equivalent rejection of boundaries between the sexes, as well as traditional behavioural boundaries such as not sexualising children and recognising fetishes as deviant.
Indeed, the whole ‘liberal’ trend is to remove the very ideas of illegality (as in illegal immigrant) and deviancy. It’s all about borders wherever you look. This generation of ‘liberal’ cannot tolerate any kind of red line, any kind of ‘no’ … except their own authoritarian slapdown of alternative viewpoints. Then they find their borders and boundaries – which are far more discriminatory and restrictive than any proposed by conservatives.
I am sure that you are correct with this – The wave of the future!
I don’t know whether you are familiar with him, but Professor Matthew Goodwin of Kent University is an excellent source of information on political attitudes in the UK. His articles on Substack are worth signing up for. And you can find him in interviews on Triggernometry
His verdict on British politics is that it is broken.
I am sure that you are correct with this – The wave of the future!
I don’t know whether you are familiar with him, but Professor Matthew Goodwin of Kent University is an excellent source of information on political attitudes in the UK. His articles on Substack are worth signing up for. And you can find him in interviews on Triggernometry
His verdict on British politics is that it is broken.
Last edited 11 months ago by polidori redux
Judy Englander
11 months ago
I believe the key is the notion of boundaries/borders. A well functioning democracy has to be homogeneous enough to enable participation. It is based on equal citizenship and solidarity which can’t thrive if the electorate is broken down into warring identity groups and constantly diluted by uncontrolled mass immigration.
I see a clear link between the hatred of national borders/boundaries and the equivalent rejection of boundaries between the sexes, as well as traditional behavioural boundaries such as not sexualising children and recognising fetishes as deviant.
Indeed, the whole ‘liberal’ trend is to remove the very ideas of illegality (as in illegal immigrant) and deviancy. It’s all about borders wherever you look. This generation of ‘liberal’ cannot tolerate any kind of red line, any kind of ‘no’ … except their own authoritarian slapdown of alternative viewpoints. Then they find their borders and boundaries – which are far more discriminatory and restrictive than any proposed by conservatives.
Last edited 11 months ago by Judy Englander
Paul Nathanson
11 months ago
I see many astute observations in both Harrington’s article and the comments on it. Everyone agrees that something has gone very wrong, and everyone has a theory that explains the cause. Unlike many of you, I don’t see either the problem or any proposed solution to it in connection with economic theories or party politics–certainly not in Britain (which is four thousand miles away from where I live) but also not in the States (which is only thirty miles away). So, in case anyone might find it useful (in addition to other theories), here’s my take on what has gone wrong.
For me, the problem has many names, the most generic one being nihilism: the cynical belief that nothing is real (but not in the Hindu or Buddhist sense of material or psychological illusions that hide an underlying cosmic reality) and that no one (except “us”) is motivated by anything other than evil. Nihilism and cynicism are not new. What’s new is their pervasive presence and institutionalization along with the equally pervasive passivity or lack of will to challenge what is clearly destroying our civilization.
In our time, nihilism goes by the name of deconstruction, the atomic bomb of postmodernism (although, as I’ve written elsewhere, it actually originated in the avant-garde world of late-nineteenth century art, music and literature). Deconstruction is not just another word for “analysis.” This method always has the same purpose: to “interrogate,” “subvert” or “transgress” (that is, to undermine and destroy). Its goal is to confirm subjective “lived experience,” moreover, not to seek objective truth. Its paradigm is ideology, therefore, not scholarship. At first, its targets were the cultural productions of a “bourgeois” society, usually literary texts. Next came the cultural productions of a “systemically racist” or “systemically patriarchal” society, including laws, policies, institutions, news outlets, “social media,” and so on. Now, though, deconstruction has spread from the classroom to the boardroom, from the campuses to the streets. And the targets now include nature itself. There’s no such thing as nature, apparently, only “social constructs” that “dominant classes” impose on “oppressed classes” in order to blind them with “false consciousness” and thus prevent revolution.
In short, deconstruction has taken on an autonomous life of its own. It’s in the air that most people breathe. This means that nothing, no matter how universal–not empirical observation or even science, not reason or even common sense, not the Golden Rule or even common decency–nothing at all is left to sustain society. And this, in turn, probably means that there is no way back. Utopian ideologues consciously intend to build a new society (described in very vague terms) on the ruins and ashes of our hopelessly contaminated one. This is the problem. It’s not this or that ideology, this or that party, but the radioactive contamination from decades of nihilism and cynicism.
Unfortunately, I have no solution to propose. If one were to emerge, however, it would be the result not of an election, much less of this or that government policy, but of a cultural revolution on the scale of–and the depth of–a Renaissance, a Reformation, or an Enlightenment. Western civilization has gone through several cycles of birth, death and rebirth. It could happen again, whether we live long enough to see it or not.
That brings me to some historical precedents in the West (although the same could be said of other times and places such as Egypt and India). After 70 AD, the Second Temple lay in ruins, the Jews scattered in exile. Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples realized that only one form of Judaism would endure. Unlike the Temple cult in Jerusalem, the rabbinic movement (which had originated four centuries earlier during the first exile) was “portable.” It focused not on a place, not on a state, but on Torah learning. It could flourish, therefore, wherever Jews settled and studied. Four or five centuries later, St. Augustine of Hippo lived in a crumbling Roman Empire. He understood that chaos could not be resisted for much longer. In addition, though, he understood the Church as a kind of new Noah’s Ark. It would preserve the seeds of both classical and Christian learning until these could be planted and cultivated in fertile soil on some remote shore. More recently, in 1660, Samuel Danforth revived the same idea, telling his flock of Puritan pilgrims in the New World that they were on an “errand into the wilderness.”
I suspect that these prototypes have an important message for us. If Western civilization dies yet again, we could think of ourselves as refugees with a vocation. As I understand that vocation, personally, it includes preserving the record for future generations of what’s going on, carefully documenting actual events and doctrines that would otherwise be considered beyond credulity.
Thanks for that Paul. I always enjoy reading your analyses even when i sometimes disagree with them.
On this occasion, i don’t disagree with your fundamental point about nihilism. It’s something i’ve thought about – lived, as it were – since the 1970s. One point of discussion that arises concerns whether the deconstructionists could ever hope to bring forth a different, new society after their attempted breakdown if, due to the very nature of a nihilist worldview, any such new society could coalesce without being subject to the same deconstructive interrogation.
That’s the thing about nihilism; it’s self-defeating, and must therefore be rejected at every available opportunity. The human spirit hasn’t brought us this far without having an ability to revive itself, and your historical examples are potent in their perspective, which is usually lacking in this debate.
It is indeed self-defeating, Steve. But those who indulge in deconstruction don’t care. It’s merely the means (a weapon) to an end (the destruction of society). They rely on an inherent double standard, gleefully deconstructing every worldview other than their own. I spent thirty years reading deconstructions of popular movies, for instance, and never once found any deconstruction of a movie that drew inspiration from Marxist or feminist ideology.
I once told someone that I was writing my doctoral dissertation on The Wizard of Oz as a “secular myth” of America. The immediate response was, “Oh, great! What are you deconstructing in it?” Even then–that was in the early 1990s–academics, even budding academics, assumed that their colleagues were implacably hostile to anything as inherently bourgeois or patriarchal, anything as sinister, as a Hollywood movie must be by definition. The only respectable approach to it, therefore, would begin with contempt and ridicule. My dissertation (later a book) would have scandalized her. It contains no sneering. On the contrary, my finding was that this movie (like many other cross-generational classics) is a cultural production of great beauty and wisdom, partly because it repeats in secular form ancient mythological paradigms. My point here, though, is that I actually learned a great deal by writing it, because it was real research. I found cinematic and symbolic patterns that I didn’t see at first. In other words, I didn’t “know” the answer before I asked the question.
It is indeed self-defeating, Steve. But those who indulge in deconstruction don’t care. It’s merely the means (a weapon) to an end (the destruction of society). They rely on an inherent double standard, gleefully deconstructing every worldview other than their own. I spent thirty years reading deconstructions of popular movies, for instance, and never once found any deconstruction of a movie that drew inspiration from Marxist or feminist ideology.
I once told someone that I was writing my doctoral dissertation on The Wizard of Oz as a “secular myth” of America. The immediate response was, “Oh, great! What are you deconstructing in it?” Even then–that was in the early 1990s–academics, even budding academics, assumed that their colleagues were implacably hostile to anything as inherently bourgeois or patriarchal, anything as sinister, as a Hollywood movie must be by definition. The only respectable approach to it, therefore, would begin with contempt and ridicule. My dissertation (later a book) would have scandalized her. It contains no sneering. On the contrary, my finding was that this movie (like many other cross-generational classics) is a cultural production of great beauty and wisdom, partly because it repeats in secular form ancient mythological paradigms. My point here, though, is that I actually learned a great deal by writing it, because it was real research. I found cinematic and symbolic patterns that I didn’t see at first. In other words, I didn’t “know” the answer before I asked the question.
Most interesting. There are too many who think far too much and complicate things. This afternoon I walked along an ancient track to a church built 800 years ago that sits on no road and with no power except that of sunlight. It is still sometimes used and even in these days remains unlocked.
The land it sits upon is almost unchanged in the last thousand years or more although I suspect there would have been more people working in the fields 500 years ago . It is my England not an abstract place or a complex politicised nation state but where I and my ancestors have lived for centuries.It is nothing to do with kings, ministers of state or great companies .It will be here long after I am gone and my only function now is to tell my grandchildren of it as I told my children and to hope that they will understand what this country of ours really is. .
We all must rest on something in this world and I am content to rest on this and on my faith.
I hesitate to press ‘like’ as the analysis is so depressing. I also sense the urge to destruction. It’s as if we set out deliberately to create chaos out of order. Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed: The family, the nation state, the police, religion, biological norms, classical art, literature and music, history, even the ploughed field and garden lawn – everything must go. The question though is, why? What utopian paradise will emerge from this?
“Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed.”
To give you some idea of how perverse (let alone depressing) our current situation is, Martin, I’d say that the dichotomy between order and chaos is probably a universal and even primordial feature of human perception. People must use culture to create order within what would otherwise be a chaotic and uninhabitable wilderness. (To put that another way, people do so to seek and experience the sacred dimension within the profane one.) To attack order, per se, is therefore incompatible with human existence. In short, it’s suicidal. Who do some societies commit collective suicide? Well, why do some people commit personal suicide? It happens, often due to a combination of cowardice and what we now call “neuroticism.”
“What utopian paradise will emerge from this?”
That’s a good question! My answer has two versions. But first, I want to clarify the vocabulary. “Paradise” (from the Persian for “garden”) refers to an otherworldly ideal. “Utopia” (from the Greek for “nowhere”) refers to a worldly project.
The short answer to your question is that no utopia ever has or ever will emerge from nihilism.
The long answer is that this commonsensical observation has never deterred utopian daydreamers. For well over a century, secular people, notably Marxists, have complained about “pie-in-the-sky” religion. Liberal (secularized) Christians and Jews have joined them. What could be more foolish or destructive, they say, than hoping for some immaterial and otherworldly paradise in a future life at the cost of passivity in the face of poverty and tyranny in this one? Better to participate actively in provoking revolution in order to build a utopia right here and now. Trouble is, humans are finite beings and therefore immune to perfection. Utopia is therefore just as unattainable within history as paradise is. Given the many profoundly destructive attempts to create utopias–I refer not only to those that have relied on various Christian theologies but also (notably in the twentieth century) to those that rely on secular political ideologies–you’d think that everyone would know better by now. But no, ideologues keep forgetting the dismal history of utopian experiments and therefore ignoring the need for modesty or restraint. For utopians, whether religious or secular, non-conformity is a threat. It amounts to either heresy or infidelity and must therefore be eliminated by force (assuming that noble ends can justify tyrannical or even totalitarian means).
Paul, thanks for taking the time for a thoughtful response. I think there is a fundamental propensity for chaos, from which we have evolved ways of creating order. It’s taken millennia of effort to find an uneasy way of managing. It’s a point Jordan Peterson makes that the Israelites and Christians always knew that utopia was not for this world. It seems in a generation of hubris we have forgotten this and can’t resist the propensity for chaos.
Paul, thanks for taking the time for a thoughtful response. I think there is a fundamental propensity for chaos, from which we have evolved ways of creating order. It’s taken millennia of effort to find an uneasy way of managing. It’s a point Jordan Peterson makes that the Israelites and Christians always knew that utopia was not for this world. It seems in a generation of hubris we have forgotten this and can’t resist the propensity for chaos.
“Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed.”
To give you some idea of how perverse (let alone depressing) our current situation is, Martin, I’d say that the dichotomy between order and chaos is probably a universal and even primordial feature of human perception. People must use culture to create order within what would otherwise be a chaotic and uninhabitable wilderness. (To put that another way, people do so to seek and experience the sacred dimension within the profane one.) To attack order, per se, is therefore incompatible with human existence. In short, it’s suicidal. Who do some societies commit collective suicide? Well, why do some people commit personal suicide? It happens, often due to a combination of cowardice and what we now call “neuroticism.”
“What utopian paradise will emerge from this?”
That’s a good question! My answer has two versions. But first, I want to clarify the vocabulary. “Paradise” (from the Persian for “garden”) refers to an otherworldly ideal. “Utopia” (from the Greek for “nowhere”) refers to a worldly project.
The short answer to your question is that no utopia ever has or ever will emerge from nihilism.
The long answer is that this commonsensical observation has never deterred utopian daydreamers. For well over a century, secular people, notably Marxists, have complained about “pie-in-the-sky” religion. Liberal (secularized) Christians and Jews have joined them. What could be more foolish or destructive, they say, than hoping for some immaterial and otherworldly paradise in a future life at the cost of passivity in the face of poverty and tyranny in this one? Better to participate actively in provoking revolution in order to build a utopia right here and now. Trouble is, humans are finite beings and therefore immune to perfection. Utopia is therefore just as unattainable within history as paradise is. Given the many profoundly destructive attempts to create utopias–I refer not only to those that have relied on various Christian theologies but also (notably in the twentieth century) to those that rely on secular political ideologies–you’d think that everyone would know better by now. But no, ideologues keep forgetting the dismal history of utopian experiments and therefore ignoring the need for modesty or restraint. For utopians, whether religious or secular, non-conformity is a threat. It amounts to either heresy or infidelity and must therefore be eliminated by force (assuming that noble ends can justify tyrannical or even totalitarian means).
Thanks for that Paul. I always enjoy reading your analyses even when i sometimes disagree with them.
On this occasion, i don’t disagree with your fundamental point about nihilism. It’s something i’ve thought about – lived, as it were – since the 1970s. One point of discussion that arises concerns whether the deconstructionists could ever hope to bring forth a different, new society after their attempted breakdown if, due to the very nature of a nihilist worldview, any such new society could coalesce without being subject to the same deconstructive interrogation.
That’s the thing about nihilism; it’s self-defeating, and must therefore be rejected at every available opportunity. The human spirit hasn’t brought us this far without having an ability to revive itself, and your historical examples are potent in their perspective, which is usually lacking in this debate.
Most interesting. There are too many who think far too much and complicate things. This afternoon I walked along an ancient track to a church built 800 years ago that sits on no road and with no power except that of sunlight. It is still sometimes used and even in these days remains unlocked.
The land it sits upon is almost unchanged in the last thousand years or more although I suspect there would have been more people working in the fields 500 years ago . It is my England not an abstract place or a complex politicised nation state but where I and my ancestors have lived for centuries.It is nothing to do with kings, ministers of state or great companies .It will be here long after I am gone and my only function now is to tell my grandchildren of it as I told my children and to hope that they will understand what this country of ours really is. .
We all must rest on something in this world and I am content to rest on this and on my faith.
I hesitate to press ‘like’ as the analysis is so depressing. I also sense the urge to destruction. It’s as if we set out deliberately to create chaos out of order. Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed: The family, the nation state, the police, religion, biological norms, classical art, literature and music, history, even the ploughed field and garden lawn – everything must go. The question though is, why? What utopian paradise will emerge from this?
Paul Nathanson
11 months ago
I see many astute observations in both Harrington’s article and the comments on it. Everyone agrees that something has gone very wrong, and everyone has a theory that explains the cause. Unlike many of you, I don’t see either the problem or any proposed solution to it in connection with economic theories or party politics–certainly not in Britain (which is four thousand miles away from where I live) but also not in the States (which is only thirty miles away). So, in case anyone might find it useful (in addition to other theories), here’s my take on what has gone wrong.
For me, the problem has many names, the most generic one being nihilism: the cynical belief that nothing is real (but not in the Hindu or Buddhist sense of material or psychological illusions that hide an underlying cosmic reality) and that no one (except “us”) is motivated by anything other than evil. Nihilism and cynicism are not new. What’s new is their pervasive presence and institutionalization along with the equally pervasive passivity or lack of will to challenge what is clearly destroying our civilization.
In our time, nihilism goes by the name of deconstruction, the atomic bomb of postmodernism (although, as I’ve written elsewhere, it actually originated in the avant-garde world of late-nineteenth century art, music and literature). Deconstruction is not just another word for “analysis.” This method always has the same purpose: to “interrogate,” “subvert” or “transgress” (that is, to undermine and destroy). Its goal is to confirm subjective “lived experience,” moreover, not to seek objective truth. Its paradigm is ideology, therefore, not scholarship. At first, its targets were the cultural productions of a “bourgeois” society, usually literary texts. Next came the cultural productions of a “systemically racist” or “systemically patriarchal” society, including laws, policies, institutions, news outlets, “social media,” and so on. Now, though, deconstruction has spread from the classroom to the boardroom, from the campuses to the streets. And the targets now include nature itself. There’s no such thing as nature, apparently, only “social constructs” that “dominant classes” impose on “oppressed classes” in order to blind them with “false consciousness” and thus prevent revolution.
In short, deconstruction has taken on an autonomous life of its own. It’s in the air that most people breathe. This means that nothing, no matter how universal–not empirical observation or even science, not reason or even common sense, not the Golden Rule or even common decency–nothing at all is left to sustain society. And this, in turn, probably means that there is no way back. Utopian ideologues consciously intend to build a new society (described in very vague terms) on the ruins and ashes of our hopelessly contaminated one. This is the problem. It’s not this or that ideology, this or that party, but the radioactive contamination from decades of nihilism and cynicism.
Unfortunately, I have no solution to propose. If one were to emerge, however, it would be the result not of an election, much less of this or that government policy, but of a cultural revolution on the scale of–and the depth of–a Renaissance, a Reformation, or an Enlightenment. Western civilization has gone through several cycles of birth, death and rebirth. It could happen again, whether we live long enough to see it or not.
That brings me to some historical precedents in the West (although the same could be said of other times and places such as Egypt and India). After 70 AD, the Second Temple lay in ruins, the Jews scattered in exile. Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples realized that only one form of Judaism would endure. Unlike the Temple cult in Jerusalem, the rabbinic movement (which had originated four centuries earlier during the first exile) was “portable.” It focused not on a place, not on a state, but on Torah learning. It could flourish, therefore, wherever Jews settled and studied. Four or five centuries later, St. Augustine of Hippo lived in a crumbling Roman Empire. He understood that chaos could not be resisted for much longer. In addition, though, he understood the Church as a kind of new Noah’s Ark. It would preserve the seeds of both classical and Christian learning until these could be planted and cultivated in fertile soil on some remote shore. More recently, in 1660, Samuel Danforth revived the same idea, telling his flock of Puritan pilgrims in the New World that they were on an “errand into the wilderness.”
I suspect that these prototypes have an important message for us. If Western civilization dies yet again, we could think of ourselves as refugees with a vocation. As I understand that vocation, personally, it includes preserving the record for future generations of what’s going on, carefully documenting actual events and doctrines that would otherwise be considered beyond credulity.
Last edited 11 months ago by Paul Nathanson
Martin Terrell
11 months ago
Magnificent Mary – putting into elegant prose the incoherent ramblings of our minds in response to events around us. Agree we can see a return to the Hapsburg era where the super wealthy lived across and beyond borders and the peasants knew their place. Meanwhile we cannot let go of the idea that history is meant to be progressive, as we learn from the past and become steadily freer and richer. We then fail to spot that the escalator is going down rather than up.
I wish Unherd editors had the chutzpah to headline this article as the Great Harrington Declaration.
Martin Terrell
11 months ago
Magnificent Mary – putting into elegant prose the incoherent ramblings of our minds in response to events around us. Agree we can see a return to the Hapsburg era where the super wealthy lived across and beyond borders and the peasants knew their place. Meanwhile we cannot let go of the idea that history is meant to be progressive, as we learn from the past and become steadily freer and richer. We then fail to spot that the escalator is going down rather than up.
Andy Iddon
11 months ago
The nation is gone and the people dispossessed. We are just customers now and our former nation is just a state. no longer citizens in any meaningful sense
The nation is gone and the people dispossessed. We are just customers now and our former nation is just a state. no longer citizens in any meaningful sense
Last edited 11 months ago by Andy Iddon
Katharine Eyre
11 months ago
“The week before NatCon, Keir Starmer floated a proposal to extend UK voting rights to tax-paying EU citizens living in the UK, as well as to sixth-form schoolchildren”.
This was the moment I became certain that Labour are actively trying to lose the next election because they aren’t ready to govern. It just seemed like the kind of thing designed to repel the Red/Blue/whatever coloured Wall it is Labour has to win back in order to gain power (which is still the way things happen, even if the electorate are then ignored).
This kind of policy is unlikely to win you votes anywhere. The Austrian Greens and the SPÖ bring it up every now and again to test the waters but it’s such a no-no so the issue goes away again fairly quickly.
Yea, it is a no-no right now, but the fact that they keep bringing it up should be taken very seriously. These people undermine democracy at every bend and turn, because they are unwilling and/or unable to even define who the people they serve are. They probably also bristle at the idea of service, but that is what a public office is or at least was meant to be.
Is it that Labour is not ready to govern, or rather that there nothing left for Labour to govern? Let me ask, in all seriousness: Does Joe Biden really govern anything? Is he not, as Mary mentioned, a “leader on autopilot”? Haven’t we handed the franchise over to . . . the EU, or whatever substitutes for it? Is Mary pointing to the fact that we will soon wake up in a one-world state, if we have not already done so?
SNP in Scotland already lowered voting age to 16 for Scottish parliamentary elections.
At the same time, these voters under 18 are not trusted to use their own judgement to:
Buy alcohol in licensed premises and consume alcohol in a bar.Buy cigarettes & tobacco.Buy a National Lottery ticket or scratch card Buy or possess fireworks.Place a bet.Hold a credit card.Work behind a bar. Get tattooed.Hire or buy a sunbed.Be licensed to serve alcohol.
Yea, it is a no-no right now, but the fact that they keep bringing it up should be taken very seriously. These people undermine democracy at every bend and turn, because they are unwilling and/or unable to even define who the people they serve are. They probably also bristle at the idea of service, but that is what a public office is or at least was meant to be.
Is it that Labour is not ready to govern, or rather that there nothing left for Labour to govern? Let me ask, in all seriousness: Does Joe Biden really govern anything? Is he not, as Mary mentioned, a “leader on autopilot”? Haven’t we handed the franchise over to . . . the EU, or whatever substitutes for it? Is Mary pointing to the fact that we will soon wake up in a one-world state, if we have not already done so?
SNP in Scotland already lowered voting age to 16 for Scottish parliamentary elections.
At the same time, these voters under 18 are not trusted to use their own judgement to:
Buy alcohol in licensed premises and consume alcohol in a bar.Buy cigarettes & tobacco.Buy a National Lottery ticket or scratch card Buy or possess fireworks.Place a bet.Hold a credit card.Work behind a bar. Get tattooed.Hire or buy a sunbed.Be licensed to serve alcohol.
Last edited 11 months ago by Brendan O'Leary
Katharine Eyre
11 months ago
“The week before NatCon, Keir Starmer floated a proposal to extend UK voting rights to tax-paying EU citizens living in the UK, as well as to sixth-form schoolchildren”.
This was the moment I became certain that Labour are actively trying to lose the next election because they aren’t ready to govern. It just seemed like the kind of thing designed to repel the Red/Blue/whatever coloured Wall it is Labour has to win back in order to gain power (which is still the way things happen, even if the electorate are then ignored).
This kind of policy is unlikely to win you votes anywhere. The Austrian Greens and the SPÖ bring it up every now and again to test the waters but it’s such a no-no so the issue goes away again fairly quickly.
Last edited 11 months ago by Katharine Eyre
Andrew Horsman
11 months ago
My sense is that our so-called national political elite – your Starmers and your Sunaks – don’t actually want the responsibility that comes with meaningful power. Like many of the people they purportedly govern, they want someone else to make the major decisions for them, someone to tell them what do, what to think, how to be good, how to be liked, how to stay in the safety of the herd. Their absence of faith in anything other than a disenchanted Enlightenment rationality makes them ripe for manipulation by whatever manifestation of earthy power appears to them to be the strongest.
At the same time, there are – as there always have been – narcissistic, megalomaniac empire builders with a psychopathic bent. These are your Xis, your Bezos’s, your Putins, your Musks, your Clintons, the people in the shadows behind them, and their entourage of paid advisors, lieutenants and placemen sycophantically surrounding them. They see themselves as Gods, to whom the idea of limits or boundaries to their power is a grossly offensive affront. They fight each other, in actual, cultural, or commercial wars, battling it out to be the strongest, with the little people – knowingly or not – as conscripts. If you want a global empire without limits, you either need to wipe out your opponents, convert them, or at very least subjugate them at force them to pay tribute.
A key difference between the warmongers of centuries past and those of today’s world is that our power-loving maniacs believe that technology has made it possible, in theory, for them to break down not just geographical or political limits, but also the limits and boundaries between individual people and ultimately between people and their environment. One World, One Health, One People etc. If everything collapses into a massive, unlimited, manipulable single stream of data, the theory goes, the powers that be can make heaven on earth.
The battle that lies before us is one between those who believe that a world without borders and limits is both possible and desirable, and those who believe in natural limits, boundaries and controls – and are willing and able to take the responsibility that comes with autonomous decision making power that they confer. The winner, as always, will ultimately be determined by whichever side has a better grasp on the objective truth.
And the objective truth, obviously, is that there is no singularity but God, and the refusal to accept that truth is the only thing that causes all the suffering we see on Earth. We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves. It is the power hungry, the narcissists, those who lack faith… who are the most delusional of all. But it is also the fate of the persecuted to become the new predators, so we must stay humble, curious and reasonable.
“We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves.”
Indeed we do. The propensity of humans to inflict psychological straightjackets upon themselves is almost boundless, including the concept of God. You may perhaps attach a different meaning to the concept than the traditional religious sense, but even that is in effect the ultimate expression of wishful thinking.
I’m sure you’ll disagree profoundly with that – which, as you say, is your choice.
“We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves.”
Indeed we do. The propensity of humans to inflict psychological straightjackets upon themselves is almost boundless, including the concept of God. You may perhaps attach a different meaning to the concept than the traditional religious sense, but even that is in effect the ultimate expression of wishful thinking.
I’m sure you’ll disagree profoundly with that – which, as you say, is your choice.
And the objective truth, obviously, is that there is no singularity but God, and the refusal to accept that truth is the only thing that causes all the suffering we see on Earth. We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves. It is the power hungry, the narcissists, those who lack faith… who are the most delusional of all. But it is also the fate of the persecuted to become the new predators, so we must stay humble, curious and reasonable.
Andrew Horsman
11 months ago
My sense is that our so-called national political elite – your Starmers and your Sunaks – don’t actually want the responsibility that comes with meaningful power. Like many of the people they purportedly govern, they want someone else to make the major decisions for them, someone to tell them what do, what to think, how to be good, how to be liked, how to stay in the safety of the herd. Their absence of faith in anything other than a disenchanted Enlightenment rationality makes them ripe for manipulation by whatever manifestation of earthy power appears to them to be the strongest.
At the same time, there are – as there always have been – narcissistic, megalomaniac empire builders with a psychopathic bent. These are your Xis, your Bezos’s, your Putins, your Musks, your Clintons, the people in the shadows behind them, and their entourage of paid advisors, lieutenants and placemen sycophantically surrounding them. They see themselves as Gods, to whom the idea of limits or boundaries to their power is a grossly offensive affront. They fight each other, in actual, cultural, or commercial wars, battling it out to be the strongest, with the little people – knowingly or not – as conscripts. If you want a global empire without limits, you either need to wipe out your opponents, convert them, or at very least subjugate them at force them to pay tribute.
A key difference between the warmongers of centuries past and those of today’s world is that our power-loving maniacs believe that technology has made it possible, in theory, for them to break down not just geographical or political limits, but also the limits and boundaries between individual people and ultimately between people and their environment. One World, One Health, One People etc. If everything collapses into a massive, unlimited, manipulable single stream of data, the theory goes, the powers that be can make heaven on earth.
The battle that lies before us is one between those who believe that a world without borders and limits is both possible and desirable, and those who believe in natural limits, boundaries and controls – and are willing and able to take the responsibility that comes with autonomous decision making power that they confer. The winner, as always, will ultimately be determined by whichever side has a better grasp on the objective truth.
Andrew Raiment
11 months ago
It’s really exhausting being a (plastic) liberal, calling people bigots for having the wrong opinion, telling them what to think, what they must like and dislike. Demanding that they reject evidence and objective truth for fashionable nonsense.
Last edited 11 months ago by Andrew Raiment
Andrew Raiment
11 months ago
It’s really exhausting being a (plastic) liberal, calling people bigots for having the wrong opinion, telling them what to think, what they must like and dislike. Demanding that they reject evidence and objective truth for fashionable nonsense.
Last edited 11 months ago by Andrew Raiment
UnHerd Reader
11 months ago
Could not be bothered to wade through it all after this:
”Thanks to EU free movement rules, many felt the level of low-skilled immigration to the United Kingdom was too high, depressing wages.”
Well – I left London in the 1970s and always returned to see it like someone running in a strobe light – a stop frame cartoon with a year or two between frames.
My old parts of London are not much British anymore – and NOT for the better. The buildings the same… the people are not, but for the Oldies like my Mother and her friends.
The immigration was cultural suicide. The Brits decided they had enough of Shakespeare, Wellington, PG Wodehouse, Queens Elizabeths, Victoria – Kings Alfred through the Henrys and Georges and Plantagenets, and Newton and Orwell and Darwin; Pantomine, Fish and Chips, Church on the Holiday – and decided to end their genetic line and culture and society….
Your politically correct ‘low skilled migrants depressing wages‘ is such cowardliness….
I suppose you will learn to write: ‘Biological Man’, or ‘Woman’ when you mean something else, and call them, ‘them’ or even ‘Zim, Zir’ next. Mary – you are supposed to use language, Kings English and all – not 2023 doubleplusgood INGSOC. Say what you mean.
If you had read on to ‘the history of patriotic feeling that attends this marriage of language, culture, history, geography, and democratic citizenship …’ you would see that these these themes are connected – borders, identity, belonging, culture. I would add that if you respect your own culture, you can also respect someone else’s culture, but that’s for another article I expect.
Western governments and corporations are heavily engaged in the breaking down of identities: national, religious, and sexual. What they are trying to replace them with are compliant sexless worker drones who have no concept of self or self-rule.
Many vocal working class leaders (you would probably say union ‘barons,’ despite the fact they are elected) were explicit that they were voting for Brexit in resistance to depressing wages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt2IZLe8rmY
If you had read on to ‘the history of patriotic feeling that attends this marriage of language, culture, history, geography, and democratic citizenship …’ you would see that these these themes are connected – borders, identity, belonging, culture. I would add that if you respect your own culture, you can also respect someone else’s culture, but that’s for another article I expect.
Western governments and corporations are heavily engaged in the breaking down of identities: national, religious, and sexual. What they are trying to replace them with are compliant sexless worker drones who have no concept of self or self-rule.
Many vocal working class leaders (you would probably say union ‘barons,’ despite the fact they are elected) were explicit that they were voting for Brexit in resistance to depressing wages https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt2IZLe8rmY
UnHerd Reader
11 months ago
Could not be bothered to wade through it all after this:
”Thanks to EU free movement rules, many felt the level of low-skilled immigration to the United Kingdom was too high, depressing wages.”
Well – I left London in the 1970s and always returned to see it like someone running in a strobe light – a stop frame cartoon with a year or two between frames.
My old parts of London are not much British anymore – and NOT for the better. The buildings the same… the people are not, but for the Oldies like my Mother and her friends.
The immigration was cultural suicide. The Brits decided they had enough of Shakespeare, Wellington, PG Wodehouse, Queens Elizabeths, Victoria – Kings Alfred through the Henrys and Georges and Plantagenets, and Newton and Orwell and Darwin; Pantomine, Fish and Chips, Church on the Holiday – and decided to end their genetic line and culture and society….
Your politically correct ‘low skilled migrants depressing wages‘ is such cowardliness….
I suppose you will learn to write: ‘Biological Man’, or ‘Woman’ when you mean something else, and call them, ‘them’ or even ‘Zim, Zir’ next. Mary – you are supposed to use language, Kings English and all – not 2023 doubleplusgood INGSOC. Say what you mean.
AC Harper
11 months ago
To heavily paraphrase Peter Turchin – an Elite establishes itself, boosts its wealth and privilege, sows the seeds of its own destruction through overproduction of Elite children, and then collapses into chaos until a new Elite establishes itself.
I suspect that Brexit (for example, or Trump, or Meloni) marked the beginnings of the collapse, yet the Old Elite are trying to blunt it and hold on to their privileges. But the old centre cannot hold. The whole mess is complicated by the global relationships, but even those appear to be breaking down.
There’s no guarantee that we (the ordinary people) will like the New Elite, but they will find it much tougher to establish themselves when under today’s information scrutiny. Which is why the debate between Free Speech and Censorship is so crucial.
Last edited 11 months ago by AC Harper
AC Harper
11 months ago
To heavily paraphrase Peter Turchin – an Elite establishes itself, boosts its wealth and privilege, sows the seeds of its own destruction through overproduction of Elite children, and then collapses into chaos until a new Elite establishes itself.
I suspect that Brexit (for example, or Trump, or Meloni) marked the beginnings of the collapse, yet the Old Elite are trying to blunt it and hold on to their privileges. But the old centre cannot hold. The whole mess is complicated by the global relationships, but even those appear to be breaking down.
There’s no guarantee that we (the ordinary people) will like the New Elite, but they will find it much tougher to establish themselves when under today’s information scrutiny. Which is why the debate between Free Speech and Censorship is so crucial.
Last edited 11 months ago by AC Harper
Hugh Bryant
11 months ago
The reason that people with power don’t care about mass immigration is simple: they don’t pay for it. On the contrary, the resultant house price inflation and wage depression makes them richer every year. The negative consequences are felt elsewhere.
Rather than embark on the expensive, risky and fraught policy of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda, Braverman should be housing them in large numbers in Hampstead, Highgate, Richmond, Maidenhead, Oxford, Cambridge and Bath. You’d be amazed at just how quickly the narrative would change were she to do that.
Hugh Bryant
11 months ago
The reason that people with power don’t care about mass immigration is simple: they don’t pay for it. On the contrary, the resultant house price inflation and wage depression makes them richer every year. The negative consequences are felt elsewhere.
Rather than embark on the expensive, risky and fraught policy of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda, Braverman should be housing them in large numbers in Hampstead, Highgate, Richmond, Maidenhead, Oxford, Cambridge and Bath. You’d be amazed at just how quickly the narrative would change were she to do that.
Tony Taylor
11 months ago
You may have voted to move away from Europe, and this may well be a suboptimal outcome, especially with the wealth pumps and the emulsifiers and the febrile disenfranchisements, but you also may have re-established links with Australia. Ev’ry cloud…
You may have voted to move away from Europe, and this may well be a suboptimal outcome, especially with the wealth pumps and the emulsifiers and the febrile disenfranchisements, but you also may have re-established links with Australia. Ev’ry cloud…
Last edited 11 months ago by Tony Taylor
Frederick Leigh
11 months ago
Mary’s instincts are good though clouded by over-analysis. The decision to Leave was never about economics but about an EU unwilling to reform, unaccountable to its people, unwilling to secure its borders, defend itself or pull its weight in NATO. Leaving was far more foresighted than you may think given global forecasts of mass displacement, conflict, climate change and food insecurity. Having cast off one elite bureaucracy nobody seems to have the vision to chart our own future course. As Spike Milligan said, “What are we going to do now?”
Frederick Leigh
11 months ago
Mary’s instincts are good though clouded by over-analysis. The decision to Leave was never about economics but about an EU unwilling to reform, unaccountable to its people, unwilling to secure its borders, defend itself or pull its weight in NATO. Leaving was far more foresighted than you may think given global forecasts of mass displacement, conflict, climate change and food insecurity. Having cast off one elite bureaucracy nobody seems to have the vision to chart our own future course. As Spike Milligan said, “What are we going to do now?”
Justin Clark
11 months ago
A Nation without borders is no longer a Nation. As a Leaver I’m obviously annoyed to be told I’m anti-European. As I counter – “Love Europe, Hate EU. Love Football, Hate FIFA”… Simple!
Justin Clark
11 months ago
A Nation without borders is no longer a Nation. As a Leaver I’m obviously annoyed to be told I’m anti-European. As I counter – “Love Europe, Hate EU. Love Football, Hate FIFA”… Simple!
Russell Sharpe
11 months ago
The top-down threat to the liberal democratic nation state from the cognitive elites’ commitment to ever greater levels of mass immigration is now indisputable, but behind that lies an even greater bottom-up one: the effective decision of the peoples of Europe to stop having children in numbers required to sustain their much-cherished welfare states. Soon there will be only two people working for every economically inactive pensioner. Clearly mass immigration too is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme in the longer term, but I suppose the idea is to push out the life-expectancy of the still extant European peoples just beyond the horizon of their leaders, before those peoples finally spiral into extinction, leaving behind a disparate collection of wary ethnicities, shifting tribal allegiances and religious and post-religious confessions to sort out their collective futures and forge whatever postnational solidarity they can. Blaming the elites for a trahison des clercs is a natural response, but they may be making the best decisions they can given the collective death-wish of those they are enjoined to govern.
Much of the reason for not wishing to have children is the unaffordability of property of sufficient size, which increased sharply at about the same time as immigration rose significantly. This is not surprising, given the pressure on housing which immigration obviously causes.
I once read a novel called Private Schulz (later made into a series, starring Michael Elphick and Ian Richardson among others). One of the characters was a very stupid German soldier with a habit of swallowing chewing gum. When asked why he did this, he explained that he thought it would help cure his chronic stomach aches. It never occurred to him that the aches became worse the more gum he swallowed.
The UK’s immigration policy today, with the aim of beefing up the population, is the government’s equivalent of swallowing chewing gum. If they reduced immigration to a trickle (and implemented a few other measures, such as abolishing no-fault divorces) then the problem of fewer offspring would soon be solved.
Much of the reason for not wishing to have children is the unaffordability of property of sufficient size, which increased sharply at about the same time as immigration rose significantly. This is not surprising, given the pressure on housing which immigration obviously causes.
I once read a novel called Private Schulz (later made into a series, starring Michael Elphick and Ian Richardson among others). One of the characters was a very stupid German soldier with a habit of swallowing chewing gum. When asked why he did this, he explained that he thought it would help cure his chronic stomach aches. It never occurred to him that the aches became worse the more gum he swallowed.
The UK’s immigration policy today, with the aim of beefing up the population, is the government’s equivalent of swallowing chewing gum. If they reduced immigration to a trickle (and implemented a few other measures, such as abolishing no-fault divorces) then the problem of fewer offspring would soon be solved.
Russell Sharpe
11 months ago
The top-down threat to the liberal democratic nation state from the cognitive elites’ commitment to ever greater levels of mass immigration is now indisputable, but behind that lies an even greater bottom-up one: the effective decision of the peoples of Europe to stop having children in numbers required to sustain their much-cherished welfare states. Soon there will be only two people working for every economically inactive pensioner. Clearly mass immigration too is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme in the longer term, but I suppose the idea is to push out the life-expectancy of the still extant European peoples just beyond the horizon of their leaders, before those peoples finally spiral into extinction, leaving behind a disparate collection of wary ethnicities, shifting tribal allegiances and religious and post-religious confessions to sort out their collective futures and forge whatever postnational solidarity they can. Blaming the elites for a trahison des clercs is a natural response, but they may be making the best decisions they can given the collective death-wish of those they are enjoined to govern.
Hendrik Mentz
11 months ago
We have our noses jammed against the shop window believing the mannequins, our leaders, are real. But they’re like us, on display. But we won’t avert our gaze for to do so must surely confirm our worst nightmare: our paucity, our insubstantiality, our loneliness, and so the portion of the giant screen each of us carries will become the only measure. Don’t blame our ‘leaders’ for whatever is to come. They’re doing what we would do: playing to the cameras. Being liked.
Hendrik Mentz
11 months ago
We have our noses jammed against the shop window believing the mannequins, our leaders, are real. But they’re like us, on display. But we won’t avert our gaze for to do so must surely confirm our worst nightmare: our paucity, our insubstantiality, our loneliness, and so the portion of the giant screen each of us carries will become the only measure. Don’t blame our ‘leaders’ for whatever is to come. They’re doing what we would do: playing to the cameras. Being liked.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
11 months ago
The answer is simple nu britn hewkay is actually a mirror of the TV satire ” The Office”: with a very few notable exceptions the ruling ToyliTory party are of the line manager ilk, whose only interest is keeping their jobs, at any cost, and willing to lie, backstab, and wriggle so to do. Shapps, Raab et al are not only the diametric opposite of the great men of Victorian politics with their sense of duty and service, they are the type who these men would only have ever employed as servants…. if they were very lucky.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
11 months ago
The answer is simple nu britn hewkay is actually a mirror of the TV satire ” The Office”: with a very few notable exceptions the ruling ToyliTory party are of the line manager ilk, whose only interest is keeping their jobs, at any cost, and willing to lie, backstab, and wriggle so to do. Shapps, Raab et al are not only the diametric opposite of the great men of Victorian politics with their sense of duty and service, they are the type who these men would only have ever employed as servants…. if they were very lucky.
Stephen Quilley
11 months ago
Very good piece. The welfare state was always a civic national social compact. If the nation state fails/falls, the welfare state in any form is dead in the water. In the context of the polyglot Hapsburg empire that might work because the last resort forms of security – survival units – were communitarian, religious and family and place-based. Such forms are conceivable in a post-liberal world perhaps in the context of an enormous religious revival – which is to say, conceivable but highly unlikely (although this doesn’t mean Christians should stop working on the revival. Stranger things have happened). But given the levels of pathological individualism, mobility, narcissism, gender dysphoric mental illness, divorce, family break down …and an imminent economic implosion ….it’s very hard to see any thing good on the horizon.
My only quibble would be the assumption at the end that large scale governance is inevitable in some form. Other empires have lost complexity as well as reach.
I’d say run to the hills, but Buttermere is hardly the same as the Montana Redoubt favoured by American survivalists.
Stephen Quilley
11 months ago
Very good piece. The welfare state was always a civic national social compact. If the nation state fails/falls, the welfare state in any form is dead in the water. In the context of the polyglot Hapsburg empire that might work because the last resort forms of security – survival units – were communitarian, religious and family and place-based. Such forms are conceivable in a post-liberal world perhaps in the context of an enormous religious revival – which is to say, conceivable but highly unlikely (although this doesn’t mean Christians should stop working on the revival. Stranger things have happened). But given the levels of pathological individualism, mobility, narcissism, gender dysphoric mental illness, divorce, family break down …and an imminent economic implosion ….it’s very hard to see any thing good on the horizon.
My only quibble would be the assumption at the end that large scale governance is inevitable in some form. Other empires have lost complexity as well as reach.
I’d say run to the hills, but Buttermere is hardly the same as the Montana Redoubt favoured by American survivalists.
R E P
11 months ago
Depressing…is there a rationale behind the immigration policy. What choice do we have with three open borders parties and all espousing no growth policies. National debt has quadrupled since the Tories came to office and our national media is illiterate on economics and what the people want.
Last edited 11 months ago by R E P
R E P
11 months ago
Depressing…is there a rationale behind the immigration policy. What choice do we have with three open borders parties and all espousing no growth policies. National debt has quadrupled since the Tories came to office and our national media is illiterate on economics and what the people want.
Last edited 11 months ago by R E P
Simon Curran
11 months ago
Brexit was an attempt, the first attempt in a generation by the electorate to send a clear message on immigration and wanting to take national control for decisions and borders, rather than having them imposed by some unelected international authority.
Unfortunately, as was warned, the elites here had no intention of governing in the peoples interests and saw this as a chance to take power from Brussels for their own end. Now we have an equally cloth eared parliament who rule in a top down rather than a bottom up manner. They have already decided what is in our best interests and will force it through – be that open borders globalism, net zero, diversity/inclusion propaganda etc. They have also rigged the system so that the electorate cannot vote it out. All parties are basically signed up to the same globalist virtues. Most decisions are not made in London but at these international meetings (G20, G7, Davos etc). The national government just implements what has been agreed there.
That’s why people are annoyed. their views are disregarded first by Brussels and now by parliament. I hear Nigel garage may be returning to politics again, so that could be interesting!
Simon Curran
11 months ago
Brexit was an attempt, the first attempt in a generation by the electorate to send a clear message on immigration and wanting to take national control for decisions and borders, rather than having them imposed by some unelected international authority.
Unfortunately, as was warned, the elites here had no intention of governing in the peoples interests and saw this as a chance to take power from Brussels for their own end. Now we have an equally cloth eared parliament who rule in a top down rather than a bottom up manner. They have already decided what is in our best interests and will force it through – be that open borders globalism, net zero, diversity/inclusion propaganda etc. They have also rigged the system so that the electorate cannot vote it out. All parties are basically signed up to the same globalist virtues. Most decisions are not made in London but at these international meetings (G20, G7, Davos etc). The national government just implements what has been agreed there.
That’s why people are annoyed. their views are disregarded first by Brussels and now by parliament. I hear Nigel garage may be returning to politics again, so that could be interesting!
Christopher Barclay
11 months ago
People didn’t move to the slums of cities in the 18th and early 19th centuries because they were tired of working on the land. They were kicked off the land by its owners who wanted to take advantage of new agricultural machinery. The short-sighted greed of the landowners created the new centres of economic and political power.
Christopher Barclay
11 months ago
People didn’t move to the slums of cities in the 18th and early 19th centuries because they were tired of working on the land. They were kicked off the land by its owners who wanted to take advantage of new agricultural machinery. The short-sighted greed of the landowners created the new centres of economic and political power.
Janos Abel
11 months ago
Analytics:
Three fundamental entities make up social reality;
The people constituting it (the Nation, say), the Government (supposed to serve the people) and the State—an abstract reified concept with no moral compass only interests and powers to dominate.
These distinctions are important.
Janos Abel
11 months ago
Analytics:
Three fundamental entities make up social reality;
The people constituting it (the Nation, say), the Government (supposed to serve the people) and the State—an abstract reified concept with no moral compass only interests and powers to dominate.
These distinctions are important.
Andrew Raiment
11 months ago
Perhaps it’s time for a new political party to beformed, let’s call it the “Utilitarian Party”, the candidates can stand for election to Parliament on the following platform: Mass immigration, mass surveillance, removal of home ownership, UBI, DEI and ESG (paternalism, or cuddly authoritarianism).
Why bother doing that when you can hide behind NGOs, Quangos and supranational bodies, while boasting about “Liberal democracy”.
Last edited 11 months ago by Andrew Raiment
Andrew Raiment
11 months ago
Perhaps it’s time for a new political party to beformed, let’s call it the “Utilitarian Party”, the candidates can stand for election to Parliament on the following platform: Mass immigration, mass surveillance, removal of home ownership, UBI, DEI and ESG (paternalism, or cuddly authoritarianism).
Why bother doing that when you can hide behind NGOs, Quangos and supranational bodies, while boasting about “Liberal democracy”.
Last edited 11 months ago by Andrew Raiment
Eamonn Toland
11 months ago
If I could make a somewhat wonkish suggestion that would transform democratic accountability in Great Britain – why not adopt the same system as the Republic of Ireland for Parliamentary elections? In Ireland there are no single-seat constituencies. Between three and five MPs are returned from each constituency. Voters rank candidates 1, 2, 3 etc. in order of preference, and if you don’t receive enough first preference votes to be elected on the first count, you have to rely on getting second or third preference votes that have been transferred from candidates that polled so badly they were eliminated – a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.
What that means in practice is that there is no such thing as a “safe” seat, and politicians ignore the wishes of their constituents at their absolute peril. Your biggest local threat comes not from political opponents but from candidates of your own party fishing for allegiance in the same voter pool. That scene from Love Actually where the Prime Minister knocks on doors is something that happens as a matter of routine. Irish Cabinet Ministers as well as Opposition leaders devote a large chunk of time each week to knocking on doors up and down the country – the current Irish Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Martin, knocked on my father’s door a few years ago in support of his local candidate in Dublin Northwest.
It isn’t a perfect system. It rewards local fixers who graft for funds to get potholes mended rather than furrowing their brows over affairs of state, but it does mean that there is no way a governing elite can complacently distance themselves from the wrath of their constituents…..
Eamonn Toland
11 months ago
If I could make a somewhat wonkish suggestion that would transform democratic accountability in Great Britain – why not adopt the same system as the Republic of Ireland for Parliamentary elections? In Ireland there are no single-seat constituencies. Between three and five MPs are returned from each constituency. Voters rank candidates 1, 2, 3 etc. in order of preference, and if you don’t receive enough first preference votes to be elected on the first count, you have to rely on getting second or third preference votes that have been transferred from candidates that polled so badly they were eliminated – a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.
What that means in practice is that there is no such thing as a “safe” seat, and politicians ignore the wishes of their constituents at their absolute peril. Your biggest local threat comes not from political opponents but from candidates of your own party fishing for allegiance in the same voter pool. That scene from Love Actually where the Prime Minister knocks on doors is something that happens as a matter of routine. Irish Cabinet Ministers as well as Opposition leaders devote a large chunk of time each week to knocking on doors up and down the country – the current Irish Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Martin, knocked on my father’s door a few years ago in support of his local candidate in Dublin Northwest.
It isn’t a perfect system. It rewards local fixers who graft for funds to get potholes mended rather than furrowing their brows over affairs of state, but it does mean that there is no way a governing elite can complacently distance themselves from the wrath of their constituents…..
Dougie Undersub
11 months ago
Another excellent article from Mary. I would just point out, however, that the ONS has changed the way it collects migration data. This week’s statistics won’t show that immigration has doubled. They will merely show how inadequate the ONS’s previous methodology was.
Dougie Undersub
11 months ago
Another excellent article from Mary. I would just point out, however, that the ONS has changed the way it collects migration data. This week’s statistics won’t show that immigration has doubled. They will merely show how inadequate the ONS’s previous methodology was.
andy young
11 months ago
I dropped History at the first opportunity (just shows how bad the teachers were to make such an engrossing subject so boring) but one of the few things I remember was being told that a peasant in England would’ve had much more in common with a peasant in Europe than his immediate Lord of the Manor.
The elite powers have always felt more at home with their counterparts, no matter which country they’re from. It wasn’t until they needed the serfs as cannon fodder or the like that they considered them at all. All very Animal Farm.
andy young
11 months ago
I dropped History at the first opportunity (just shows how bad the teachers were to make such an engrossing subject so boring) but one of the few things I remember was being told that a peasant in England would’ve had much more in common with a peasant in Europe than his immediate Lord of the Manor.
The elite powers have always felt more at home with their counterparts, no matter which country they’re from. It wasn’t until they needed the serfs as cannon fodder or the like that they considered them at all. All very Animal Farm.
Andrew Stoll
11 months ago
Sometime, in the future… population will become the new ‘climate change’.
Called perhaps “Population change”?
The out of control immigration racket currently going on in Western countries is an obscenity on many levels but the most concerning and longest lasting damage will be the multible effects of so many more people on the environment (including climate change).
The resources are there, just not evenly spread. Too many people in the wrong place at the same time, eg an overcrowded island off the west coast of Europe will create a population emergency and a requirement to reduce the same. Not good to be old and poor.
Take away oil and the ‘resources’ are no longer there. Oil is what most of humanity owes their very existence to. It’s a fallacy to believe redistribution of resources is a solution to something caused by overproduction of offspring.
Take away oil and the ‘resources’ are no longer there. Oil is what most of humanity owes their very existence to. It’s a fallacy to believe redistribution of resources is a solution to something caused by overproduction of offspring.
The resources are there, just not evenly spread. Too many people in the wrong place at the same time, eg an overcrowded island off the west coast of Europe will create a population emergency and a requirement to reduce the same. Not good to be old and poor.
Andrew Stoll
11 months ago
Sometime, in the future… population will become the new ‘climate change’.
Called perhaps “Population change”?
The out of control immigration racket currently going on in Western countries is an obscenity on many levels but the most concerning and longest lasting damage will be the multible effects of so many more people on the environment (including climate change).
Martin Johnson
11 months ago
I write from the USA.
It is not that the nation-state, per se, has failed, so much as the idea of it being in some real sense democratic.
The elites in control do not care a bit about the plebs, except to manipulate them. Those plebs have no legitimate concerns or interests in the eyes of the ruling class, they are a necessary evil (someone has to fix the air conditioner or watch the baby) but that is all. Our elites are almost literally rapacious wolves, exploiting the sheep in whose skins they camouflage themselves. “Wolf in sheep’s clothing,” if you will.
I highly recommend “The New Feudalism” by Joel Kotkin. Based in California, he has had a ringside seat to watch the elites of Hollywood and Silicon Valley take over that state through the Democratic Party, which process was a precursor to elites taking over everything, everywhere..
The question remains, if the great majority sees the government and the upper classes as uncaring (if not worse), why should those masses care about the country? The great power of the nation state was its ability to harness the loyalty of its citizens–what the Napoleonic Wars were all about. We may now see nation states that cannot command such loyalty, but receive apathy if not antipathy from their populations. The US military cannot fulfill its very modest recruitment goals—maybe the first indication of what is coming as the elite class enriches itself at the expense of the vast majority.
I think there was an assumption – in theory if less in practice, that the elites were part of the same society and just about had a responsibility for it. The mortality rate of the officer class, especially in WW1 demonstrated the ideal.
I think there was an assumption – in theory if less in practice, that the elites were part of the same society and just about had a responsibility for it. The mortality rate of the officer class, especially in WW1 demonstrated the ideal.
What do the ‘plebs’ care about then? Sorry to disappoint you, but the real world is slightly more complex than ‘elites hating plebs’ or vice versa!
Martin Johnson
11 months ago
I write from the USA.
It is not that the nation-state, per se, has failed, so much as the idea of it being in some real sense democratic.
The elites in control do not care a bit about the plebs, except to manipulate them. Those plebs have no legitimate concerns or interests in the eyes of the ruling class, they are a necessary evil (someone has to fix the air conditioner or watch the baby) but that is all. Our elites are almost literally rapacious wolves, exploiting the sheep in whose skins they camouflage themselves. “Wolf in sheep’s clothing,” if you will.
I highly recommend “The New Feudalism” by Joel Kotkin. Based in California, he has had a ringside seat to watch the elites of Hollywood and Silicon Valley take over that state through the Democratic Party, which process was a precursor to elites taking over everything, everywhere..
The question remains, if the great majority sees the government and the upper classes as uncaring (if not worse), why should those masses care about the country? The great power of the nation state was its ability to harness the loyalty of its citizens–what the Napoleonic Wars were all about. We may now see nation states that cannot command such loyalty, but receive apathy if not antipathy from their populations. The US military cannot fulfill its very modest recruitment goals—maybe the first indication of what is coming as the elite class enriches itself at the expense of the vast majority.
John Riordan
11 months ago
“Thus emancipated from any meaningful working-class ability to hold their feet to the fire, it’s all too predictable that those in a position to do so should opt for what Turchin calls the “wealth pump”: that is, abandoning rule for the public good, in favour of pursuing their own narrow class interests. In this case, that means turbo-charging finance and property via mass immigration, while running social solidarity infrastructures into the ground, and looking to others of the same post-national class for political, cultural, and ideological solidarity as they do so.”
Mary is generally deeply perceptive and writes incredibly well, and this is no exception. It of course makes depressing reading for anyone who voted Leave in 2016. In fact this must also apply to the majority of Remain voters who will have had perfectly good reasons for their choice, but who for the most part surely did not envisage that Brexit might fail on the basis that mass participation democracy had already been killed off. Everyone who voted in 2016, no matter what their choice, would have voted on the implicit assumption that their voice actually matters and that the question asked of them would be settled democratically.
Are we now to really just accept that it was always a sham? That the elites cared no more about the views of EU supporters than they did about Brexit supporters? Because that is the inevitable conclusion we must draw if Mary’s theory is correct here: even if you are politically aligned with the elite agenda now, if tomorrow it changes into something to which you don’t consent, you’ll find that it makes not a damn bit of difference.
I must also quibble slightly over Mary’s view that immigration represents a Brexit failure. In the sense she argues, yes of course the numbers make a mockery of a principle promise that Leave voters accepted in 2016. On the other hand though, the immigration numbers we now are largely a result of the State operating a policy over which it has control (ECHR conventions notwithstanding). Immigration remains high because the UK state wishes it to remain high. It is not any longer a problem we can blame on Brussels. It’s still a breach of the Brexit promise, yes, but that breach is the doing of this democratically elected government.
And this leads on to a point that I’ll use as an answer to Mary’s conclusions here: the fact that using repatriated powers well has turned out to be difficult in practice and not something our elites are comfortable being expected to do, does not change the fact that at this stage, the voters can still impose those expectations upon our elites.
We may have lost a good deal of the democratic power we used to have, but ultimately it’s still up to us, not the elites who crave power without responsibility.
Last edited 11 months ago by John Riordan
John Riordan
11 months ago
“Thus emancipated from any meaningful working-class ability to hold their feet to the fire, it’s all too predictable that those in a position to do so should opt for what Turchin calls the “wealth pump”: that is, abandoning rule for the public good, in favour of pursuing their own narrow class interests. In this case, that means turbo-charging finance and property via mass immigration, while running social solidarity infrastructures into the ground, and looking to others of the same post-national class for political, cultural, and ideological solidarity as they do so.”
Mary is generally deeply perceptive and writes incredibly well, and this is no exception. It of course makes depressing reading for anyone who voted Leave in 2016. In fact this must also apply to the majority of Remain voters who will have had perfectly good reasons for their choice, but who for the most part surely did not envisage that Brexit might fail on the basis that mass participation democracy had already been killed off. Everyone who voted in 2016, no matter what their choice, would have voted on the implicit assumption that their voice actually matters and that the question asked of them would be settled democratically.
Are we now to really just accept that it was always a sham? That the elites cared no more about the views of EU supporters than they did about Brexit supporters? Because that is the inevitable conclusion we must draw if Mary’s theory is correct here: even if you are politically aligned with the elite agenda now, if tomorrow it changes into something to which you don’t consent, you’ll find that it makes not a damn bit of difference.
I must also quibble slightly over Mary’s view that immigration represents a Brexit failure. In the sense she argues, yes of course the numbers make a mockery of a principle promise that Leave voters accepted in 2016. On the other hand though, the immigration numbers we now are largely a result of the State operating a policy over which it has control (ECHR conventions notwithstanding). Immigration remains high because the UK state wishes it to remain high. It is not any longer a problem we can blame on Brussels. It’s still a breach of the Brexit promise, yes, but that breach is the doing of this democratically elected government.
And this leads on to a point that I’ll use as an answer to Mary’s conclusions here: the fact that using repatriated powers well has turned out to be difficult in practice and not something our elites are comfortable being expected to do, does not change the fact that at this stage, the voters can still impose those expectations upon our elites.
We may have lost a good deal of the democratic power we used to have, but ultimately it’s still up to us, not the elites who crave power without responsibility.
Last edited 11 months ago by John Riordan
tim richardson
11 months ago
I live in South Florida; I probably have more in common with the residents of Malaga or Ibiza, that I have with the residents of Brownsville, Texas.
Immigrants to South Florida are Venezuelan physicians and dentists. Second generation Cubans own law firms. We have a solid core of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants who do the yardwork, but immigration, per se, is a non-issue here.
As a matter fact, Donald Trump has a solid constituency among Republican, right-wing, Spanish-speaking second generation Americans who are in favor of a strong immigration policy.
I agree that the idea of big, continent-spanning nations probably don’t make much sense anymore, except for international trade.
tim richardson
11 months ago
I live in South Florida; I probably have more in common with the residents of Malaga or Ibiza, that I have with the residents of Brownsville, Texas.
Immigrants to South Florida are Venezuelan physicians and dentists. Second generation Cubans own law firms. We have a solid core of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants who do the yardwork, but immigration, per se, is a non-issue here.
As a matter fact, Donald Trump has a solid constituency among Republican, right-wing, Spanish-speaking second generation Americans who are in favor of a strong immigration policy.
I agree that the idea of big, continent-spanning nations probably don’t make much sense anymore, except for international trade.
Mark Smith
11 months ago
Open borders seem to be incompatible with human nature. In the long term, the weakening of enforcement mechanisms for positive social behavior that was pointed out in this article I think will lead to deterioration of society, and borders will then return in an effort to reestablish harmony and competence. Or maybe all that it will take is the thrill of blowing up our civic heritage wearing off.
If it is true that the nation-state has permanently lost its valance, I wonder at what geographic scale future borders will emerge. 80% https://bawsca.org/water/supply/hetchhetchy of the water in the California bay area comes via aqueduct over >200 km from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, so it seems like local cooperation and maybe therefore freedom of movement will extend over at least those sorts of geographic areas. Apparently, autonomous regions of the U.S. energy grid extend over even larger areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection, with 30% of energy consumed in California being generated out-of-state in the broader ‘WECC.’ If there is a return to federalism in the future, maybe these material interests will determine its contours.
How does this compare to the minimum viable scale of governance in the pre-nation-state era? Surprisingly to me, that of the modern era is not so much larger. Aqueducts in the Roman empire extended well over 100 km, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Valens. So, maybe material conditions have remained constant enough for similar structures of government to emerge as in the ancient era.
Mark Smith
11 months ago
Open borders seem to be incompatible with human nature. In the long term, the weakening of enforcement mechanisms for positive social behavior that was pointed out in this article I think will lead to deterioration of society, and borders will then return in an effort to reestablish harmony and competence. Or maybe all that it will take is the thrill of blowing up our civic heritage wearing off.
If it is true that the nation-state has permanently lost its valance, I wonder at what geographic scale future borders will emerge. 80% https://bawsca.org/water/supply/hetchhetchy of the water in the California bay area comes via aqueduct over >200 km from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, so it seems like local cooperation and maybe therefore freedom of movement will extend over at least those sorts of geographic areas. Apparently, autonomous regions of the U.S. energy grid extend over even larger areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection, with 30% of energy consumed in California being generated out-of-state in the broader ‘WECC.’ If there is a return to federalism in the future, maybe these material interests will determine its contours.
How does this compare to the minimum viable scale of governance in the pre-nation-state era? Surprisingly to me, that of the modern era is not so much larger. Aqueducts in the Roman empire extended well over 100 km, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Valens. So, maybe material conditions have remained constant enough for similar structures of government to emerge as in the ancient era.
Doug Mccaully
11 months ago
A really fascinating article, but is she arguing for a reformed EU?
I don’t think so, because the EU has shown itself unwilling to make any reform or compromise in a direction that increases national autonomy. Remember the pathetic negotiation that David Cameron brought back before the referendum. Having said that, I don’t think there is any solution to the problems Mary has outlined, so attempting to reform the EU is no worse than any other suggestion.
You’re right, she’s not arguing for a return to a reformed EU, but if we’re seeing a limiting of the agency of the [middle sized] nation state, what comes next? Vulnerability, or an attempt to pool resources and sovriegnty to maintain some clout in the world? I’ve no idea of the answer.
I heard an interesting theory recently concerning the gradual emergence of the state- it sort of defined who you were allowed to enslave and who you were not. Your subjects you could tax instead of rob and enslave. That could be just as profitable. And this would also create the incentive to at least limit the predations of the robber barons within the state. It is not clear to me what passes for a social contract today. In any case , the modern equivalents of the robber barons surely stand to gain from the demise of older structures of authority and legitimacy.
Chiara De Cabarrus
11 months ago
I heard an interesting theory recently concerning the gradual emergence of the state- it sort of defined who you were allowed to enslave and who you were not. Your subjects you could tax instead of rob and enslave. That could be just as profitable. And this would also create the incentive to at least limit the predations of the robber barons within the state. It is not clear to me what passes for a social contract today. In any case , the modern equivalents of the robber barons surely stand to gain from the demise of older structures of authority and legitimacy.
fel rembrandt
11 months ago
Not exactly on topic, but can someone explain what a minus number in red by the thumbs up means? And how to give it? Or how to avoid getting it? (I got it on my very first comment on Unherd) I see some comments here have it…
Hi fel, it’s a score based on the number of up or downvotes the comment receives.
Douglas H
11 months ago
Great quote: “citizenship doesn’t imply a bond of belonging or loyalty, but is instead more like a gym membership.” But that is probably where we are going.
To combine mass migration with a decent welfare state we may unfortunately have to have state services delivered on a tiered basis, like a gym or an insurance policy. The more you pay in and the longer you’ve been here, the more you get out. It would be good to be wrong about this, but I can’t see the numbers stacking up any other way.
But honestly Mary I really don’t think Brexit was ever going to be the solution.
Andrew Fisher
11 months ago
I do wish someone hadn’t dragged the response to the covid pandemic into the debate – it really has no relevance whatsoever, but of course an endless ping pong starts up of course on that subject rather than the subject in question!
The British government including the PM introduced draconian lockdown laws, on three occasions. They didn’t need to do so (certainly not legally or because they were being instructed by the World Economic Forum or something). The much smaller nation of Sweden and some others did not. You might at the most perhaps argue groupthink….
There is also nothing in the concept of nation states that says they cannot, be authoritarian, even if Britain hasn’t usually been so….
Last edited 11 months ago by Andrew Fisher
Tim L
11 months ago
Some good points, but scoffing at “sixth form schoolchildren” being given the vote by Labour? Sixth formers can already vote, and have been able to since 1969. I voted for the first time during my A Level exams. Rather derisive tone from Mary here, sadly.
Tim L
11 months ago
Some good points, but scoffing at “sixth form schoolchildren” being given the vote by Labour? Sixth formers can already vote, and have been able to since 1969. I voted for the first time during my A Level exams. Rather derisive tone from Mary here, sadly.
John Stevens
11 months ago
If the author had properly examined the historical processes which created the European nation states, including the United Kingdom, in particular the links between liberalism and nationalism, she would be asking herself the question whether the EU, far from being some sort of homage to the Hapsburgs she alleges, might be in the early stages of presiding over the emergence of a European nation state, which would both meet her abstract principles of sovereignty and even more its reality, by being a power on a global scale, something no individual European nation can now achieve.
There’s a logic in there, Europe as a collective lifeboat in a turbulent world. Together the countries of Europe might ride out the storms. The problem is that there is no cohesive European culture or faith that can hold this together. Just a Euro-blob steering the boat back and forth.
I think you may under-estimate the extent of shared European feeling, as seen in attitudes towards Ukraine, for example. A sort of European nationalism also suffuses much new thinking on the Continental Right (which separates it from new Right thinking in the UK, that is so much more dependent on American influences), in FI, Vox and the younger generation of the FN, for example. Above all, Christendom has very deep roots even if it is presently largely without the impulse of overt and active Faith.
I think you may under-estimate the extent of shared European feeling, as seen in attitudes towards Ukraine, for example. A sort of European nationalism also suffuses much new thinking on the Continental Right (which separates it from new Right thinking in the UK, that is so much more dependent on American influences), in FI, Vox and the younger generation of the FN, for example. Above all, Christendom has very deep roots even if it is presently largely without the impulse of overt and active Faith.
There’s a logic in there, Europe as a collective lifeboat in a turbulent world. Together the countries of Europe might ride out the storms. The problem is that there is no cohesive European culture or faith that can hold this together. Just a Euro-blob steering the boat back and forth.
John Stevens
11 months ago
If the author had properly examined the historical processes which created the European nation states, including the United Kingdom, in particular the links between liberalism and nationalism, she would be asking herself the question whether the EU, far from being some sort of homage to the Hapsburgs she alleges, might be in the early stages of presiding over the emergence of a European nation state, which would both meet her abstract principles of sovereignty and even more its reality, by being a power on a global scale, something no individual European nation can now achieve.
Liam O'Mahony
11 months ago
Sounds like you Britons should have stayed in the modern EU instead of reverting to some past, long out if date, nostalgia of good old colonial times. Now you guys are neither here nor there but trapped in a kind of never never land, relics of old ‘grandure’ with nothing to show for it (unless you’re the ‘elite’ 0.1%), with none of your wishes granted and the little you had being taken away.
Who do you think has been paying for all those SUVs in Dublin suburbs, and all that expensive farm equipment? At some point in the not too distant future German voters are going to decide they no longer want to pay the bills for you, the French, Italians and Spanish. You might wind up having second thoughts yourself when that happens.
We haven’t reverted to nostalgia of good old colonial times.
What a crass thing to say.
We will not be governed by a bunch of foreign crooks that’s all.
All you achieve with these silly remarks is to emphasise that you are incapable of debating without resorting to dishonest caricatures of those with whom you wish to disagree.
Who do you think has been paying for all those SUVs in Dublin suburbs, and all that expensive farm equipment? At some point in the not too distant future German voters are going to decide they no longer want to pay the bills for you, the French, Italians and Spanish. You might wind up having second thoughts yourself when that happens.
We haven’t reverted to nostalgia of good old colonial times.
What a crass thing to say.
We will not be governed by a bunch of foreign crooks that’s all.
All you achieve with these silly remarks is to emphasise that you are incapable of debating without resorting to dishonest caricatures of those with whom you wish to disagree.
Liam O'Mahony
11 months ago
Sounds like you Britons should have stayed in the modern EU instead of reverting to some past, long out if date, nostalgia of good old colonial times. Now you guys are neither here nor there but trapped in a kind of never never land, relics of old ‘grandure’ with nothing to show for it (unless you’re the ‘elite’ 0.1%), with none of your wishes granted and the little you had being taken away.
j watson
11 months ago
So many errors in MH’s thinking that difficult to know where to start but…
Firstly the contention the Tories et al are not ‘listening’ – this is v true, but Author over-simplistic as to why. She thinks it’s because a certain elite wants to protect it’s advantages. There is a bit in this. But it’s also because politicians are afraid to tell people the truth because it involves difficult trade offs people won’t like. For example re: immigration – MH gives no indication how she thinks we’ll fill all our vacancies in low skilled work – picking crops, working in a care home etc, as just two examples. She certainly isn’t stepping forward to do these herself. And thus what that means for the people not being listened to – you won’t have food as cheap, you won’t get great care when frail etc is not shared as part of an adult discussion after which we listen to what people then want to do. She thus, probably inadvertently, perpetuates an infantilisation of the people whom she feels are not being listened to. Come on, both sides of the coin have to be applied. Now these are just two examples. Our immigration can be lower without question, but fundamentally the conversation has been desperately immature and truth is ‘dislike of the other’ whilst a minority opinion was a card the Author’s side played when it wanted to win.
Secondly the Nation state – the naivety behind the ‘woe is me’ stuff on this beggars belief. We’re a little island. If we don’t pool our influence it’ll be little to no influence at all. Lesson is being learnt everyday now. The problem is the last 50yrs we’ve been immature about it. The World looks at us like the stroppy child still to grow up, and whilst we’ve still huge strengths on this they are right.
I honestly look forward to reading his comments. The thoughts of a New Labour zombie, staggering through a world that increasingly makes no sense to him. He could be a character from a new AI-generated Evelyn Waugh novel.
‘j watson’ – if you see this, I implore you, please never change.
More deflection and fallacy,. I have no time for ideology, so I reject Utilitarianism and Technocracy. That does not make me a brexiteer but someone who believes in a liberal democracy, not the sham one you keep pushing.
More deflection and fallacy,. I have no time for ideology, so I reject Utilitarianism and Technocracy. That does not make me a brexiteer but someone who believes in a liberal democracy, not the sham one you keep pushing.
I honestly look forward to reading his comments. The thoughts of a New Labour zombie, staggering through a world that increasingly makes no sense to him. He could be a character from a new AI-generated Evelyn Waugh novel.
‘j watson’ – if you see this, I implore you, please never change.
I think you are spot on that politicians do not want to have public discussions of complex policy problems because the electorate in general is not interested in complexities.
That said, I think your take of the immigration question is wrong. Immigration has been characterized by many as an economic question, but that’s primarily because the economics is politely acceptable to discuss in public. But the reality is that immigration is now and always has been primarily a cultural question. “Come to this country and assimilate” is a very different proposition from “Come to this country to change it.” – this just isn’t polite to say out loud.
What Britons are tired of, I think, is how quickly immigrants are changing the country. A country which was once 99% white, (nominally) Christian, English-speaking, etc., which had a shared history, literature, etc. – is now being rapidly changed by people with very different histories, languages, cultural priorities, instincts, assumptions, etc.
But to talk about that is supposedly “racist” which has somehow become the only sin in the modern West. Rebutting the historical lies spread by the modern Left is probably the best and quickest way to reshape public debate about immigration. It’s *OK* to want England to be English instead of Polish or Nigerian. That’s not “racist” – or, if they change the definition of ‘racism’ to make it racist, then it’s OK to be racist. Time to stop being scared of the Scarlet ‘R.’
PS. “We’re a little island”? A little island that conquered the world. The UK is still the world’s 6th largest economy and (after the US, I suppose) the largest net exporter of cultural influence on the globe. Man up, Britain.
On immigration I’d favour a ‘naturalisation’ process where full citizenship does place some obligations – most obvious being good command of the language, but could be more about values etc.
I agree too there is something pernicious in elements of the discussion on racism – it is v dangerous to underappreciate where and how racism still occurs. It is also dangerous and self defeating to exaggerate it’s occurrence.
But where you and I differ is I’m much more self confident the core values of our great country remain solid and permeate us all regardless of skin pigmentation or place of birth. Look at who’s the PM, Home Sec, Foreign Sec – I may not agree with them on all things but does their background and colour make us all less British? I think not.
You do also display a fascinating dichotomy – we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?
There is an issue about scale of immigration, and as we’ll see today that’s exploded even though post Brexit. That goes back to the open discussion issue – Govt too scared to outline the economic trade-off
“we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?”
Britain conquered the world but *chose* not to assimilate some of the children of empire – it did that by deciding that what it was, and what it had accomplished, maybe wasn’t such a good thing after all.
As it was becoming economically difficult to sustain the empire (roughly, the period between the wars), there was also a shift in opinion (among the elite, at least) about the merits of having an empire and what to do with it. With the collapse of the church the moral justifications for empire eroded, and it became fashionable to suggest that England, far from solving problems around the world, had created them. So when those problems came home to roost, many believed it was wrong to tell them that they should adopt British culture.
Obviously we’re speaking in generalities, but the British empire became an economic and military burden, and then a moral one. They could hardly tell arriving Pakistanis (or whomever) to be more British when they were simultaneously apologizing for what Britain had (supposedly) done to them.
“we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?”
Britain conquered the world but *chose* not to assimilate some of the children of empire – it did that by deciding that what it was, and what it had accomplished, maybe wasn’t such a good thing after all.
As it was becoming economically difficult to sustain the empire (roughly, the period between the wars), there was also a shift in opinion (among the elite, at least) about the merits of having an empire and what to do with it. With the collapse of the church the moral justifications for empire eroded, and it became fashionable to suggest that England, far from solving problems around the world, had created them. So when those problems came home to roost, many believed it was wrong to tell them that they should adopt British culture.
Obviously we’re speaking in generalities, but the British empire became an economic and military burden, and then a moral one. They could hardly tell arriving Pakistanis (or whomever) to be more British when they were simultaneously apologizing for what Britain had (supposedly) done to them.
On immigration I’d favour a ‘naturalisation’ process where full citizenship does place some obligations – most obvious being good command of the language, but could be more about values etc.
I agree too there is something pernicious in elements of the discussion on racism – it is v dangerous to underappreciate where and how racism still occurs. It is also dangerous and self defeating to exaggerate it’s occurrence.
But where you and I differ is I’m much more self confident the core values of our great country remain solid and permeate us all regardless of skin pigmentation or place of birth. Look at who’s the PM, Home Sec, Foreign Sec – I may not agree with them on all things but does their background and colour make us all less British? I think not.
You do also display a fascinating dichotomy – we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?
There is an issue about scale of immigration, and as we’ll see today that’s exploded even though post Brexit. That goes back to the open discussion issue – Govt too scared to outline the economic trade-off
If you label our nation as the stroppy child I’m assuming you’d be happy for other nations to impose parental guidance and discipline. Oh didn’t we recently try that route by agreeing that the infamously corrupt European Commission act as our overseer?
You touch on the issue of to what degree is/was there a democratic deficit in EU. That’s quite a complex issue we can’t do justice to here but it’s not where you think it is I would contend. Nonetheless we’ll be largely following their rules even though not part of the club and now have no say in them. That’s v clever.
You touch on the issue of to what degree is/was there a democratic deficit in EU. That’s quite a complex issue we can’t do justice to here but it’s not where you think it is I would contend. Nonetheless we’ll be largely following their rules even though not part of the club and now have no say in them. That’s v clever.
There’s no chance of a mature conversation about the issues. No politician is likely to start such a conversation, because s/he would be crucified by the media and the other side. What you really need is a politician who is, perhaps, somewhere on the spectrum and who is so (unjustifiably) convinced of their own genius that they don’t give a rat’s about calling down opprobrium on themselves (vide Thatcher, M – a complete dingbat, but successful for that very reason; cf Johnson, B – a pretend dingbat who was just a very naughty boy).
I have upticked you for your humour about Boris, but with respect, I don’t think Thatcher was a digbat at all. She just had the misfortune to be battling the same type of unconservative colleague that has so exquisitely neutered the post Brexit potential for change over the last five years.
This problem has been brewing for quite a while.
It’s certainly difficult and much IMO relates to how media functions in UK, although increasingly not unique.
But one senses just a glimmer a more mature discussion beginning to happen on certain issues that Brexit’s failure is making more possible than otherwise would have been the case. It may well prove we had to go through that shambles and deceit to grasp the discussions we really did need to have.
I have upticked you for your humour about Boris, but with respect, I don’t think Thatcher was a digbat at all. She just had the misfortune to be battling the same type of unconservative colleague that has so exquisitely neutered the post Brexit potential for change over the last five years.
This problem has been brewing for quite a while.
It’s certainly difficult and much IMO relates to how media functions in UK, although increasingly not unique.
But one senses just a glimmer a more mature discussion beginning to happen on certain issues that Brexit’s failure is making more possible than otherwise would have been the case. It may well prove we had to go through that shambles and deceit to grasp the discussions we really did need to have.
I think you are spot on that politicians do not want to have public discussions of complex policy problems because the electorate in general is not interested in complexities.
That said, I think your take of the immigration question is wrong. Immigration has been characterized by many as an economic question, but that’s primarily because the economics is politely acceptable to discuss in public. But the reality is that immigration is now and always has been primarily a cultural question. “Come to this country and assimilate” is a very different proposition from “Come to this country to change it.” – this just isn’t polite to say out loud.
What Britons are tired of, I think, is how quickly immigrants are changing the country. A country which was once 99% white, (nominally) Christian, English-speaking, etc., which had a shared history, literature, etc. – is now being rapidly changed by people with very different histories, languages, cultural priorities, instincts, assumptions, etc.
But to talk about that is supposedly “racist” which has somehow become the only sin in the modern West. Rebutting the historical lies spread by the modern Left is probably the best and quickest way to reshape public debate about immigration. It’s *OK* to want England to be English instead of Polish or Nigerian. That’s not “racist” – or, if they change the definition of ‘racism’ to make it racist, then it’s OK to be racist. Time to stop being scared of the Scarlet ‘R.’
PS. “We’re a little island”? A little island that conquered the world. The UK is still the world’s 6th largest economy and (after the US, I suppose) the largest net exporter of cultural influence on the globe. Man up, Britain.
If you label our nation as the stroppy child I’m assuming you’d be happy for other nations to impose parental guidance and discipline. Oh didn’t we recently try that route by agreeing that the infamously corrupt European Commission act as our overseer?
There’s no chance of a mature conversation about the issues. No politician is likely to start such a conversation, because s/he would be crucified by the media and the other side. What you really need is a politician who is, perhaps, somewhere on the spectrum and who is so (unjustifiably) convinced of their own genius that they don’t give a rat’s about calling down opprobrium on themselves (vide Thatcher, M – a complete dingbat, but successful for that very reason; cf Johnson, B – a pretend dingbat who was just a very naughty boy).
j watson
11 months ago
So many errors in MH’s thinking that difficult to know where to start but…
Firstly the contention the Tories et al are not ‘listening’ – this is v true, but Author over-simplistic as to why. She thinks it’s because a certain elite wants to protect it’s advantages. There is a bit in this. But it’s also because politicians are afraid to tell people the truth because it involves difficult trade offs people won’t like. For example re: immigration – MH gives no indication how she thinks we’ll fill all our vacancies in low skilled work – picking crops, working in a care home etc, as just two examples. She certainly isn’t stepping forward to do these herself. And thus what that means for the people not being listened to – you won’t have food as cheap, you won’t get great care when frail etc is not shared as part of an adult discussion after which we listen to what people then want to do. She thus, probably inadvertently, perpetuates an infantilisation of the people whom she feels are not being listened to. Come on, both sides of the coin have to be applied. Now these are just two examples. Our immigration can be lower without question, but fundamentally the conversation has been desperately immature and truth is ‘dislike of the other’ whilst a minority opinion was a card the Author’s side played when it wanted to win.
Secondly the Nation state – the naivety behind the ‘woe is me’ stuff on this beggars belief. We’re a little island. If we don’t pool our influence it’ll be little to no influence at all. Lesson is being learnt everyday now. The problem is the last 50yrs we’ve been immature about it. The World looks at us like the stroppy child still to grow up, and whilst we’ve still huge strengths on this they are right.
Good old Mary H. She provided as fine a summary of our current disenfranchisement as I’ve read anywhere. There’s no end of books, filled with labored prose, that try to say in 200 pages what she managed in under 3000 words.
If I read her article correctly, she ended with a suggestion that some sort of pushback to our political disenfranchisement is underway. I don’t see it. Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.
For me, the defining event of the past decade was not Brexit or Trump, but the passive way most ordinary people in the West accepted covid lockdown (after lockdown after lockdown) and other impositions on our liberty. We really were “sheeple”. You can bet the “elites” noticed.
People complied with lockdowns for two reasons – they were not optional, and were also they right approach at the time. You’re right to mention covid however, because that was an unfortunate intervention that derailed the Johnson post Brexit government and the plans they had. That may or may not have been successful, but I’m certain the political landscape and nation state described above would be unrecognisable from what it is today, and that is a distopian wilderness across all parties.
The fact that lockdown were not optional is neither here nor there. If the people hadn’t complied, they wouldn’t even have started.
As to their necessity, well… What can I say. After the first scare at the very beginning, all they produced was partygate.
Spoken like a true rebel, yet you complied, along with J Bryant and indeed myself.
Only those who believed in the right of the state to act as a jailer complied. Like many I was forced . After that I lost permanently all respect for and interest in the state and the politics of the state. I went like many underground and there I still am. Life then becomes clear and confusion ends.
My loyalty is to the land itself and no more to those who rule it.
You would comply, you have the moral courage of a sheep.
Only those who believed in the right of the state to act as a jailer complied. Like many I was forced . After that I lost permanently all respect for and interest in the state and the politics of the state. I went like many underground and there I still am. Life then becomes clear and confusion ends.
My loyalty is to the land itself and no more to those who rule it.
You would comply, you have the moral courage of a sheep.
Spoken like a true rebel, yet you complied, along with J Bryant and indeed myself.
Lockdowns were not the right approach at the the time.
You cannot stop a virus, it is better to let everyone acquire natural immunity.
For most people the COOF was no worse than a nasty cold.
The lockdowns were driven by ego maniacs like Hancock who belongs in jail.
Good Lord, after all we’ve been through and here we actually have more than one person who thinks the natural immunity approach was the correct one. You crazy people, you.
I’m not crazy.
Natural immunity is a FACT.
You haven’t been keeping up.
Just about everyone now realises that the
government’s approach was seriously flawed and yet here we are with people like you STILL stuck in the past and ignoring reality.
What is wrong with you ?
People like you are dangerous, your stupidity and ignorance and blind acceptance of the government diktats puts EVERYONE in danger.
Try an act like a human being and not a sheep.
Er, methinks you’ve been asleep in this debate. Firstly Sweden never had a lockdown, and has had one of the better covid records. Peru did and one of the highest rates of mortality.
People would have responded by limiting contact anyway but this would not have been a blunt legal instrument incapable of dealing with individual circumstance.
I’m not crazy.
Natural immunity is a FACT.
You haven’t been keeping up.
Just about everyone now realises that the
government’s approach was seriously flawed and yet here we are with people like you STILL stuck in the past and ignoring reality.
What is wrong with you ?
People like you are dangerous, your stupidity and ignorance and blind acceptance of the government diktats puts EVERYONE in danger.
Try an act like a human being and not a sheep.
Er, methinks you’ve been asleep in this debate. Firstly Sweden never had a lockdown, and has had one of the better covid records. Peru did and one of the highest rates of mortality.
People would have responded by limiting contact anyway but this would not have been a blunt legal instrument incapable of dealing with individual circumstance.
Good Lord, after all we’ve been through and here we actually have more than one person who thinks the natural immunity approach was the correct one. You crazy people, you.
Just exactly what plans did Johnson’s administration have ?
To complete BREXIT, to stop the boats ?
Johnson was only in government for his own sake not the people of Britain.
The fact that lockdown were not optional is neither here nor there. If the people hadn’t complied, they wouldn’t even have started.
As to their necessity, well… What can I say. After the first scare at the very beginning, all they produced was partygate.
Lockdowns were not the right approach at the the time.
You cannot stop a virus, it is better to let everyone acquire natural immunity.
For most people the COOF was no worse than a nasty cold.
The lockdowns were driven by ego maniacs like Hancock who belongs in jail.
Just exactly what plans did Johnson’s administration have ?
To complete BREXIT, to stop the boats ?
Johnson was only in government for his own sake not the people of Britain.
Read ‘Eugypius’ who reports the reaction of the German political elites to the acceptance of lockdowns, masking etc. Public opinion, they note, can – and should – easily be reformed by nudging and appeals to safety.
‘Climate’ of course is next on the menu.
Yes, and that was the point of the exercise. It was a compliance experiment, and those who imposed it got what they wanted. Now they can move in any direction they wish (and it won’t be a positive, healthy thing for society), because too many simply did what they were told, unquestioningly. Those who did ask questions were vilified, often by their very own families. Now that it’s obvious to even the most willing believers that the Covid response wasn’t really a response at all, but a test, it’s too late.
Absolutely right.
But;
They won’t dare try it again
What makes you so sure they won’t?
What makes you so sure they won’t?
Quite concerning really that I am sharing the same website with people who believe such utter garbage.
I agree but unless you’re quite new to UnHerd you must have encountered this here before, with much doubling and “tripling down” of late. The imperfectness and extremity of the anti-Covid response is treated by some as conclusive evidence of a sinister global conspiracy, while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. These views often come from otherwise sensible commenters, and going against the anti-vax herd will earn you reliable downvotes. Cheers.
Oh I’m fully aware of the herd that comes across from TCW with this stuff, it’s an echo chamber of extremities that has no place in a more intellectual arena.
Intellectual ?
Counts you right out then.
Awwwwwwww.
Awwwwwwww.
Of course The Conservative Woman is such an EXTREME site, isn’t ?
You dumb lefties.
Intellectual ?
Counts you right out then.
Of course The Conservative Woman is such an EXTREME site, isn’t ?
You dumb lefties.
“while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. ”
THERE IS NOT A MASSIVELY HIGHER DEATH COUNT AMONG THE UNVACCINATED.
THAT IS A LIE AND THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.
What is wrong with people like you ?
Why are you shouting in all caps as if that does anything but establish your head-on-fire intemperance about the whole issue, while revealing your deep emotional and ideological investment in being right against any and all evidence?
Not that it can make a dent in your zealotry, but there’s a link to detailed documentation below.
Why not use caps ?
Because some of the posters here are a bit dense and it might help them.
You have no evidence against what I say and neither does Roobie K.
Is the government Behaviour Insights Team paying you two stooges ?
BECAUSE IT IS RUDE DUDE. And doesn’t help to make your case outside of the rabid anti-vax herd you clearly belong to. You can’t even glance at the data I spoon-fed you below. That pretty well proves your eyes and mind are not open and that attempting to use logic or data to persuade you is a waste of time. Perhaps your unhinged, far-right sources will eventually come around and provide you with backtracking evidence in a form you’re able to accept. Until then, good luck using ranting and raging as form of desperate psychological self-soothing.
But just in case I’ve wrongly diagnosed you with an absence of fairmindedness on this issue, here’s the link again: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~80%2B
RUDE ?
Who cares?
Go on do tell me.
What is far right, you commie ?
You are the one ranting and RK started this by calling Allison’s post garbage.
Get off your high horse you prig.
Quoting a report or a set stats is not evidence.
It depends who authored it.
Dear me – too many shouty-crackers posters being allowed into a formerly sensible forum. People shout because they are unwilling to listen: online, in the pub or anywhere else. A few months ago silly people like this who strayed into Unherd were simply ignored & took their megaphone ‘diplomacy’ elsewhere. If you engage with them you only encourage the nastiness. Let them stew with their own kind on cruder forums…
But just in case I’ve wrongly diagnosed you with an absence of fairmindedness on this issue, here’s the link again: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~80%2B
RUDE ?
Who cares?
Go on do tell me.
What is far right, you commie ?
You are the one ranting and RK started this by calling Allison’s post garbage.
Get off your high horse you prig.
Quoting a report or a set stats is not evidence.
It depends who authored it.
Dear me – too many shouty-crackers posters being allowed into a formerly sensible forum. People shout because they are unwilling to listen: online, in the pub or anywhere else. A few months ago silly people like this who strayed into Unherd were simply ignored & took their megaphone ‘diplomacy’ elsewhere. If you engage with them you only encourage the nastiness. Let them stew with their own kind on cruder forums…
BECAUSE IT IS RUDE DUDE. And doesn’t help to make your case outside of the rabid anti-vax herd you clearly belong to. You can’t even glance at the data I spoon-fed you below. That pretty well proves your eyes and mind are not open and that attempting to use logic or data to persuade you is a waste of time. Perhaps your unhinged, far-right sources will eventually come around and provide you with backtracking evidence in a form you’re able to accept. Until then, good luck using ranting and raging as form of desperate psychological self-soothing.
I don’t have a “deep and emotional and idealogical investment in being right”.
I really don’t care what you or RK think.
There is no point in me arguing with fools
but I’d call you out anyway.
You’re arrogant and ill-informed, which is a pretty bad combination dude.
I’m very well informed thank you, I do my research.
All you are doing is parroting what you hear in the MSM.
I certainly venture outside the mainstream media, which should be evident by my presence here alone. But why make the opposite mistake of consuming an only MSM diet by crediting everything that floats inside your bubble? The lunatic fringe may provide an interesting counterweight to establishment tunnel-vision, but rabbit holes have unreliable perspectives too.
This has been a largely useless exchange and I’ll take a portion of the responsibility for that. We should all resist believing everything we think. Not every opinion is a gem, nor does even the most thorough and conscientious research reliably produce a complete truth.
I certainly venture outside the mainstream media, which should be evident by my presence here alone. But why make the opposite mistake of consuming an only MSM diet by crediting everything that floats inside your bubble? The lunatic fringe may provide an interesting counterweight to establishment tunnel-vision, but rabbit holes have unreliable perspectives too.
This has been a largely useless exchange and I’ll take a portion of the responsibility for that. We should all resist believing everything we think. Not every opinion is a gem, nor does even the most thorough and conscientious research reliably produce a complete truth.
I’m very well informed thank you, I do my research.
All you are doing is parroting what you hear in the MSM.
You’re arrogant and ill-informed, which is a pretty bad combination dude.
‘MD’ in Private Eye has also been very informative in his coverage of the COVID situation Imo. He is also a working GP, which means he is a knowledgeable and experienced person, something I greatly appreciate, as it’s so very hard to find reliable information these days. It doesn’t of course mean he’s right about everything, but it does at least mean there is a greater likelihood of what he says being accurate and of value.
Thanks for this recommendation. I’ve found a YouTube video of Dr. Phil Hammond (anonymity gone) being interviewed by Simon Wessely for RSM. I think Hammond is almost unknown here in the States, though I can’t speak for the whole nation. I really appreciated his good humor and fairmindedness, exemplified by his willingness to admit error, such as leaving up a bad Covid-prediction tweet from January, 2020. I also admire his self-described guiding ethic: “intelligent kindness”, something he says has become more important to him as he’s gotten (this usage is considered correct on this continent) older. “Is it intelligent and is it kind? It’s that simple really”. Pretty close to that simple, I think–a good reminder for many, me included. I’ll look for his opinions and jokes from now on. Thanks, Mr. Butcher.
A zinger that Wessely quoted from Hammond’s writing: “The British thirst for freedom, individualism, and ignoring experts gives us great art and comedy but dreadful infection control”!
That applies just about as well to the US I’d say. After all, we did start out as a group of (mostly) English colonists raising their flag on an inhabited continent that was declared “unsettled”. Cheers.
Thanks for this recommendation. I’ve found a YouTube video of Dr. Phil Hammond (anonymity gone) being interviewed by Simon Wessely for RSM. I think Hammond is almost unknown here in the States, though I can’t speak for the whole nation. I really appreciated his good humor and fairmindedness, exemplified by his willingness to admit error, such as leaving up a bad Covid-prediction tweet from January, 2020. I also admire his self-described guiding ethic: “intelligent kindness”, something he says has become more important to him as he’s gotten (this usage is considered correct on this continent) older. “Is it intelligent and is it kind? It’s that simple really”. Pretty close to that simple, I think–a good reminder for many, me included. I’ll look for his opinions and jokes from now on. Thanks, Mr. Butcher.
A zinger that Wessely quoted from Hammond’s writing: “The British thirst for freedom, individualism, and ignoring experts gives us great art and comedy but dreadful infection control”!
That applies just about as well to the US I’d say. After all, we did start out as a group of (mostly) English colonists raising their flag on an inhabited continent that was declared “unsettled”. Cheers.
Why not use caps ?
Because some of the posters here are a bit dense and it might help them.
You have no evidence against what I say and neither does Roobie K.
Is the government Behaviour Insights Team paying you two stooges ?
I don’t have a “deep and emotional and idealogical investment in being right”.
I really don’t care what you or RK think.
There is no point in me arguing with fools
but I’d call you out anyway.
‘MD’ in Private Eye has also been very informative in his coverage of the COVID situation Imo. He is also a working GP, which means he is a knowledgeable and experienced person, something I greatly appreciate, as it’s so very hard to find reliable information these days. It doesn’t of course mean he’s right about everything, but it does at least mean there is a greater likelihood of what he says being accurate and of value.
Why are you shouting in all caps as if that does anything but establish your head-on-fire intemperance about the whole issue, while revealing your deep emotional and ideological investment in being right against any and all evidence?
Not that it can make a dent in your zealotry, but there’s a link to detailed documentation below.
Do you have any evidence of this. I haven’t seen any that’s convincing.
He doesn’t because there is none. The reason being that the authorities refuse to release the data because they know full well it will blow the myth of higher deaths among the unvaccinated out of the water.
There’s some pretty thorough data here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
If you have the time and inclination, check out the death differentials among older patients.
Nothing that is known or can be known will persuade an anti-vax fundamentalist or head-on-fire alarmist, nor establish a full defense of the government response to Covid, especially the duration of some measures. I think there were points of overreach in how the thing was handled, and multiple legitimate grievances (mostly around long-term, forced shutdowns and prohibitions on voluntary gathering).
But there is infinitely more evidence of worse outcomes for the unvaccinated (unless they would, in fact, “rather die” than get jabbed) than for any counterclaims of widespread, adverse effects from the jab, let alone the illuminati conspiracy lunacy that is commonly spouted here.
Not so.
The countries with the most people vaccinated had the worst outcomes.
We know that the vaccines are harming people though I suppose you would deny that.
Vaccination rates were higher in Europe than the US, which had worse per-capita and total mortality. Vaccines can harm people but it quite rare, and far, far less of a risk for most (with significant exception for certain patients) than being un-shielded against severe Covid, especially if you are old or very fat, or both.
No, check out the yellow card adverse reactions supplied by the government.
No, check out the yellow card adverse reactions supplied by the government.
Vaccination rates were higher in Europe than the US, which had worse per-capita and total mortality. Vaccines can harm people but it quite rare, and far, far less of a risk for most (with significant exception for certain patients) than being un-shielded against severe Covid, especially if you are old or very fat, or both.
Your last paragraph is just an out and out lie.
Stop it.
Not it isn’t. Your insistent and seemingly angry assertions don’t make anything true or untrue, however thoroughly you’ve convinced yourself that they do.
Stop projecting.
You are the emotional one, you cannot accept that you are so behind the curve that you don’t know what’s going on.
I’m not angry, I just like to point out when people wrong or lying.
.
Stop projecting.
You are the emotional one, you cannot accept that you are so behind the curve that you don’t know what’s going on.
I’m not angry, I just like to point out when people wrong or lying.
.
Not it isn’t. Your insistent and seemingly angry assertions don’t make anything true or untrue, however thoroughly you’ve convinced yourself that they do.
Not so.
The countries with the most people vaccinated had the worst outcomes.
We know that the vaccines are harming people though I suppose you would deny that.
Your last paragraph is just an out and out lie.
Stop it.
He doesn’t because there is none. The reason being that the authorities refuse to release the data because they know full well it will blow the myth of higher deaths among the unvaccinated out of the water.
There’s some pretty thorough data here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
If you have the time and inclination, check out the death differentials among older patients.
Nothing that is known or can be known will persuade an anti-vax fundamentalist or head-on-fire alarmist, nor establish a full defense of the government response to Covid, especially the duration of some measures. I think there were points of overreach in how the thing was handled, and multiple legitimate grievances (mostly around long-term, forced shutdowns and prohibitions on voluntary gathering).
But there is infinitely more evidence of worse outcomes for the unvaccinated (unless they would, in fact, “rather die” than get jabbed) than for any counterclaims of widespread, adverse effects from the jab, let alone the illuminati conspiracy lunacy that is commonly spouted here.
So Bill Gates is not sinister ?
I wouldn’t say he’s simply a villain but I do accept that he seems a bit sinister or untrustworthy–I wish he had fewer billions to himself, just as do with Musk and Bezos.
I wouldn’t say he’s simply a villain but I do accept that he seems a bit sinister or untrustworthy–I wish he had fewer billions to himself, just as do with Musk and Bezos.
It’s easy to reject the view that there are a few sinister and controlling individuals conspiring, less easy to reject the view that what people are sensing is an emergent phenomenon of structures of control which are insulated from influence by a wider public in the traditional democratic sense.
There are those on both sides who become irritated because they can only imagine such control as being reified and embodied in definable individuals. They miss the point.
That seems true enough to me. And I’ll even accept your implication that I’m among those missing the point, in some measure. I’m just not sure what specific, less-structurally-insulated time you’d like to return to. The surveillance state and globalized mega-interests are a newish and ominous development indeed. But I think there’s an underlying, oft-hidden or insulated Us within every large-scale Us vs. Them formulation. In other words, “they” are not simply doing it to “us”. We are participating, tacitly consenting, and many of us deriving selfish benefits from the structures we deride.
That seems true enough to me. And I’ll even accept your implication that I’m among those missing the point, in some measure. I’m just not sure what specific, less-structurally-insulated time you’d like to return to. The surveillance state and globalized mega-interests are a newish and ominous development indeed. But I think there’s an underlying, oft-hidden or insulated Us within every large-scale Us vs. Them formulation. In other words, “they” are not simply doing it to “us”. We are participating, tacitly consenting, and many of us deriving selfish benefits from the structures we deride.
Oh I’m fully aware of the herd that comes across from TCW with this stuff, it’s an echo chamber of extremities that has no place in a more intellectual arena.
“while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. ”
THERE IS NOT A MASSIVELY HIGHER DEATH COUNT AMONG THE UNVACCINATED.
THAT IS A LIE AND THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE IS TRUE.
What is wrong with people like you ?
Do you have any evidence of this. I haven’t seen any that’s convincing.
So Bill Gates is not sinister ?
It’s easy to reject the view that there are a few sinister and controlling individuals conspiring, less easy to reject the view that what people are sensing is an emergent phenomenon of structures of control which are insulated from influence by a wider public in the traditional democratic sense.
There are those on both sides who become irritated because they can only imagine such control as being reified and embodied in definable individuals. They miss the point.
It’s quite concerning that you are so naïve.
The poster is EXACTLY right.
Caps lock.
Brain lock too.
(withdrawn)
(withdrawn)
Brain lock too.
Caps lock.
Concerned? Are you afraid they might contaminate you in some way? Perhaps – just maybe – they’ve seen or understood something you haven’t or done so from a different perspective? We can do better than this.
You sheeple just don’t get it, do you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI3yU5Z2adI
I agree but unless you’re quite new to UnHerd you must have encountered this here before, with much doubling and “tripling down” of late. The imperfectness and extremity of the anti-Covid response is treated by some as conclusive evidence of a sinister global conspiracy, while the massively higher death count among the unvaccinated is treated as no evidence at all. These views often come from otherwise sensible commenters, and going against the anti-vax herd will earn you reliable downvotes. Cheers.
It’s quite concerning that you are so naïve.
The poster is EXACTLY right.
Concerned? Are you afraid they might contaminate you in some way? Perhaps – just maybe – they’ve seen or understood something you haven’t or done so from a different perspective? We can do better than this.
You sheeple just don’t get it, do you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI3yU5Z2adI
I’m not sure they’ll get away with it twice though.. the might I suppose. It just depends on whether the sheeple are stupid or complete cretins? I’d say the jury’s out on that one. Perhaps the next one will be “go to your bunkers and bring lots of baked beans and dehydrated water!”
To be honest I think it was much more banal than that- the sun was shining, and a lot of people were glad to stay at home and not go to their soul destroying jobs. A street near me that’s usually crawling with cars was full of families bicycling in the sunshine – it was a beautiful thing, despite the madness going on elsewhere.
To be honest I think it was much more banal than that- the sun was shining, and a lot of people were glad to stay at home and not go to their soul destroying jobs. A street near me that’s usually crawling with cars was full of families bicycling in the sunshine – it was a beautiful thing, despite the madness going on elsewhere.
Surely it was more than compliance experiment by the elite here. Historians will note that the Covid derangment began the very week that the new Brexit/Tory government began. Yes, it was (media induced) total panic by the Fool Boris that began the nightmare, an act of self destruction. But when you observe the full two years of the nightmare and the pro lockdown behaviour of the State’s public health blob, teachers unions, Labour and the constant hysterical fear induction and lies of the always NHS First BBC and mainstream media, there can be no doubt that lockdown was willed by them as as extension of the Brex derangment mania that was poisoning our society. Not all were conscious Leninists, but many many were. The fact that the progressives in the Blob were all actually profitting from the WFH, savings boosting lockdown makes their willingness to cripple the private sector and drown the State in impossible debt an act of criminal vandalism. By the time the Fool Johnson, who saw Covid as a way to behave in a Churchillian way and ride high in frit public opinion, was shaken awake, the damage was done. But we know who the pro lockdown forces were. And all were Remainiacs. A visceral hatred of Brex was a key factor in the Blob’s two year suffocation of the Brexit economy. They had vowed it would be a disaster. Here, on day one, was their chance to make it so.
Absolutely right.
But;
They won’t dare try it again
Quite concerning really that I am sharing the same website with people who believe such utter garbage.
I’m not sure they’ll get away with it twice though.. the might I suppose. It just depends on whether the sheeple are stupid or complete cretins? I’d say the jury’s out on that one. Perhaps the next one will be “go to your bunkers and bring lots of baked beans and dehydrated water!”
Surely it was more than compliance experiment by the elite here. Historians will note that the Covid derangment began the very week that the new Brexit/Tory government began. Yes, it was (media induced) total panic by the Fool Boris that began the nightmare, an act of self destruction. But when you observe the full two years of the nightmare and the pro lockdown behaviour of the State’s public health blob, teachers unions, Labour and the constant hysterical fear induction and lies of the always NHS First BBC and mainstream media, there can be no doubt that lockdown was willed by them as as extension of the Brex derangment mania that was poisoning our society. Not all were conscious Leninists, but many many were. The fact that the progressives in the Blob were all actually profitting from the WFH, savings boosting lockdown makes their willingness to cripple the private sector and drown the State in impossible debt an act of criminal vandalism. By the time the Fool Johnson, who saw Covid as a way to behave in a Churchillian way and ride high in frit public opinion, was shaken awake, the damage was done. But we know who the pro lockdown forces were. And all were Remainiacs. A visceral hatred of Brex was a key factor in the Blob’s two year suffocation of the Brexit economy. They had vowed it would be a disaster. Here, on day one, was their chance to make it so.
‘Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.’
I think we can draw some hope from the actions of the trade unions in recent times, the crucibles of the nation state, unmentioned but heavily implied here in MH’s definition of a nation state as formed through industrialistation. Who else could she mean when she talks about ‘meaningful working-class ability to hold [the elite’s] feet to the fire?’ These are the last serious institutions of resistance against the erosion of our living standards, our sense of having a collective voice and the ability to control our borders, all reasons why both Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey voted Leave. This power to withdraw our labour is pretty well all we have in the face of this disenfranchisement, and judging by the government’s attempts to enforce minimum service requirements that would make our anti-trade union laws worse or as bad as Russia’s, the unions must still considered a threat. In other words, by MH’s own analysis, unions helped give us a nation state; maybe they can bring it back.
PS They also helped bring down the Soviet Union and are an essential part of civil society, like Burke’s little battalions (before one of you brands me as a crazy commie)
Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.
The ones who will be the most shocked at their downfall will be the educated, professional managerial class (the laptop class in COVID terms). They’re about 30% of the population, and they think society exists for their needs mostly because their needs and the needs of the true elites have overlapped in recent years. They’re in for a rude awakening when the 1% finally kicks them to the curb.
‘Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.’
Yes that’s my suspicion also, despite the hopeful talk of some that workers from more unionised countries (i.e. any other country in Europe?) bring their solidarity with them..
Whole Foods, a subsidiary of Amazon, believes that “Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity” but they’re clearly suffering from Russian disinformation from the alt-right pipeline. Diversity is
theirour strength.Very interesting that they are that frank about it. If the article you’re quoting from is the one I found (below) then it does also seem important to acknowledge that other factors like ‘distance in miles between the store and the closest union’ matter as well. So alongside lower immigration, affordable housing which is near the workplace might also strengthen the dreaded ‘team member sentiment.’
There must be some instances were immigrants do contribute to workplace solidarity though that might only apply to those who have arrived on a long-term basis?
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foods-unionization-heat-map-union
Very interesting that they are that frank about it. If the article you’re quoting from is the one I found (below) then it does also seem important to acknowledge that other factors like ‘distance in miles between the store and the closest union’ matter as well. So alongside lower immigration, affordable housing which is near the workplace might also strengthen the dreaded ‘team member sentiment.’
There must be some instances were immigrants do contribute to workplace solidarity though that might only apply to those who have arrived on a long-term basis?
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/20/21228324/amazon-whole-foods-unionization-heat-map-union
Whole Foods, a subsidiary of Amazon, believes that “Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity” but they’re clearly suffering from Russian disinformation from the alt-right pipeline. Diversity is
theirour strength.‘Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.’
Yes that’s my suspicion also, despite the hopeful talk of some that workers from more unionised countries (i.e. any other country in Europe?) bring their solidarity with them..
No. Trade Unions today ARE a part of the Blairite progressive UK State, not a threat to it! The miners and shipbuilders are all gone long ago. The heart of the modern trade unionist movement is within the vast white collar public sector. They are on the streets now because they want to remove the hated Tories and to destroy baby Brexit. But if Labour gains power, trade unions will fall into line. The restoration of the nation state is not on their agenda. They embrace the internationalist pro EU Blairite New Order which still is deeply embedded in the UK State.
Firstly, they’re not all white collar or pro-EU. Look at the RMT (whose leaders campaigned for Brexit) and look at the GMB, Usdaw, TSSA, NUM, FBU etc are all blue collar and whose members may well want the downfall of the Tory government because who wouldn’t want the removal of a government which has presided over the collapse of their living standards while giving them a high immigration low wage Brexit of more untrammelled globalisation which they never voted for? Perhaps you don’t think Starmer is any likelier to stop it, but at least there are people in the Labour party (unfortunately some of which have been sidelined since Corbyn left) who are serious about reindustralising this country and making it work for the people here. Where have the Tories been doing that? Not really ever would be my answer – all they’ve done is sold off our housing, industry and public sectors (bit by bit) to foreign capital.
Firstly, they’re not all white collar or pro-EU. Look at the RMT (whose leaders campaigned for Brexit) and look at the GMB, Usdaw, TSSA, NUM, FBU etc are all blue collar and whose members may well want the downfall of the Tory government because who wouldn’t want the removal of a government which has presided over the collapse of their living standards while giving them a high immigration low wage Brexit of more untrammelled globalisation which they never voted for? Perhaps you don’t think Starmer is any likelier to stop it, but at least there are people in the Labour party (unfortunately some of which have been sidelined since Corbyn left) who are serious about reindustralising this country and making it work for the people here. Where have the Tories been doing that? Not really ever would be my answer – all they’ve done is sold off our housing, industry and public sectors (bit by bit) to foreign capital.
Trade unions can be neutered via mass immigration. Hence why the ruling class throughout the West is all-in on mass immigration.
The ones who will be the most shocked at their downfall will be the educated, professional managerial class (the laptop class in COVID terms). They’re about 30% of the population, and they think society exists for their needs mostly because their needs and the needs of the true elites have overlapped in recent years. They’re in for a rude awakening when the 1% finally kicks them to the curb.
No. Trade Unions today ARE a part of the Blairite progressive UK State, not a threat to it! The miners and shipbuilders are all gone long ago. The heart of the modern trade unionist movement is within the vast white collar public sector. They are on the streets now because they want to remove the hated Tories and to destroy baby Brexit. But if Labour gains power, trade unions will fall into line. The restoration of the nation state is not on their agenda. They embrace the internationalist pro EU Blairite New Order which still is deeply embedded in the UK State.
Noticed? They planned it.
and benefited greatly. In Australia big business and banks got lots of $ from the government.
and benefited greatly. In Australia big business and banks got lots of $ from the government.
Everything I read today is depressing. There was a good article yesterday – I can’t remember where – pointing out that the entire G7 is headed up by leaders loathed or disliked by the majority of the population. Trudeau won two elections with less of the popular vote than the conservatives – like 32% of the voters. The rest of the leaders have similar numbers. And of course Ursula von whatever isn’t elected (she really looks like a Disney villain!). Yet somehow they rule over us. I would love an Unherd series on steps to fix democracies. For example I used to be opposed to proportional representation – but now I think it might be a solution to the urban / rural divide that is ailing most democracies.
Note that Trudeau’s minority rule (the real fringe minority?) is even slimmer than that as voter turnout was so apathetically and historically low. Essentially, he used scare tactics and the clean/unclean wedge of experimental transfections to coerce 32% of the laptop population of a few big Canadian cities to return his blackguard, blackface government. Like PJ, I was an inveterate defender of FPTP but now think PR or perhaps an electoral college is required to put some demos back in our captured democracies.
Note that Trudeau’s minority rule (the real fringe minority?) is even slimmer than that as voter turnout was so apathetically and historically low. Essentially, he used scare tactics and the clean/unclean wedge of experimental transfections to coerce 32% of the laptop population of a few big Canadian cities to return his blackguard, blackface government. Like PJ, I was an inveterate defender of FPTP but now think PR or perhaps an electoral college is required to put some demos back in our captured democracies.
Compare Denmark. In Denmark there is a category of holiday houses ‘summer houses’ which foreigners (EU or not) are not allowed to buy (mainly to stop Germans). They are in beautiful areas near the coast and enable Danes to enjoy the Danish summer. Imagine that here!
Tight immigration controls have supported high wages for workers of all sorts (except perhaps bankers, who are heavily taxed!) and a relatively less disfunctional society.
I forgot the Danish author wrote ‘We are not a nation, we are a tribe’ – and there is the difference.
Divided we fall. Mary is right. Britain is being pillaged. (Not by the Danes, this time).
I have Danish neighbours in London.
They paint very different picture of Denmark (especially immigration).
However, they say that Danish society is much more cohesive than UK.
I have Danish neighbours in London.
They paint very different picture of Denmark (especially immigration).
However, they say that Danish society is much more cohesive than UK.
…noticed? …noticed? ..sure they made billions out of it and you didn’t see it, as the nation’s wealth got scooped up by the 0.1%. At least Kuasi Kwarteng was open about it!
Speak for yourself, some of us held the bridge.
How it is possible to write so lucidly and well about the shattering of the nation state, its governance and laws and even culture, without referring to the events which triggered this seismic revolution BY DESIGN!! Its like writing about communist Russia without mentioning Lenin & 1917. Our nation state as was was completely demolished & dismantled by the progressive Blairite State after 1997. It in turn was serving the interests of the post Mastricht EU which demanded and got an NMI New Order; the eviseration of the power and accountability of national parliaments to bolster the federal centre. Look at their works. Supreme Court. Devolution. The creation of a vast unelected permanent Technocracy to sieze the reins of power from Ministers (hence Bank of England and interest rates, the NHS & Public Health – the dark army of wfh regulators, all committed to the EU precautionary principle.) Vast chunks of quasi public sector created too, notably the ponzi university scam in its drive for mass female employment. This was the New Order we still fail to recognise, as Mary just illustrated. There was more of course; the secondary wave of deliberate anti national policies, from EU legal supremacy and human rights; undeclared mass migration via free movement and onto the EU driven insanity of Net Zero Pol Potism which thrwtebs us with blackouts and degrowth. Why even write about Brexit so much? It was a just a people driven thing. Even the shabby Tories like May were majority Pro EU. It was not their fight. So we then watched on in horror as the pro EU Order of Remainiacs trashed and debased any notion of democractic respect/,accountability with their crude Parliamentary and legal coup. Brexit never even began! The Blob/Technocracy post Covid has just sat on its hands. Brex will be seen to be rather like a minor 1950s miner protest in some far flung corner of the Soviet Union. A Peasants Revolt that got chopped up as they always do. The EU/Blairite State Revolution had 30 years to embed itself and it is crazy to imagine that the Brexit Vote could overturn that New Order. To write as if the collapse of the nation state is some accident of history is all wrong. The very nature of power was redistributed to serve the wider EU agenda. That is the sorry State we have lived in for 30 years; and it is not broken. That progressive revolution still rules us. And you wonder why nothing changes? Why Tories are not Tories? Here is your answer.
It’s a two fold attack on government by the consent of the governed. First, the governered are too stupid and ignorant to give informed consent. We need a government of regulatory “experts” instead. Second, we don’t like the existing electorate, so we import a new one with untrammelled immigration of a new, more biddable, electorate. In both ways the elite get to do whatever they want. The old hoy paloi get nothing.
This is happening in both the UK and the US. Efforts to change direction are labeled “threats to our democracy” in the US. Durham’s Report is labeled nothing new, or partisan, because vilification of Republicans is required to carry off the plot. In the UK, even the Tories are getting with the program. You guys are screwed.
You have nowhere to go.
100 years ago if you disagreed with taxes, military conscription or forced labor you could vacate the city, leave the country or run for the hills.
The border, for most countries, was seldom more than a few hundred kilometers away.
The distance of transporting food stuffs by animal power couldn’t be more than the animal would consume over that distance. That defined the radius of most borders. Mountains, swamps and deserts defined the rest.
Now, you only have three options:
1) Go to sea in your boat.
2) Wait for Elon Musk to finish his rocket ship and you can go to Mars
3) Become homeless.
There are no more non-State options.
Every square inch of land has been mapped, claimed, titled and photographed.
Even if you don’t want to jockey for political status in the hierarchy of your current state, you can no longer opt out.
Boat for me, then.
Boat for me, then.
People complied with lockdowns for two reasons – they were not optional, and were also they right approach at the time. You’re right to mention covid however, because that was an unfortunate intervention that derailed the Johnson post Brexit government and the plans they had. That may or may not have been successful, but I’m certain the political landscape and nation state described above would be unrecognisable from what it is today, and that is a distopian wilderness across all parties.
Read ‘Eugypius’ who reports the reaction of the German political elites to the acceptance of lockdowns, masking etc. Public opinion, they note, can – and should – easily be reformed by nudging and appeals to safety.
‘Climate’ of course is next on the menu.
Yes, and that was the point of the exercise. It was a compliance experiment, and those who imposed it got what they wanted. Now they can move in any direction they wish (and it won’t be a positive, healthy thing for society), because too many simply did what they were told, unquestioningly. Those who did ask questions were vilified, often by their very own families. Now that it’s obvious to even the most willing believers that the Covid response wasn’t really a response at all, but a test, it’s too late.
‘Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.’
I think we can draw some hope from the actions of the trade unions in recent times, the crucibles of the nation state, unmentioned but heavily implied here in MH’s definition of a nation state as formed through industrialistation. Who else could she mean when she talks about ‘meaningful working-class ability to hold [the elite’s] feet to the fire?’ These are the last serious institutions of resistance against the erosion of our living standards, our sense of having a collective voice and the ability to control our borders, all reasons why both Mick Lynch and Eddie Dempsey voted Leave. This power to withdraw our labour is pretty well all we have in the face of this disenfranchisement, and judging by the government’s attempts to enforce minimum service requirements that would make our anti-trade union laws worse or as bad as Russia’s, the unions must still considered a threat. In other words, by MH’s own analysis, unions helped give us a nation state; maybe they can bring it back.
PS They also helped bring down the Soviet Union and are an essential part of civil society, like Burke’s little battalions (before one of you brands me as a crazy commie)
Noticed? They planned it.
Everything I read today is depressing. There was a good article yesterday – I can’t remember where – pointing out that the entire G7 is headed up by leaders loathed or disliked by the majority of the population. Trudeau won two elections with less of the popular vote than the conservatives – like 32% of the voters. The rest of the leaders have similar numbers. And of course Ursula von whatever isn’t elected (she really looks like a Disney villain!). Yet somehow they rule over us. I would love an Unherd series on steps to fix democracies. For example I used to be opposed to proportional representation – but now I think it might be a solution to the urban / rural divide that is ailing most democracies.
Compare Denmark. In Denmark there is a category of holiday houses ‘summer houses’ which foreigners (EU or not) are not allowed to buy (mainly to stop Germans). They are in beautiful areas near the coast and enable Danes to enjoy the Danish summer. Imagine that here!
Tight immigration controls have supported high wages for workers of all sorts (except perhaps bankers, who are heavily taxed!) and a relatively less disfunctional society.
I forgot the Danish author wrote ‘We are not a nation, we are a tribe’ – and there is the difference.
Divided we fall. Mary is right. Britain is being pillaged. (Not by the Danes, this time).
…noticed? …noticed? ..sure they made billions out of it and you didn’t see it, as the nation’s wealth got scooped up by the 0.1%. At least Kuasi Kwarteng was open about it!
Speak for yourself, some of us held the bridge.
How it is possible to write so lucidly and well about the shattering of the nation state, its governance and laws and even culture, without referring to the events which triggered this seismic revolution BY DESIGN!! Its like writing about communist Russia without mentioning Lenin & 1917. Our nation state as was was completely demolished & dismantled by the progressive Blairite State after 1997. It in turn was serving the interests of the post Mastricht EU which demanded and got an NMI New Order; the eviseration of the power and accountability of national parliaments to bolster the federal centre. Look at their works. Supreme Court. Devolution. The creation of a vast unelected permanent Technocracy to sieze the reins of power from Ministers (hence Bank of England and interest rates, the NHS & Public Health – the dark army of wfh regulators, all committed to the EU precautionary principle.) Vast chunks of quasi public sector created too, notably the ponzi university scam in its drive for mass female employment. This was the New Order we still fail to recognise, as Mary just illustrated. There was more of course; the secondary wave of deliberate anti national policies, from EU legal supremacy and human rights; undeclared mass migration via free movement and onto the EU driven insanity of Net Zero Pol Potism which thrwtebs us with blackouts and degrowth. Why even write about Brexit so much? It was a just a people driven thing. Even the shabby Tories like May were majority Pro EU. It was not their fight. So we then watched on in horror as the pro EU Order of Remainiacs trashed and debased any notion of democractic respect/,accountability with their crude Parliamentary and legal coup. Brexit never even began! The Blob/Technocracy post Covid has just sat on its hands. Brex will be seen to be rather like a minor 1950s miner protest in some far flung corner of the Soviet Union. A Peasants Revolt that got chopped up as they always do. The EU/Blairite State Revolution had 30 years to embed itself and it is crazy to imagine that the Brexit Vote could overturn that New Order. To write as if the collapse of the nation state is some accident of history is all wrong. The very nature of power was redistributed to serve the wider EU agenda. That is the sorry State we have lived in for 30 years; and it is not broken. That progressive revolution still rules us. And you wonder why nothing changes? Why Tories are not Tories? Here is your answer.
It’s a two fold attack on government by the consent of the governed. First, the governered are too stupid and ignorant to give informed consent. We need a government of regulatory “experts” instead. Second, we don’t like the existing electorate, so we import a new one with untrammelled immigration of a new, more biddable, electorate. In both ways the elite get to do whatever they want. The old hoy paloi get nothing.
This is happening in both the UK and the US. Efforts to change direction are labeled “threats to our democracy” in the US. Durham’s Report is labeled nothing new, or partisan, because vilification of Republicans is required to carry off the plot. In the UK, even the Tories are getting with the program. You guys are screwed.
You have nowhere to go.
100 years ago if you disagreed with taxes, military conscription or forced labor you could vacate the city, leave the country or run for the hills.
The border, for most countries, was seldom more than a few hundred kilometers away.
The distance of transporting food stuffs by animal power couldn’t be more than the animal would consume over that distance. That defined the radius of most borders. Mountains, swamps and deserts defined the rest.
Now, you only have three options:
1) Go to sea in your boat.
2) Wait for Elon Musk to finish his rocket ship and you can go to Mars
3) Become homeless.
There are no more non-State options.
Every square inch of land has been mapped, claimed, titled and photographed.
Even if you don’t want to jockey for political status in the hierarchy of your current state, you can no longer opt out.
Good old Mary H. She provided as fine a summary of our current disenfranchisement as I’ve read anywhere. There’s no end of books, filled with labored prose, that try to say in 200 pages what she managed in under 3000 words.
If I read her article correctly, she ended with a suggestion that some sort of pushback to our political disenfranchisement is underway. I don’t see it. Frustration, yes; organized (even semi-organized) resistance, no.
For me, the defining event of the past decade was not Brexit or Trump, but the passive way most ordinary people in the West accepted covid lockdown (after lockdown after lockdown) and other impositions on our liberty. We really were “sheeple”. You can bet the “elites” noticed.
It’s quite obvious that the people running this country at all levels despise ordinary citizens who fund their salaries and lifestyles. Why on Earth for example, should British workers at the lower and medium ends of the earning spectrum be expected to compete with the rest of the world to earn a living or develop their careers due to the salary threshold for a visa being £21k per year? Should be at least triple that.
Not to mention yesterday’s incident on Blackfriars Bridge where the Met are happy for Just Stop Oil criminals to prevent people paid by the hour or self-employed from earning a living, but will arrest anyone who takes issue with them doing so. Had people been using similar tactics against large scale migration or the cost of living, I doubt they’d be met with such generosity by the Met.
or indeed protests against lockdowns, which the media were also complicit in their silence.
Even when they do report it, they go to a loon like Piers Corbyn and effectively appoint him as the figurehead of the whole movement in order to discredit it.
Even when they do report it, they go to a loon like Piers Corbyn and effectively appoint him as the figurehead of the whole movement in order to discredit it.
Had they even been stood on the cliffs of Dover silently praying for deliverance from immigration they would no doubt have been arrested and charged
If you triple salaries that means the cost of our exports must increase to pay for them and who will buy British if they can buy cheaper. It will also push up costs within the UK and so there will be others demanding pay increases. It is not the answer. Britain cannot survive without imports and therefore exports must pay for imports.
I said the visa threshold should be tripled. £21k is pitifully low and has a disproportionately negative effect on our poorest and most vulnerable.
I said the visa threshold should be tripled. £21k is pitifully low and has a disproportionately negative effect on our poorest and most vulnerable.
or indeed protests against lockdowns, which the media were also complicit in their silence.
Had they even been stood on the cliffs of Dover silently praying for deliverance from immigration they would no doubt have been arrested and charged
If you triple salaries that means the cost of our exports must increase to pay for them and who will buy British if they can buy cheaper. It will also push up costs within the UK and so there will be others demanding pay increases. It is not the answer. Britain cannot survive without imports and therefore exports must pay for imports.
It’s quite obvious that the people running this country at all levels despise ordinary citizens who fund their salaries and lifestyles. Why on Earth for example, should British workers at the lower and medium ends of the earning spectrum be expected to compete with the rest of the world to earn a living or develop their careers due to the salary threshold for a visa being £21k per year? Should be at least triple that.
Not to mention yesterday’s incident on Blackfriars Bridge where the Met are happy for Just Stop Oil criminals to prevent people paid by the hour or self-employed from earning a living, but will arrest anyone who takes issue with them doing so. Had people been using similar tactics against large scale migration or the cost of living, I doubt they’d be met with such generosity by the Met.
Interesting piece, Mary, but none of it really matters if you do set aside the context of what you refer to as “Covid” but others would refer to as psychological warfare. In March 2020, less than two months since “Brexit Day”, virtually every nation in the world fell, lockstep, into imposing the most horrific attack on the rights and freedoms on people that the modern world has ever known. Even in wartime, people were not forced to close their businesses for months on end. They were not terrorised into staying indoors for two years. Schools did not close. People were not bullied into walking around with their mouths and noses covered with a piece of cloth. Hospitals did not make sudden, radical changes to how people were treated resulting in millions of deaths. People were not told they could kill someone simply by walking in a park. All this was imposed at the same time by almost every government in the world, proving that they are (at best) in collusion with each other and (at worse) controlled by some other undefined entity. So we now know that modern democracy is a sham, a theatrical performance. This very week, the “World Health Assembly” is meeting in Geneva to give itself powers to restrict the movement and rights of all people of WHO member states whenever it decides there’s a “public health emergency of international concern”, when we now know such a thing cannot even exist. In the future, our “governments” will say, “it’s not us mandating these medical interventions, it’s the WHO.” Anyone who remotely cares about bodily sovereignty – let alone national sovereignty – should be screaming from the rooftops about this. Yet the mainstream media is silent. No one I speak to even knows it is happening. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a power grab, happening in plain sight. Please research it and write about it. It’s the most dangerous elephant in the room right now. David Bell has written about it, eloquently and passionately – search for his piece on the “Brownstone Institute” website. On a more positive note, though, I do not believe the “nation state” can ever truly be over. It can be attacked and suppressed and overruled, but it will always exist in some form as a natural order in which societies organise and boundary themselves. It will just be reordered and redefined once we get past this fascistic period we’re going through.
Great comment… All other issues have been dwarfed by the successful roll out of the authoritarian Covid hoax. Given that the pseudo science of it all is being, depressingly, accepted as unquestioned history, it can only be a matter of time before, the WHO facilitated, Round 2.
Quite likely 2025, I think, when Moderna’s lab in Oxfordshire will be up and running, ready to coercively inject billions more ‘vaccines ‘. It’s also the time predicted by Bill Gates/John Hopkins Institute in October 2022 from their Catastrophic Contagion’ jolly, the follow up to their ‘Event 201’ in October 2019, which curiously anticipated Covid months later. All there, in plain sight, on respective websites.
Gold star for doing your homework, Adam. General apathy will be the death of most of us.
Yes good comment about Moderna’s lab. They have just produced an mRNA flu vaccine for which our UK Government has paid them over £1 Billion for a product that hasn’t even been tested yet. Wait!! they are testing it on 50 volunteers??? Something isn’t quite right here. What Government in any state of mind would pay upfront for a product that has not been rigidly tested.
Incidentally the Factory that Moderna are using is the relatively new Vaccine, Manufacturing, and Innovation Centre at Harwell that was built as a state of the art facility for future pandemics and as expected sold out by the Tories to the Americans as they are with most of our Tech Companies.. Sovereignty, Nation State? Pah!
It was when I understood the implications of moderna’s name (MODE RNA) and read their investment opportunity brochures that I really woke up to the game plan. There is a vast difference between medicine to improve our health and genetic tinkering. The eugenicists don’t want to make us well, they want to experiment on us to achieve their dream of artificially creating human life.
It was when I understood the implications of moderna’s name (MODE RNA) and read their investment opportunity brochures that I really woke up to the game plan. There is a vast difference between medicine to improve our health and genetic tinkering. The eugenicists don’t want to make us well, they want to experiment on us to achieve their dream of artificially creating human life.
Gold star for doing your homework, Adam. General apathy will be the death of most of us.
Yes good comment about Moderna’s lab. They have just produced an mRNA flu vaccine for which our UK Government has paid them over £1 Billion for a product that hasn’t even been tested yet. Wait!! they are testing it on 50 volunteers??? Something isn’t quite right here. What Government in any state of mind would pay upfront for a product that has not been rigidly tested.
Incidentally the Factory that Moderna are using is the relatively new Vaccine, Manufacturing, and Innovation Centre at Harwell that was built as a state of the art facility for future pandemics and as expected sold out by the Tories to the Americans as they are with most of our Tech Companies.. Sovereignty, Nation State? Pah!
‘This fascistic period we are going through’ – where did this come from? The intolerance of outliers is astonishing and even frightening. We live in a world of Karen’s.
Or even Karens.
“We live in a world of Karen’s.”
Er, Karen’s what ?
Or even Karens.
“We live in a world of Karen’s.”
Er, Karen’s what ?
Excellent comment Amy thank you
How very apposite that it should be Geneva, a city infamous for the burning witches*in the 16th century.
In 1515 it is estimated that 500 or so were incinerated, 80% of whom are thought to have been women.
In 1571 there was another burst of excitement but only 29 were burnt**on this occasion .Frankly the city should be as infamous as Auschwitz, but somehow has avoided criticism.
Perhaps the machinations of the wretched WHO will change this?
(* A very popular spectator ‘sport’, for obvious reasons.)
(** lack of fire lighters or fuel?)
Ah Geneva! The most depressing city I have ever visited in Western Europe – nothing but money and extreme Protestantism.
Ah Geneva! The most depressing city I have ever visited in Western Europe – nothing but money and extreme Protestantism.
Governments of the western democracies were surprised, but delighted, by the rapid compliance of their populations to the imposition of severe lockdown measures and the accompanying removal of so many freedoms and rights in such a short time. The ruling Woking Class elites, already abhorring ‘nation state’ concept in favour of the ‘global village’ paradigm, found it easy to continue the onslaught on freedom of speech and other freedoms by precipitating and consolidating the Woke Era to suppress and control us in a manner never before encountered in democratic societies. Covid lockdown in 2020 boosted their confidence that they could accelerate this change agenda. Such oppression is/was of course familiar to people to lived/live under dictatorship and tyrannical systems of governance – e.g. Stalinist Russia, North Korea, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Hitler’s Germany, East Germany, etc. We have arrived! We are global!
Well said! It’s totalitarianism and it’s coming to a location near you. Substack has many well-written and well-researched articles on this and I recommend Mattias Desmet’s book, the Psychology of Totalitarianism.
You are right about the threat to our liberties, but wrong about the collusion in any organised way. It is simply the “me-too” way of thinking that is so common in politics, journalism, media. Independent thinking is discouraged by a force of social.pressure brought largely by social.media
Many good points, but how do you explain different covid policies of Sweden?
Who knows. Either Anders Tegnall had some tennis balls, or someone had him BY the tennis balls. They were big jab pushers though. Look up their “rolled-up sleeve” campaign. Quite chilling! (Can’t fool the auto censor by inserting the word “tennis”. Very clever!)
Who knows. Either Anders Tegnall had some tennis balls, or someone had him BY the tennis balls. They were big jab pushers though. Look up their “rolled-up sleeve” campaign. Quite chilling! (Can’t fool the auto censor by inserting the word “tennis”. Very clever!)
Great comment… All other issues have been dwarfed by the successful roll out of the authoritarian Covid hoax. Given that the pseudo science of it all is being, depressingly, accepted as unquestioned history, it can only be a matter of time before, the WHO facilitated, Round 2.
Quite likely 2025, I think, when Moderna’s lab in Oxfordshire will be up and running, ready to coercively inject billions more ‘vaccines ‘. It’s also the time predicted by Bill Gates/John Hopkins Institute in October 2022 from their Catastrophic Contagion’ jolly, the follow up to their ‘Event 201’ in October 2019, which curiously anticipated Covid months later. All there, in plain sight, on respective websites.
‘This fascistic period we are going through’ – where did this come from? The intolerance of outliers is astonishing and even frightening. We live in a world of Karen’s.
Excellent comment Amy thank you
How very apposite that it should be Geneva, a city infamous for the burning witches*in the 16th century.
In 1515 it is estimated that 500 or so were incinerated, 80% of whom are thought to have been women.
In 1571 there was another burst of excitement but only 29 were burnt**on this occasion .Frankly the city should be as infamous as Auschwitz, but somehow has avoided criticism.
Perhaps the machinations of the wretched WHO will change this?
(* A very popular spectator ‘sport’, for obvious reasons.)
(** lack of fire lighters or fuel?)
Governments of the western democracies were surprised, but delighted, by the rapid compliance of their populations to the imposition of severe lockdown measures and the accompanying removal of so many freedoms and rights in such a short time. The ruling Woking Class elites, already abhorring ‘nation state’ concept in favour of the ‘global village’ paradigm, found it easy to continue the onslaught on freedom of speech and other freedoms by precipitating and consolidating the Woke Era to suppress and control us in a manner never before encountered in democratic societies. Covid lockdown in 2020 boosted their confidence that they could accelerate this change agenda. Such oppression is/was of course familiar to people to lived/live under dictatorship and tyrannical systems of governance – e.g. Stalinist Russia, North Korea, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Hitler’s Germany, East Germany, etc. We have arrived! We are global!
Well said! It’s totalitarianism and it’s coming to a location near you. Substack has many well-written and well-researched articles on this and I recommend Mattias Desmet’s book, the Psychology of Totalitarianism.
You are right about the threat to our liberties, but wrong about the collusion in any organised way. It is simply the “me-too” way of thinking that is so common in politics, journalism, media. Independent thinking is discouraged by a force of social.pressure brought largely by social.media
Many good points, but how do you explain different covid policies of Sweden?
Interesting piece, Mary, but none of it really matters if you do set aside the context of what you refer to as “Covid” but others would refer to as psychological warfare. In March 2020, less than two months since “Brexit Day”, virtually every nation in the world fell, lockstep, into imposing the most horrific attack on the rights and freedoms on people that the modern world has ever known. Even in wartime, people were not forced to close their businesses for months on end. They were not terrorised into staying indoors for two years. Schools did not close. People were not bullied into walking around with their mouths and noses covered with a piece of cloth. Hospitals did not make sudden, radical changes to how people were treated resulting in millions of deaths. People were not told they could kill someone simply by walking in a park. All this was imposed at the same time by almost every government in the world, proving that they are (at best) in collusion with each other and (at worse) controlled by some other undefined entity. So we now know that modern democracy is a sham, a theatrical performance. This very week, the “World Health Assembly” is meeting in Geneva to give itself powers to restrict the movement and rights of all people of WHO member states whenever it decides there’s a “public health emergency of international concern”, when we now know such a thing cannot even exist. In the future, our “governments” will say, “it’s not us mandating these medical interventions, it’s the WHO.” Anyone who remotely cares about bodily sovereignty – let alone national sovereignty – should be screaming from the rooftops about this. Yet the mainstream media is silent. No one I speak to even knows it is happening. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s a power grab, happening in plain sight. Please research it and write about it. It’s the most dangerous elephant in the room right now. David Bell has written about it, eloquently and passionately – search for his piece on the “Brownstone Institute” website. On a more positive note, though, I do not believe the “nation state” can ever truly be over. It can be attacked and suppressed and overruled, but it will always exist in some form as a natural order in which societies organise and boundary themselves. It will just be reordered and redefined once we get past this fascistic period we’re going through.
Two very gloomy predictions follow from this excellent analysis. The first is that our national sense of who we are is being discernibly eroded by the volume of immigrants and the attemps by the media and other opinion leaders to deal with it. Just have a look at ourselves as reflected by the BBC, for example. The worse it gets, the worse it is going to get.
Second, the justified complaints of those who think Brexit has failed will be used in a concerted attempt to reverse the process. Sir Keir is doubtless putting together a plan to save us from our past “mistakes”.
Yes I think you’re right. “Has Brexit been a success?” is not the same as “Should we have stayed in the EU?”
…if only. Keir Starmer is Tory light.. a tiny bit more tax and tiny bit more social services. Corbyn was GB’s last chance to remake itself just like Sanders was America’s last chance.. it’s all downhill from here (to the cliff edge)..
The great thing about Corbyn and Sanders is that they so love the sounds of their own voices that they would walk over the cliff without noticing. Then we could go back to trying to be a free society
The great thing about Corbyn and Sanders is that they so love the sounds of their own voices that they would walk over the cliff without noticing. Then we could go back to trying to be a free society
Yes I think you’re right. “Has Brexit been a success?” is not the same as “Should we have stayed in the EU?”
…if only. Keir Starmer is Tory light.. a tiny bit more tax and tiny bit more social services. Corbyn was GB’s last chance to remake itself just like Sanders was America’s last chance.. it’s all downhill from here (to the cliff edge)..
Two very gloomy predictions follow from this excellent analysis. The first is that our national sense of who we are is being discernibly eroded by the volume of immigrants and the attemps by the media and other opinion leaders to deal with it. Just have a look at ourselves as reflected by the BBC, for example. The worse it gets, the worse it is going to get.
Second, the justified complaints of those who think Brexit has failed will be used in a concerted attempt to reverse the process. Sir Keir is doubtless putting together a plan to save us from our past “mistakes”.
Bit of a laugh thinking that you could take back control when you had none in the first place. Everything is decided around you and you are then propagandised into thinking that you had some sort of say in the matter.
The Nation is falling away because the people that run it have deigned that the welfare of the Nations citizens is of no interest to them. A large number of the population are not aware that this is the case and still cling to the idea that their Nation is for them, but they are slowly realising the ugly truth.
The Nation has been stolen by a caste that uses power and connections for their own personal enrichment and could not give a fig for anyone else.
The fact that Britain is declining and unable or more likely unwilling to ensure the welfare of its people yet has billions to spare promoting war all over the planet is further evidence of the ethical bankruptcy of the Nation.
I think that the Nation is important and it will be revived but it will require a group interested in running it equitably to make it work. How you get them in and remove the current bunch of parasites is another question that will not be easily solved . Hopefully it won’t be the French solution but I think that is a distinct possibility.
Well said! And I think a great number of people are now very cognisant of this.
The French solution ushered in the pathological society of individuals and liberalism shorn of the Imago dei – the kind of Gnostic materialism which has produced the society that Mary so eloquently describes….unless you mean the Frankish solution…Perhaps we need a Charlemagne
We need Christendom, the Carolingian creation..
We need Christendom, the Carolingian creation..
I used to accept the standard depiction of Stalin as some kind of irrational master.
He did however get one thing right. If you want to get rid of an lite lass you also have to deal with their families
Minor quibble with para 2 Chris.
Compared to say, 1990, “Welfare” (in strict monetary terms, of course) has soared, financed to a great extent by massive relative reductions in defence and debt payments, and the Banking boom of the mid-Blair years.
Banks are going bust, interest rates are now rising and defence commitments will also uptick in the wake of Ukraine/Russia. But welfare is practically a fixed cost, and only guaranteed to get bigger year on year.
Any attempt to manage down welfare/immigration and of course health in line with the nation’s ability to pay will be met with major organised rebellion on the street. The police force – diminished, demoralised and largely leaderless – will be unable to meet that threat. That I concede is really the extent of Conservative interest.
Labour have more skin in the game in terms of Welfare as a means of vote harvesting, across unemployed, the religiously conservative and public sector. In fact welfare successfully welds all these Labour interest groups permanently together in such a way that it might even guarantee them natural largest party status in a short space of time.
Way to go, Conservatives! But how long can this gravity-defying stunt continue?
My concern is this; outsiders Bank, WEF etc seem prepared to lend us the money to commit national suicide until the job is done. MSM journalists are their propagandists, and the civil service – Blairite it seems to a man and woman – seem determined to become the power within. The way the three work in concert has been shown to good effect in the unprecedented swift downfall of Truss/Kwarteng (challenging the current financial orthodoxy), and the endless hobbling of “Brexiteers” Johnson, Braverman and Raab.
“Pour décourager les autres”, indeed. Take control? They were having a laugh…
Well said! And I think a great number of people are now very cognisant of this.
The French solution ushered in the pathological society of individuals and liberalism shorn of the Imago dei – the kind of Gnostic materialism which has produced the society that Mary so eloquently describes….unless you mean the Frankish solution…Perhaps we need a Charlemagne
I used to accept the standard depiction of Stalin as some kind of irrational master.
He did however get one thing right. If you want to get rid of an lite lass you also have to deal with their families
Minor quibble with para 2 Chris.
Compared to say, 1990, “Welfare” (in strict monetary terms, of course) has soared, financed to a great extent by massive relative reductions in defence and debt payments, and the Banking boom of the mid-Blair years.
Banks are going bust, interest rates are now rising and defence commitments will also uptick in the wake of Ukraine/Russia. But welfare is practically a fixed cost, and only guaranteed to get bigger year on year.
Any attempt to manage down welfare/immigration and of course health in line with the nation’s ability to pay will be met with major organised rebellion on the street. The police force – diminished, demoralised and largely leaderless – will be unable to meet that threat. That I concede is really the extent of Conservative interest.
Labour have more skin in the game in terms of Welfare as a means of vote harvesting, across unemployed, the religiously conservative and public sector. In fact welfare successfully welds all these Labour interest groups permanently together in such a way that it might even guarantee them natural largest party status in a short space of time.
Way to go, Conservatives! But how long can this gravity-defying stunt continue?
My concern is this; outsiders Bank, WEF etc seem prepared to lend us the money to commit national suicide until the job is done. MSM journalists are their propagandists, and the civil service – Blairite it seems to a man and woman – seem determined to become the power within. The way the three work in concert has been shown to good effect in the unprecedented swift downfall of Truss/Kwarteng (challenging the current financial orthodoxy), and the endless hobbling of “Brexiteers” Johnson, Braverman and Raab.
“Pour décourager les autres”, indeed. Take control? They were having a laugh…
Bit of a laugh thinking that you could take back control when you had none in the first place. Everything is decided around you and you are then propagandised into thinking that you had some sort of say in the matter.
The Nation is falling away because the people that run it have deigned that the welfare of the Nations citizens is of no interest to them. A large number of the population are not aware that this is the case and still cling to the idea that their Nation is for them, but they are slowly realising the ugly truth.
The Nation has been stolen by a caste that uses power and connections for their own personal enrichment and could not give a fig for anyone else.
The fact that Britain is declining and unable or more likely unwilling to ensure the welfare of its people yet has billions to spare promoting war all over the planet is further evidence of the ethical bankruptcy of the Nation.
I think that the Nation is important and it will be revived but it will require a group interested in running it equitably to make it work. How you get them in and remove the current bunch of parasites is another question that will not be easily solved . Hopefully it won’t be the French solution but I think that is a distinct possibility.
A fascinating account and, as ever, a great read from this author. I perhaps take issue with a couple of things. Firstly, the story on immigration doesn’t mean Brexit has failed. It might mean our government of the day has failed, or is unwilling to engage with all the issues to deal with the problem. But at least Brexit means we know where the accountability lies.
Secondly, the ‘softening’ of the nation state seems like a very Euro-centric view of the world. The USA, China and Japan, to name a few, don’t seem to have much need of cross-national emulsifiers. There is still a strong case to say that the EU is a vehicle for advancement of national interest. And people look to nation states for support, help, furlough money when things go wrong. The idea may have some more life in it yet.
Though the US government is currently encouraging mass immigration to a degree that makes our lot seem positively xenophobic by comparison.
Except Florida which is trying it’s own mini-version of Brexit and as a consequence, like us, has investment leaving the state and field full of unpicked fruit and veg.
Would love to see a reference for that. FL is probably the most successfully run state in the nation at this point.
Would love to see a reference for that. FL is probably the most successfully run state in the nation at this point.
Not at all.
The border is secure, didn’t you know ?
I am very much afraid that that is where you are sadly mistaken. Pro rata Biden has admitted fewer immigrants than the UK government.
I think the reason you look xenophobic is because you are xenophobic..
Except Florida which is trying it’s own mini-version of Brexit and as a consequence, like us, has investment leaving the state and field full of unpicked fruit and veg.
Not at all.
The border is secure, didn’t you know ?
I am very much afraid that that is where you are sadly mistaken. Pro rata Biden has admitted fewer immigrants than the UK government.
I think the reason you look xenophobic is because you are xenophobic..
Thirdly: it is not over yet! Popular pressure to reduce immigrant numbers will continue to build. I suspect it will be turbo-charged by the 2022 full year figures released tomorrow. Eventually either this government or a future one will have to act. When they do, it will only be possible because of national sovereignty over immigration rules.
This has been an ongoing saga since, at least, the sixties and, despite a clear and consistent mandate from the electorate, has been ignored by ALL of the establishment, whatever colour or creed they align with. Short of all out insurrection I do not see that changing any time soon, and let’s be honest, the British are not of a insurrectional bent. The point at which all this ‘chat’ and fine words becomes anything other than academic is, I fear, fast approaching, democracy is, if it ever truly existed, receding into the distant past.
And why would they “have to act”? People only “have to” do something when someone more powerful threatens them if they don’t. The point of Mary’s article is that the mass-democratic ability to threaten elites is coming to an end across the Western world.
The last time it was because UKIP support threatened to hand the election to Labour so Cameron had to commit to a referendum. I suspect just such a single-issue party will emerge soon.
People will also have to act when they perceive the outcome of not acting to be sufficiently detrimental do to impersonal forces as well.
The last time it was because UKIP support threatened to hand the election to Labour so Cameron had to commit to a referendum. I suspect just such a single-issue party will emerge soon.
People will also have to act when they perceive the outcome of not acting to be sufficiently detrimental do to impersonal forces as well.
I think you’ll find you are well under way.. now one of the few countries in the world to have no teal legal route for would-be asylum seekers and instant deportation of those arriving ‘illegally’ (no such thing but hey, who’s counting)..
Why would Labour act that way?
They want to allow non-citizens and 16 years old to vote.
Do you think they do that to restrict immigration?
This has been an ongoing saga since, at least, the sixties and, despite a clear and consistent mandate from the electorate, has been ignored by ALL of the establishment, whatever colour or creed they align with. Short of all out insurrection I do not see that changing any time soon, and let’s be honest, the British are not of a insurrectional bent. The point at which all this ‘chat’ and fine words becomes anything other than academic is, I fear, fast approaching, democracy is, if it ever truly existed, receding into the distant past.
And why would they “have to act”? People only “have to” do something when someone more powerful threatens them if they don’t. The point of Mary’s article is that the mass-democratic ability to threaten elites is coming to an end across the Western world.
I think you’ll find you are well under way.. now one of the few countries in the world to have no teal legal route for would-be asylum seekers and instant deportation of those arriving ‘illegally’ (no such thing but hey, who’s counting)..
Why would Labour act that way?
They want to allow non-citizens and 16 years old to vote.
Do you think they do that to restrict immigration?
Yes, i think that interpretation on a global scale is nearer the mark. Nevertheless, MH’s analysis also provides some penetrating and vital insights into how and why we are where we are. It also demonstrates – in the event anyone should make the mistake of thinking otherwise, which commentors sometimes do – where she stands on many of the key political issues which face us.
One thought that occurs during the reading of this article: were those engaged in the changing political landscape of the 19th & 20th centuries quite so aware of the underlying shifts in cultural tectonic plates? Mass media obviously plays a part, but the MSM can’t be relied upon to reflect these shifts. Thank goodness, therefore, for Unherd. Much as we rail against some of its annoyances (technically and editorially), when articles such as this bring a clarifying lens to both the bigger and smaller pictures – in effect unifying them – the minor complaints pale into insignificance.
Well said Steve. I didn’t know Mary campaigned for VL. She has gone up in my estimations (from an already sky-high position).
Well said Steve. I didn’t know Mary campaigned for VL. She has gone up in my estimations (from an already sky-high position).
..a few comments on your few comments…
Brexit meant GB no longer had the ‘Dublin Agreement’ to rely on.. that was the end of any hope of controlling immigration.
You forget the US and China are themselves ‘unions’ of many, quite diverse states just as India is.
States’ rights are as live an issue in the US as they are in the EU, perhaps even more so.. look at the abortion issue these.
Although whether the US is a nation state is open to question. Arguably, like Switzerland it is a pre-nationalist confederation that has only partially moved towards Hamilton’s federalist concept of a unified nationality.
Though the US government is currently encouraging mass immigration to a degree that makes our lot seem positively xenophobic by comparison.
Thirdly: it is not over yet! Popular pressure to reduce immigrant numbers will continue to build. I suspect it will be turbo-charged by the 2022 full year figures released tomorrow. Eventually either this government or a future one will have to act. When they do, it will only be possible because of national sovereignty over immigration rules.
Yes, i think that interpretation on a global scale is nearer the mark. Nevertheless, MH’s analysis also provides some penetrating and vital insights into how and why we are where we are. It also demonstrates – in the event anyone should make the mistake of thinking otherwise, which commentors sometimes do – where she stands on many of the key political issues which face us.
One thought that occurs during the reading of this article: were those engaged in the changing political landscape of the 19th & 20th centuries quite so aware of the underlying shifts in cultural tectonic plates? Mass media obviously plays a part, but the MSM can’t be relied upon to reflect these shifts. Thank goodness, therefore, for Unherd. Much as we rail against some of its annoyances (technically and editorially), when articles such as this bring a clarifying lens to both the bigger and smaller pictures – in effect unifying them – the minor complaints pale into insignificance.
..a few comments on your few comments…
Brexit meant GB no longer had the ‘Dublin Agreement’ to rely on.. that was the end of any hope of controlling immigration.
You forget the US and China are themselves ‘unions’ of many, quite diverse states just as India is.
States’ rights are as live an issue in the US as they are in the EU, perhaps even more so.. look at the abortion issue these.
Although whether the US is a nation state is open to question. Arguably, like Switzerland it is a pre-nationalist confederation that has only partially moved towards Hamilton’s federalist concept of a unified nationality.
A fascinating account and, as ever, a great read from this author. I perhaps take issue with a couple of things. Firstly, the story on immigration doesn’t mean Brexit has failed. It might mean our government of the day has failed, or is unwilling to engage with all the issues to deal with the problem. But at least Brexit means we know where the accountability lies.
Secondly, the ‘softening’ of the nation state seems like a very Euro-centric view of the world. The USA, China and Japan, to name a few, don’t seem to have much need of cross-national emulsifiers. There is still a strong case to say that the EU is a vehicle for advancement of national interest. And people look to nation states for support, help, furlough money when things go wrong. The idea may have some more life in it yet.
I believe the key is the notion of boundaries/borders. A well functioning democracy has to be homogeneous enough to enable participation. It is based on equal citizenship and solidarity which can’t thrive if the electorate is broken down into warring identity groups and constantly diluted by uncontrolled mass immigration.
I see a clear link between the hatred of national borders/boundaries and the equivalent rejection of boundaries between the sexes, as well as traditional behavioural boundaries such as not sexualising children and recognising fetishes as deviant.
Indeed, the whole ‘liberal’ trend is to remove the very ideas of illegality (as in illegal immigrant) and deviancy. It’s all about borders wherever you look. This generation of ‘liberal’ cannot tolerate any kind of red line, any kind of ‘no’ … except their own authoritarian slapdown of alternative viewpoints. Then they find their borders and boundaries – which are far more discriminatory and restrictive than any proposed by conservatives.
Any boundaries are seen an affront to perverse and empty ideas of freedom
Only the truth will set you free.
I am sure that you are correct with this – The wave of the future!
I don’t know whether you are familiar with him, but Professor Matthew Goodwin of Kent University is an excellent source of information on political attitudes in the UK. His articles on Substack are worth signing up for. And you can find him in interviews on Triggernometry
His verdict on British politics is that it is broken.
Any boundaries are seen an affront to perverse and empty ideas of freedom
Only the truth will set you free.
I am sure that you are correct with this – The wave of the future!
I don’t know whether you are familiar with him, but Professor Matthew Goodwin of Kent University is an excellent source of information on political attitudes in the UK. His articles on Substack are worth signing up for. And you can find him in interviews on Triggernometry
His verdict on British politics is that it is broken.
I believe the key is the notion of boundaries/borders. A well functioning democracy has to be homogeneous enough to enable participation. It is based on equal citizenship and solidarity which can’t thrive if the electorate is broken down into warring identity groups and constantly diluted by uncontrolled mass immigration.
I see a clear link between the hatred of national borders/boundaries and the equivalent rejection of boundaries between the sexes, as well as traditional behavioural boundaries such as not sexualising children and recognising fetishes as deviant.
Indeed, the whole ‘liberal’ trend is to remove the very ideas of illegality (as in illegal immigrant) and deviancy. It’s all about borders wherever you look. This generation of ‘liberal’ cannot tolerate any kind of red line, any kind of ‘no’ … except their own authoritarian slapdown of alternative viewpoints. Then they find their borders and boundaries – which are far more discriminatory and restrictive than any proposed by conservatives.
I see many astute observations in both Harrington’s article and the comments on it. Everyone agrees that something has gone very wrong, and everyone has a theory that explains the cause. Unlike many of you, I don’t see either the problem or any proposed solution to it in connection with economic theories or party politics–certainly not in Britain (which is four thousand miles away from where I live) but also not in the States (which is only thirty miles away). So, in case anyone might find it useful (in addition to other theories), here’s my take on what has gone wrong.
For me, the problem has many names, the most generic one being nihilism: the cynical belief that nothing is real (but not in the Hindu or Buddhist sense of material or psychological illusions that hide an underlying cosmic reality) and that no one (except “us”) is motivated by anything other than evil. Nihilism and cynicism are not new. What’s new is their pervasive presence and institutionalization along with the equally pervasive passivity or lack of will to challenge what is clearly destroying our civilization.
In our time, nihilism goes by the name of deconstruction, the atomic bomb of postmodernism (although, as I’ve written elsewhere, it actually originated in the avant-garde world of late-nineteenth century art, music and literature). Deconstruction is not just another word for “analysis.” This method always has the same purpose: to “interrogate,” “subvert” or “transgress” (that is, to undermine and destroy). Its goal is to confirm subjective “lived experience,” moreover, not to seek objective truth. Its paradigm is ideology, therefore, not scholarship. At first, its targets were the cultural productions of a “bourgeois” society, usually literary texts. Next came the cultural productions of a “systemically racist” or “systemically patriarchal” society, including laws, policies, institutions, news outlets, “social media,” and so on. Now, though, deconstruction has spread from the classroom to the boardroom, from the campuses to the streets. And the targets now include nature itself. There’s no such thing as nature, apparently, only “social constructs” that “dominant classes” impose on “oppressed classes” in order to blind them with “false consciousness” and thus prevent revolution.
In short, deconstruction has taken on an autonomous life of its own. It’s in the air that most people breathe. This means that nothing, no matter how universal–not empirical observation or even science, not reason or even common sense, not the Golden Rule or even common decency–nothing at all is left to sustain society. And this, in turn, probably means that there is no way back. Utopian ideologues consciously intend to build a new society (described in very vague terms) on the ruins and ashes of our hopelessly contaminated one. This is the problem. It’s not this or that ideology, this or that party, but the radioactive contamination from decades of nihilism and cynicism.
Unfortunately, I have no solution to propose. If one were to emerge, however, it would be the result not of an election, much less of this or that government policy, but of a cultural revolution on the scale of–and the depth of–a Renaissance, a Reformation, or an Enlightenment. Western civilization has gone through several cycles of birth, death and rebirth. It could happen again, whether we live long enough to see it or not.
That brings me to some historical precedents in the West (although the same could be said of other times and places such as Egypt and India). After 70 AD, the Second Temple lay in ruins, the Jews scattered in exile. Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples realized that only one form of Judaism would endure. Unlike the Temple cult in Jerusalem, the rabbinic movement (which had originated four centuries earlier during the first exile) was “portable.” It focused not on a place, not on a state, but on Torah learning. It could flourish, therefore, wherever Jews settled and studied. Four or five centuries later, St. Augustine of Hippo lived in a crumbling Roman Empire. He understood that chaos could not be resisted for much longer. In addition, though, he understood the Church as a kind of new Noah’s Ark. It would preserve the seeds of both classical and Christian learning until these could be planted and cultivated in fertile soil on some remote shore. More recently, in 1660, Samuel Danforth revived the same idea, telling his flock of Puritan pilgrims in the New World that they were on an “errand into the wilderness.”
I suspect that these prototypes have an important message for us. If Western civilization dies yet again, we could think of ourselves as refugees with a vocation. As I understand that vocation, personally, it includes preserving the record for future generations of what’s going on, carefully documenting actual events and doctrines that would otherwise be considered beyond credulity.
Thanks for that Paul. I always enjoy reading your analyses even when i sometimes disagree with them.
On this occasion, i don’t disagree with your fundamental point about nihilism. It’s something i’ve thought about – lived, as it were – since the 1970s. One point of discussion that arises concerns whether the deconstructionists could ever hope to bring forth a different, new society after their attempted breakdown if, due to the very nature of a nihilist worldview, any such new society could coalesce without being subject to the same deconstructive interrogation.
That’s the thing about nihilism; it’s self-defeating, and must therefore be rejected at every available opportunity. The human spirit hasn’t brought us this far without having an ability to revive itself, and your historical examples are potent in their perspective, which is usually lacking in this debate.
It is indeed self-defeating, Steve. But those who indulge in deconstruction don’t care. It’s merely the means (a weapon) to an end (the destruction of society). They rely on an inherent double standard, gleefully deconstructing every worldview other than their own. I spent thirty years reading deconstructions of popular movies, for instance, and never once found any deconstruction of a movie that drew inspiration from Marxist or feminist ideology.
I once told someone that I was writing my doctoral dissertation on The Wizard of Oz as a “secular myth” of America. The immediate response was, “Oh, great! What are you deconstructing in it?” Even then–that was in the early 1990s–academics, even budding academics, assumed that their colleagues were implacably hostile to anything as inherently bourgeois or patriarchal, anything as sinister, as a Hollywood movie must be by definition. The only respectable approach to it, therefore, would begin with contempt and ridicule. My dissertation (later a book) would have scandalized her. It contains no sneering. On the contrary, my finding was that this movie (like many other cross-generational classics) is a cultural production of great beauty and wisdom, partly because it repeats in secular form ancient mythological paradigms. My point here, though, is that I actually learned a great deal by writing it, because it was real research. I found cinematic and symbolic patterns that I didn’t see at first. In other words, I didn’t “know” the answer before I asked the question.
It is indeed self-defeating, Steve. But those who indulge in deconstruction don’t care. It’s merely the means (a weapon) to an end (the destruction of society). They rely on an inherent double standard, gleefully deconstructing every worldview other than their own. I spent thirty years reading deconstructions of popular movies, for instance, and never once found any deconstruction of a movie that drew inspiration from Marxist or feminist ideology.
I once told someone that I was writing my doctoral dissertation on The Wizard of Oz as a “secular myth” of America. The immediate response was, “Oh, great! What are you deconstructing in it?” Even then–that was in the early 1990s–academics, even budding academics, assumed that their colleagues were implacably hostile to anything as inherently bourgeois or patriarchal, anything as sinister, as a Hollywood movie must be by definition. The only respectable approach to it, therefore, would begin with contempt and ridicule. My dissertation (later a book) would have scandalized her. It contains no sneering. On the contrary, my finding was that this movie (like many other cross-generational classics) is a cultural production of great beauty and wisdom, partly because it repeats in secular form ancient mythological paradigms. My point here, though, is that I actually learned a great deal by writing it, because it was real research. I found cinematic and symbolic patterns that I didn’t see at first. In other words, I didn’t “know” the answer before I asked the question.
Most interesting. There are too many who think far too much and complicate things. This afternoon I walked along an ancient track to a church built 800 years ago that sits on no road and with no power except that of sunlight. It is still sometimes used and even in these days remains unlocked.
The land it sits upon is almost unchanged in the last thousand years or more although I suspect there would have been more people working in the fields 500 years ago . It is my England not an abstract place or a complex politicised nation state but where I and my ancestors have lived for centuries.It is nothing to do with kings, ministers of state or great companies .It will be here long after I am gone and my only function now is to tell my grandchildren of it as I told my children and to hope that they will understand what this country of ours really is. .
We all must rest on something in this world and I am content to rest on this and on my faith.
I hesitate to press ‘like’ as the analysis is so depressing. I also sense the urge to destruction. It’s as if we set out deliberately to create chaos out of order. Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed: The family, the nation state, the police, religion, biological norms, classical art, literature and music, history, even the ploughed field and garden lawn – everything must go. The question though is, why? What utopian paradise will emerge from this?
“Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed.”
To give you some idea of how perverse (let alone depressing) our current situation is, Martin, I’d say that the dichotomy between order and chaos is probably a universal and even primordial feature of human perception. People must use culture to create order within what would otherwise be a chaotic and uninhabitable wilderness. (To put that another way, people do so to seek and experience the sacred dimension within the profane one.) To attack order, per se, is therefore incompatible with human existence. In short, it’s suicidal. Who do some societies commit collective suicide? Well, why do some people commit personal suicide? It happens, often due to a combination of cowardice and what we now call “neuroticism.”
“What utopian paradise will emerge from this?”
That’s a good question! My answer has two versions. But first, I want to clarify the vocabulary. “Paradise” (from the Persian for “garden”) refers to an otherworldly ideal. “Utopia” (from the Greek for “nowhere”) refers to a worldly project.
The short answer to your question is that no utopia ever has or ever will emerge from nihilism.
The long answer is that this commonsensical observation has never deterred utopian daydreamers. For well over a century, secular people, notably Marxists, have complained about “pie-in-the-sky” religion. Liberal (secularized) Christians and Jews have joined them. What could be more foolish or destructive, they say, than hoping for some immaterial and otherworldly paradise in a future life at the cost of passivity in the face of poverty and tyranny in this one? Better to participate actively in provoking revolution in order to build a utopia right here and now. Trouble is, humans are finite beings and therefore immune to perfection. Utopia is therefore just as unattainable within history as paradise is. Given the many profoundly destructive attempts to create utopias–I refer not only to those that have relied on various Christian theologies but also (notably in the twentieth century) to those that rely on secular political ideologies–you’d think that everyone would know better by now. But no, ideologues keep forgetting the dismal history of utopian experiments and therefore ignoring the need for modesty or restraint. For utopians, whether religious or secular, non-conformity is a threat. It amounts to either heresy or infidelity and must therefore be eliminated by force (assuming that noble ends can justify tyrannical or even totalitarian means).
Paul, thanks for taking the time for a thoughtful response. I think there is a fundamental propensity for chaos, from which we have evolved ways of creating order. It’s taken millennia of effort to find an uneasy way of managing. It’s a point Jordan Peterson makes that the Israelites and Christians always knew that utopia was not for this world. It seems in a generation of hubris we have forgotten this and can’t resist the propensity for chaos.
You are truly a gift to the comments section, Paul. Thanks for your contributions here.
Paul, thanks for taking the time for a thoughtful response. I think there is a fundamental propensity for chaos, from which we have evolved ways of creating order. It’s taken millennia of effort to find an uneasy way of managing. It’s a point Jordan Peterson makes that the Israelites and Christians always knew that utopia was not for this world. It seems in a generation of hubris we have forgotten this and can’t resist the propensity for chaos.
You are truly a gift to the comments section, Paul. Thanks for your contributions here.
“Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed.”
To give you some idea of how perverse (let alone depressing) our current situation is, Martin, I’d say that the dichotomy between order and chaos is probably a universal and even primordial feature of human perception. People must use culture to create order within what would otherwise be a chaotic and uninhabitable wilderness. (To put that another way, people do so to seek and experience the sacred dimension within the profane one.) To attack order, per se, is therefore incompatible with human existence. In short, it’s suicidal. Who do some societies commit collective suicide? Well, why do some people commit personal suicide? It happens, often due to a combination of cowardice and what we now call “neuroticism.”
“What utopian paradise will emerge from this?”
That’s a good question! My answer has two versions. But first, I want to clarify the vocabulary. “Paradise” (from the Persian for “garden”) refers to an otherworldly ideal. “Utopia” (from the Greek for “nowhere”) refers to a worldly project.
The short answer to your question is that no utopia ever has or ever will emerge from nihilism.
The long answer is that this commonsensical observation has never deterred utopian daydreamers. For well over a century, secular people, notably Marxists, have complained about “pie-in-the-sky” religion. Liberal (secularized) Christians and Jews have joined them. What could be more foolish or destructive, they say, than hoping for some immaterial and otherworldly paradise in a future life at the cost of passivity in the face of poverty and tyranny in this one? Better to participate actively in provoking revolution in order to build a utopia right here and now. Trouble is, humans are finite beings and therefore immune to perfection. Utopia is therefore just as unattainable within history as paradise is. Given the many profoundly destructive attempts to create utopias–I refer not only to those that have relied on various Christian theologies but also (notably in the twentieth century) to those that rely on secular political ideologies–you’d think that everyone would know better by now. But no, ideologues keep forgetting the dismal history of utopian experiments and therefore ignoring the need for modesty or restraint. For utopians, whether religious or secular, non-conformity is a threat. It amounts to either heresy or infidelity and must therefore be eliminated by force (assuming that noble ends can justify tyrannical or even totalitarian means).
Thanks for that Paul. I always enjoy reading your analyses even when i sometimes disagree with them.
On this occasion, i don’t disagree with your fundamental point about nihilism. It’s something i’ve thought about – lived, as it were – since the 1970s. One point of discussion that arises concerns whether the deconstructionists could ever hope to bring forth a different, new society after their attempted breakdown if, due to the very nature of a nihilist worldview, any such new society could coalesce without being subject to the same deconstructive interrogation.
That’s the thing about nihilism; it’s self-defeating, and must therefore be rejected at every available opportunity. The human spirit hasn’t brought us this far without having an ability to revive itself, and your historical examples are potent in their perspective, which is usually lacking in this debate.
Most interesting. There are too many who think far too much and complicate things. This afternoon I walked along an ancient track to a church built 800 years ago that sits on no road and with no power except that of sunlight. It is still sometimes used and even in these days remains unlocked.
The land it sits upon is almost unchanged in the last thousand years or more although I suspect there would have been more people working in the fields 500 years ago . It is my England not an abstract place or a complex politicised nation state but where I and my ancestors have lived for centuries.It is nothing to do with kings, ministers of state or great companies .It will be here long after I am gone and my only function now is to tell my grandchildren of it as I told my children and to hope that they will understand what this country of ours really is. .
We all must rest on something in this world and I am content to rest on this and on my faith.
I hesitate to press ‘like’ as the analysis is so depressing. I also sense the urge to destruction. It’s as if we set out deliberately to create chaos out of order. Anything that represents ‘order’ has to be de-constructed: The family, the nation state, the police, religion, biological norms, classical art, literature and music, history, even the ploughed field and garden lawn – everything must go. The question though is, why? What utopian paradise will emerge from this?
I see many astute observations in both Harrington’s article and the comments on it. Everyone agrees that something has gone very wrong, and everyone has a theory that explains the cause. Unlike many of you, I don’t see either the problem or any proposed solution to it in connection with economic theories or party politics–certainly not in Britain (which is four thousand miles away from where I live) but also not in the States (which is only thirty miles away). So, in case anyone might find it useful (in addition to other theories), here’s my take on what has gone wrong.
For me, the problem has many names, the most generic one being nihilism: the cynical belief that nothing is real (but not in the Hindu or Buddhist sense of material or psychological illusions that hide an underlying cosmic reality) and that no one (except “us”) is motivated by anything other than evil. Nihilism and cynicism are not new. What’s new is their pervasive presence and institutionalization along with the equally pervasive passivity or lack of will to challenge what is clearly destroying our civilization.
In our time, nihilism goes by the name of deconstruction, the atomic bomb of postmodernism (although, as I’ve written elsewhere, it actually originated in the avant-garde world of late-nineteenth century art, music and literature). Deconstruction is not just another word for “analysis.” This method always has the same purpose: to “interrogate,” “subvert” or “transgress” (that is, to undermine and destroy). Its goal is to confirm subjective “lived experience,” moreover, not to seek objective truth. Its paradigm is ideology, therefore, not scholarship. At first, its targets were the cultural productions of a “bourgeois” society, usually literary texts. Next came the cultural productions of a “systemically racist” or “systemically patriarchal” society, including laws, policies, institutions, news outlets, “social media,” and so on. Now, though, deconstruction has spread from the classroom to the boardroom, from the campuses to the streets. And the targets now include nature itself. There’s no such thing as nature, apparently, only “social constructs” that “dominant classes” impose on “oppressed classes” in order to blind them with “false consciousness” and thus prevent revolution.
In short, deconstruction has taken on an autonomous life of its own. It’s in the air that most people breathe. This means that nothing, no matter how universal–not empirical observation or even science, not reason or even common sense, not the Golden Rule or even common decency–nothing at all is left to sustain society. And this, in turn, probably means that there is no way back. Utopian ideologues consciously intend to build a new society (described in very vague terms) on the ruins and ashes of our hopelessly contaminated one. This is the problem. It’s not this or that ideology, this or that party, but the radioactive contamination from decades of nihilism and cynicism.
Unfortunately, I have no solution to propose. If one were to emerge, however, it would be the result not of an election, much less of this or that government policy, but of a cultural revolution on the scale of–and the depth of–a Renaissance, a Reformation, or an Enlightenment. Western civilization has gone through several cycles of birth, death and rebirth. It could happen again, whether we live long enough to see it or not.
That brings me to some historical precedents in the West (although the same could be said of other times and places such as Egypt and India). After 70 AD, the Second Temple lay in ruins, the Jews scattered in exile. Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples realized that only one form of Judaism would endure. Unlike the Temple cult in Jerusalem, the rabbinic movement (which had originated four centuries earlier during the first exile) was “portable.” It focused not on a place, not on a state, but on Torah learning. It could flourish, therefore, wherever Jews settled and studied. Four or five centuries later, St. Augustine of Hippo lived in a crumbling Roman Empire. He understood that chaos could not be resisted for much longer. In addition, though, he understood the Church as a kind of new Noah’s Ark. It would preserve the seeds of both classical and Christian learning until these could be planted and cultivated in fertile soil on some remote shore. More recently, in 1660, Samuel Danforth revived the same idea, telling his flock of Puritan pilgrims in the New World that they were on an “errand into the wilderness.”
I suspect that these prototypes have an important message for us. If Western civilization dies yet again, we could think of ourselves as refugees with a vocation. As I understand that vocation, personally, it includes preserving the record for future generations of what’s going on, carefully documenting actual events and doctrines that would otherwise be considered beyond credulity.
Magnificent Mary – putting into elegant prose the incoherent ramblings of our minds in response to events around us. Agree we can see a return to the Hapsburg era where the super wealthy lived across and beyond borders and the peasants knew their place. Meanwhile we cannot let go of the idea that history is meant to be progressive, as we learn from the past and become steadily freer and richer. We then fail to spot that the escalator is going down rather than up.
I wish Unherd editors had the chutzpah to headline this article as the Great Harrington Declaration.
I wish Unherd editors had the chutzpah to headline this article as the Great Harrington Declaration.
Magnificent Mary – putting into elegant prose the incoherent ramblings of our minds in response to events around us. Agree we can see a return to the Hapsburg era where the super wealthy lived across and beyond borders and the peasants knew their place. Meanwhile we cannot let go of the idea that history is meant to be progressive, as we learn from the past and become steadily freer and richer. We then fail to spot that the escalator is going down rather than up.
The nation is gone and the people dispossessed. We are just customers now and our former nation is just a state. no longer citizens in any meaningful sense
depressingly true… and there’s enough data on us now to divide and destroy
A passport is just like a credit card. Shame.
depressingly true… and there’s enough data on us now to divide and destroy
A passport is just like a credit card. Shame.
The nation is gone and the people dispossessed. We are just customers now and our former nation is just a state. no longer citizens in any meaningful sense
“The week before NatCon, Keir Starmer floated a proposal to extend UK voting rights to tax-paying EU citizens living in the UK, as well as to sixth-form schoolchildren”.
This was the moment I became certain that Labour are actively trying to lose the next election because they aren’t ready to govern. It just seemed like the kind of thing designed to repel the Red/Blue/whatever coloured Wall it is Labour has to win back in order to gain power (which is still the way things happen, even if the electorate are then ignored).
This kind of policy is unlikely to win you votes anywhere. The Austrian Greens and the SPÖ bring it up every now and again to test the waters but it’s such a no-no so the issue goes away again fairly quickly.
Yea, it is a no-no right now, but the fact that they keep bringing it up should be taken very seriously. These people undermine democracy at every bend and turn, because they are unwilling and/or unable to even define who the people they serve are. They probably also bristle at the idea of service, but that is what a public office is or at least was meant to be.
Is it that Labour is not ready to govern, or rather that there nothing left for Labour to govern? Let me ask, in all seriousness: Does Joe Biden really govern anything? Is he not, as Mary mentioned, a “leader on autopilot”? Haven’t we handed the franchise over to . . . the EU, or whatever substitutes for it? Is Mary pointing to the fact that we will soon wake up in a one-world state, if we have not already done so?
SNP in Scotland already lowered voting age to 16 for Scottish parliamentary elections.
At the same time, these voters under 18 are not trusted to use their own judgement to:
Buy alcohol in licensed premises and consume alcohol in a bar.Buy cigarettes & tobacco.Buy a National Lottery ticket or scratch card Buy or possess fireworks.Place a bet.Hold a credit card.Work behind a bar. Get tattooed.Hire or buy a sunbed.Be licensed to serve alcohol.
Yea, it is a no-no right now, but the fact that they keep bringing it up should be taken very seriously. These people undermine democracy at every bend and turn, because they are unwilling and/or unable to even define who the people they serve are. They probably also bristle at the idea of service, but that is what a public office is or at least was meant to be.
Is it that Labour is not ready to govern, or rather that there nothing left for Labour to govern? Let me ask, in all seriousness: Does Joe Biden really govern anything? Is he not, as Mary mentioned, a “leader on autopilot”? Haven’t we handed the franchise over to . . . the EU, or whatever substitutes for it? Is Mary pointing to the fact that we will soon wake up in a one-world state, if we have not already done so?
SNP in Scotland already lowered voting age to 16 for Scottish parliamentary elections.
At the same time, these voters under 18 are not trusted to use their own judgement to:
Buy alcohol in licensed premises and consume alcohol in a bar.Buy cigarettes & tobacco.Buy a National Lottery ticket or scratch card Buy or possess fireworks.Place a bet.Hold a credit card.Work behind a bar. Get tattooed.Hire or buy a sunbed.Be licensed to serve alcohol.
“The week before NatCon, Keir Starmer floated a proposal to extend UK voting rights to tax-paying EU citizens living in the UK, as well as to sixth-form schoolchildren”.
This was the moment I became certain that Labour are actively trying to lose the next election because they aren’t ready to govern. It just seemed like the kind of thing designed to repel the Red/Blue/whatever coloured Wall it is Labour has to win back in order to gain power (which is still the way things happen, even if the electorate are then ignored).
This kind of policy is unlikely to win you votes anywhere. The Austrian Greens and the SPÖ bring it up every now and again to test the waters but it’s such a no-no so the issue goes away again fairly quickly.
My sense is that our so-called national political elite – your Starmers and your Sunaks – don’t actually want the responsibility that comes with meaningful power. Like many of the people they purportedly govern, they want someone else to make the major decisions for them, someone to tell them what do, what to think, how to be good, how to be liked, how to stay in the safety of the herd. Their absence of faith in anything other than a disenchanted Enlightenment rationality makes them ripe for manipulation by whatever manifestation of earthy power appears to them to be the strongest.
At the same time, there are – as there always have been – narcissistic, megalomaniac empire builders with a psychopathic bent. These are your Xis, your Bezos’s, your Putins, your Musks, your Clintons, the people in the shadows behind them, and their entourage of paid advisors, lieutenants and placemen sycophantically surrounding them. They see themselves as Gods, to whom the idea of limits or boundaries to their power is a grossly offensive affront. They fight each other, in actual, cultural, or commercial wars, battling it out to be the strongest, with the little people – knowingly or not – as conscripts. If you want a global empire without limits, you either need to wipe out your opponents, convert them, or at very least subjugate them at force them to pay tribute.
A key difference between the warmongers of centuries past and those of today’s world is that our power-loving maniacs believe that technology has made it possible, in theory, for them to break down not just geographical or political limits, but also the limits and boundaries between individual people and ultimately between people and their environment. One World, One Health, One People etc. If everything collapses into a massive, unlimited, manipulable single stream of data, the theory goes, the powers that be can make heaven on earth.
The battle that lies before us is one between those who believe that a world without borders and limits is both possible and desirable, and those who believe in natural limits, boundaries and controls – and are willing and able to take the responsibility that comes with autonomous decision making power that they confer. The winner, as always, will ultimately be determined by whichever side has a better grasp on the objective truth.
And the objective truth, obviously, is that there is no singularity but God, and the refusal to accept that truth is the only thing that causes all the suffering we see on Earth. We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves. It is the power hungry, the narcissists, those who lack faith… who are the most delusional of all. But it is also the fate of the persecuted to become the new predators, so we must stay humble, curious and reasonable.
“We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves.”
Indeed we do. The propensity of humans to inflict psychological straightjackets upon themselves is almost boundless, including the concept of God. You may perhaps attach a different meaning to the concept than the traditional religious sense, but even that is in effect the ultimate expression of wishful thinking.
I’m sure you’ll disagree profoundly with that – which, as you say, is your choice.
“We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves.”
Indeed we do. The propensity of humans to inflict psychological straightjackets upon themselves is almost boundless, including the concept of God. You may perhaps attach a different meaning to the concept than the traditional religious sense, but even that is in effect the ultimate expression of wishful thinking.
I’m sure you’ll disagree profoundly with that – which, as you say, is your choice.
And the objective truth, obviously, is that there is no singularity but God, and the refusal to accept that truth is the only thing that causes all the suffering we see on Earth. We all have a choice whether or not to delude ourselves. It is the power hungry, the narcissists, those who lack faith… who are the most delusional of all. But it is also the fate of the persecuted to become the new predators, so we must stay humble, curious and reasonable.
My sense is that our so-called national political elite – your Starmers and your Sunaks – don’t actually want the responsibility that comes with meaningful power. Like many of the people they purportedly govern, they want someone else to make the major decisions for them, someone to tell them what do, what to think, how to be good, how to be liked, how to stay in the safety of the herd. Their absence of faith in anything other than a disenchanted Enlightenment rationality makes them ripe for manipulation by whatever manifestation of earthy power appears to them to be the strongest.
At the same time, there are – as there always have been – narcissistic, megalomaniac empire builders with a psychopathic bent. These are your Xis, your Bezos’s, your Putins, your Musks, your Clintons, the people in the shadows behind them, and their entourage of paid advisors, lieutenants and placemen sycophantically surrounding them. They see themselves as Gods, to whom the idea of limits or boundaries to their power is a grossly offensive affront. They fight each other, in actual, cultural, or commercial wars, battling it out to be the strongest, with the little people – knowingly or not – as conscripts. If you want a global empire without limits, you either need to wipe out your opponents, convert them, or at very least subjugate them at force them to pay tribute.
A key difference between the warmongers of centuries past and those of today’s world is that our power-loving maniacs believe that technology has made it possible, in theory, for them to break down not just geographical or political limits, but also the limits and boundaries between individual people and ultimately between people and their environment. One World, One Health, One People etc. If everything collapses into a massive, unlimited, manipulable single stream of data, the theory goes, the powers that be can make heaven on earth.
The battle that lies before us is one between those who believe that a world without borders and limits is both possible and desirable, and those who believe in natural limits, boundaries and controls – and are willing and able to take the responsibility that comes with autonomous decision making power that they confer. The winner, as always, will ultimately be determined by whichever side has a better grasp on the objective truth.
It’s really exhausting being a (plastic) liberal, calling people bigots for having the wrong opinion, telling them what to think, what they must like and dislike. Demanding that they reject evidence and objective truth for fashionable nonsense.
It’s really exhausting being a (plastic) liberal, calling people bigots for having the wrong opinion, telling them what to think, what they must like and dislike. Demanding that they reject evidence and objective truth for fashionable nonsense.
Could not be bothered to wade through it all after this:
”Thanks to EU free movement rules, many felt the level of low-skilled immigration to the United Kingdom was too high, depressing wages.”
Well – I left London in the 1970s and always returned to see it like someone running in a strobe light – a stop frame cartoon with a year or two between frames.
My old parts of London are not much British anymore – and NOT for the better. The buildings the same… the people are not, but for the Oldies like my Mother and her friends.
The immigration was cultural suicide. The Brits decided they had enough of Shakespeare, Wellington, PG Wodehouse, Queens Elizabeths, Victoria – Kings Alfred through the Henrys and Georges and Plantagenets, and Newton and Orwell and Darwin; Pantomine, Fish and Chips, Church on the Holiday – and decided to end their genetic line and culture and society….
Your politically correct ‘low skilled migrants depressing wages‘ is such cowardliness….
I suppose you will learn to write: ‘Biological Man’, or ‘Woman’ when you mean something else, and call them, ‘them’ or even ‘Zim, Zir’ next. Mary – you are supposed to use language, Kings English and all – not 2023 doubleplusgood INGSOC. Say what you mean.
If you had read on to ‘the history of patriotic feeling that attends this marriage of language, culture, history, geography, and democratic citizenship …’ you would see that these these themes are connected – borders, identity, belonging, culture. I would add that if you respect your own culture, you can also respect someone else’s culture, but that’s for another article I expect.
Western governments and corporations are heavily engaged in the breaking down of identities: national, religious, and sexual. What they are trying to replace them with are compliant sexless worker drones who have no concept of self or self-rule.
Very few bother to read beyond your username, fyi
Many vocal working class leaders (you would probably say union ‘barons,’ despite the fact they are elected) were explicit that they were voting for Brexit in resistance to depressing wages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt2IZLe8rmY
If you had read on to ‘the history of patriotic feeling that attends this marriage of language, culture, history, geography, and democratic citizenship …’ you would see that these these themes are connected – borders, identity, belonging, culture. I would add that if you respect your own culture, you can also respect someone else’s culture, but that’s for another article I expect.
Western governments and corporations are heavily engaged in the breaking down of identities: national, religious, and sexual. What they are trying to replace them with are compliant sexless worker drones who have no concept of self or self-rule.
Very few bother to read beyond your username, fyi
Many vocal working class leaders (you would probably say union ‘barons,’ despite the fact they are elected) were explicit that they were voting for Brexit in resistance to depressing wages
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt2IZLe8rmY
Could not be bothered to wade through it all after this:
”Thanks to EU free movement rules, many felt the level of low-skilled immigration to the United Kingdom was too high, depressing wages.”
Well – I left London in the 1970s and always returned to see it like someone running in a strobe light – a stop frame cartoon with a year or two between frames.
My old parts of London are not much British anymore – and NOT for the better. The buildings the same… the people are not, but for the Oldies like my Mother and her friends.
The immigration was cultural suicide. The Brits decided they had enough of Shakespeare, Wellington, PG Wodehouse, Queens Elizabeths, Victoria – Kings Alfred through the Henrys and Georges and Plantagenets, and Newton and Orwell and Darwin; Pantomine, Fish and Chips, Church on the Holiday – and decided to end their genetic line and culture and society….
Your politically correct ‘low skilled migrants depressing wages‘ is such cowardliness….
I suppose you will learn to write: ‘Biological Man’, or ‘Woman’ when you mean something else, and call them, ‘them’ or even ‘Zim, Zir’ next. Mary – you are supposed to use language, Kings English and all – not 2023 doubleplusgood INGSOC. Say what you mean.
To heavily paraphrase Peter Turchin – an Elite establishes itself, boosts its wealth and privilege, sows the seeds of its own destruction through overproduction of Elite children, and then collapses into chaos until a new Elite establishes itself.
I suspect that Brexit (for example, or Trump, or Meloni) marked the beginnings of the collapse, yet the Old Elite are trying to blunt it and hold on to their privileges. But the old centre cannot hold. The whole mess is complicated by the global relationships, but even those appear to be breaking down.
There’s no guarantee that we (the ordinary people) will like the New Elite, but they will find it much tougher to establish themselves when under today’s information scrutiny. Which is why the debate between Free Speech and Censorship is so crucial.
To heavily paraphrase Peter Turchin – an Elite establishes itself, boosts its wealth and privilege, sows the seeds of its own destruction through overproduction of Elite children, and then collapses into chaos until a new Elite establishes itself.
I suspect that Brexit (for example, or Trump, or Meloni) marked the beginnings of the collapse, yet the Old Elite are trying to blunt it and hold on to their privileges. But the old centre cannot hold. The whole mess is complicated by the global relationships, but even those appear to be breaking down.
There’s no guarantee that we (the ordinary people) will like the New Elite, but they will find it much tougher to establish themselves when under today’s information scrutiny. Which is why the debate between Free Speech and Censorship is so crucial.
The reason that people with power don’t care about mass immigration is simple: they don’t pay for it. On the contrary, the resultant house price inflation and wage depression makes them richer every year. The negative consequences are felt elsewhere.
Rather than embark on the expensive, risky and fraught policy of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda, Braverman should be housing them in large numbers in Hampstead, Highgate, Richmond, Maidenhead, Oxford, Cambridge and Bath. You’d be amazed at just how quickly the narrative would change were she to do that.
The reason that people with power don’t care about mass immigration is simple: they don’t pay for it. On the contrary, the resultant house price inflation and wage depression makes them richer every year. The negative consequences are felt elsewhere.
Rather than embark on the expensive, risky and fraught policy of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda, Braverman should be housing them in large numbers in Hampstead, Highgate, Richmond, Maidenhead, Oxford, Cambridge and Bath. You’d be amazed at just how quickly the narrative would change were she to do that.
You may have voted to move away from Europe, and this may well be a suboptimal outcome, especially with the wealth pumps and the emulsifiers and the febrile disenfranchisements, but you also may have re-established links with Australia. Ev’ry cloud…
You’re welcome to Rolf Harris tho.
His ghost, you mean?
One of the best outcomes is that we now never hear ‘When we were two little boys’ which used to be played endlessly at Christmas in supermarkets.
One of the best outcomes is that we now never hear ‘When we were two little boys’ which used to be played endlessly at Christmas in supermarkets.
His ghost, you mean?
You’re welcome to Rolf Harris tho.
You may have voted to move away from Europe, and this may well be a suboptimal outcome, especially with the wealth pumps and the emulsifiers and the febrile disenfranchisements, but you also may have re-established links with Australia. Ev’ry cloud…
Mary’s instincts are good though clouded by over-analysis. The decision to Leave was never about economics but about an EU unwilling to reform, unaccountable to its people, unwilling to secure its borders, defend itself or pull its weight in NATO. Leaving was far more foresighted than you may think given global forecasts of mass displacement, conflict, climate change and food insecurity. Having cast off one elite bureaucracy nobody seems to have the vision to chart our own future course. As Spike Milligan said, “What are we going to do now?”
Mary’s instincts are good though clouded by over-analysis. The decision to Leave was never about economics but about an EU unwilling to reform, unaccountable to its people, unwilling to secure its borders, defend itself or pull its weight in NATO. Leaving was far more foresighted than you may think given global forecasts of mass displacement, conflict, climate change and food insecurity. Having cast off one elite bureaucracy nobody seems to have the vision to chart our own future course. As Spike Milligan said, “What are we going to do now?”
A Nation without borders is no longer a Nation. As a Leaver I’m obviously annoyed to be told I’m anti-European. As I counter – “Love Europe, Hate EU. Love Football, Hate FIFA”… Simple!
A Nation without borders is no longer a Nation. As a Leaver I’m obviously annoyed to be told I’m anti-European. As I counter – “Love Europe, Hate EU. Love Football, Hate FIFA”… Simple!
The top-down threat to the liberal democratic nation state from the cognitive elites’ commitment to ever greater levels of mass immigration is now indisputable, but behind that lies an even greater bottom-up one: the effective decision of the peoples of Europe to stop having children in numbers required to sustain their much-cherished welfare states. Soon there will be only two people working for every economically inactive pensioner. Clearly mass immigration too is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme in the longer term, but I suppose the idea is to push out the life-expectancy of the still extant European peoples just beyond the horizon of their leaders, before those peoples finally spiral into extinction, leaving behind a disparate collection of wary ethnicities, shifting tribal allegiances and religious and post-religious confessions to sort out their collective futures and forge whatever postnational solidarity they can. Blaming the elites for a trahison des clercs is a natural response, but they may be making the best decisions they can given the collective death-wish of those they are enjoined to govern.
Much of the reason for not wishing to have children is the unaffordability of property of sufficient size, which increased sharply at about the same time as immigration rose significantly. This is not surprising, given the pressure on housing which immigration obviously causes.
I once read a novel called Private Schulz (later made into a series, starring Michael Elphick and Ian Richardson among others). One of the characters was a very stupid German soldier with a habit of swallowing chewing gum. When asked why he did this, he explained that he thought it would help cure his chronic stomach aches. It never occurred to him that the aches became worse the more gum he swallowed.
The UK’s immigration policy today, with the aim of beefing up the population, is the government’s equivalent of swallowing chewing gum. If they reduced immigration to a trickle (and implemented a few other measures, such as abolishing no-fault divorces) then the problem of fewer offspring would soon be solved.
Much of the reason for not wishing to have children is the unaffordability of property of sufficient size, which increased sharply at about the same time as immigration rose significantly. This is not surprising, given the pressure on housing which immigration obviously causes.
I once read a novel called Private Schulz (later made into a series, starring Michael Elphick and Ian Richardson among others). One of the characters was a very stupid German soldier with a habit of swallowing chewing gum. When asked why he did this, he explained that he thought it would help cure his chronic stomach aches. It never occurred to him that the aches became worse the more gum he swallowed.
The UK’s immigration policy today, with the aim of beefing up the population, is the government’s equivalent of swallowing chewing gum. If they reduced immigration to a trickle (and implemented a few other measures, such as abolishing no-fault divorces) then the problem of fewer offspring would soon be solved.
The top-down threat to the liberal democratic nation state from the cognitive elites’ commitment to ever greater levels of mass immigration is now indisputable, but behind that lies an even greater bottom-up one: the effective decision of the peoples of Europe to stop having children in numbers required to sustain their much-cherished welfare states. Soon there will be only two people working for every economically inactive pensioner. Clearly mass immigration too is an unsustainable Ponzi scheme in the longer term, but I suppose the idea is to push out the life-expectancy of the still extant European peoples just beyond the horizon of their leaders, before those peoples finally spiral into extinction, leaving behind a disparate collection of wary ethnicities, shifting tribal allegiances and religious and post-religious confessions to sort out their collective futures and forge whatever postnational solidarity they can. Blaming the elites for a trahison des clercs is a natural response, but they may be making the best decisions they can given the collective death-wish of those they are enjoined to govern.
We have our noses jammed against the shop window believing the mannequins, our leaders, are real. But they’re like us, on display. But we won’t avert our gaze for to do so must surely confirm our worst nightmare: our paucity, our insubstantiality, our loneliness, and so the portion of the giant screen each of us carries will become the only measure. Don’t blame our ‘leaders’ for whatever is to come. They’re doing what we would do: playing to the cameras. Being liked.
We have our noses jammed against the shop window believing the mannequins, our leaders, are real. But they’re like us, on display. But we won’t avert our gaze for to do so must surely confirm our worst nightmare: our paucity, our insubstantiality, our loneliness, and so the portion of the giant screen each of us carries will become the only measure. Don’t blame our ‘leaders’ for whatever is to come. They’re doing what we would do: playing to the cameras. Being liked.
The answer is simple nu britn hewkay is actually a mirror of the TV satire ” The Office”: with a very few notable exceptions the ruling ToyliTory party are of the line manager ilk, whose only interest is keeping their jobs, at any cost, and willing to lie, backstab, and wriggle so to do. Shapps, Raab et al are not only the diametric opposite of the great men of Victorian politics with their sense of duty and service, they are the type who these men would only have ever employed as servants…. if they were very lucky.
The answer is simple nu britn hewkay is actually a mirror of the TV satire ” The Office”: with a very few notable exceptions the ruling ToyliTory party are of the line manager ilk, whose only interest is keeping their jobs, at any cost, and willing to lie, backstab, and wriggle so to do. Shapps, Raab et al are not only the diametric opposite of the great men of Victorian politics with their sense of duty and service, they are the type who these men would only have ever employed as servants…. if they were very lucky.
Very good piece. The welfare state was always a civic national social compact. If the nation state fails/falls, the welfare state in any form is dead in the water. In the context of the polyglot Hapsburg empire that might work because the last resort forms of security – survival units – were communitarian, religious and family and place-based. Such forms are conceivable in a post-liberal world perhaps in the context of an enormous religious revival – which is to say, conceivable but highly unlikely (although this doesn’t mean Christians should stop working on the revival. Stranger things have happened). But given the levels of pathological individualism, mobility, narcissism, gender dysphoric mental illness, divorce, family break down …and an imminent economic implosion ….it’s very hard to see any thing good on the horizon.
My only quibble would be the assumption at the end that large scale governance is inevitable in some form. Other empires have lost complexity as well as reach.
I’d say run to the hills, but Buttermere is hardly the same as the Montana Redoubt favoured by American survivalists.
Very good piece. The welfare state was always a civic national social compact. If the nation state fails/falls, the welfare state in any form is dead in the water. In the context of the polyglot Hapsburg empire that might work because the last resort forms of security – survival units – were communitarian, religious and family and place-based. Such forms are conceivable in a post-liberal world perhaps in the context of an enormous religious revival – which is to say, conceivable but highly unlikely (although this doesn’t mean Christians should stop working on the revival. Stranger things have happened). But given the levels of pathological individualism, mobility, narcissism, gender dysphoric mental illness, divorce, family break down …and an imminent economic implosion ….it’s very hard to see any thing good on the horizon.
My only quibble would be the assumption at the end that large scale governance is inevitable in some form. Other empires have lost complexity as well as reach.
I’d say run to the hills, but Buttermere is hardly the same as the Montana Redoubt favoured by American survivalists.
Depressing…is there a rationale behind the immigration policy. What choice do we have with three open borders parties and all espousing no growth policies. National debt has quadrupled since the Tories came to office and our national media is illiterate on economics and what the people want.
Depressing…is there a rationale behind the immigration policy. What choice do we have with three open borders parties and all espousing no growth policies. National debt has quadrupled since the Tories came to office and our national media is illiterate on economics and what the people want.
Brexit was an attempt, the first attempt in a generation by the electorate to send a clear message on immigration and wanting to take national control for decisions and borders, rather than having them imposed by some unelected international authority.
Unfortunately, as was warned, the elites here had no intention of governing in the peoples interests and saw this as a chance to take power from Brussels for their own end. Now we have an equally cloth eared parliament who rule in a top down rather than a bottom up manner. They have already decided what is in our best interests and will force it through – be that open borders globalism, net zero, diversity/inclusion propaganda etc. They have also rigged the system so that the electorate cannot vote it out. All parties are basically signed up to the same globalist virtues. Most decisions are not made in London but at these international meetings (G20, G7, Davos etc). The national government just implements what has been agreed there.
That’s why people are annoyed. their views are disregarded first by Brussels and now by parliament. I hear Nigel garage may be returning to politics again, so that could be interesting!
Brexit was an attempt, the first attempt in a generation by the electorate to send a clear message on immigration and wanting to take national control for decisions and borders, rather than having them imposed by some unelected international authority.
Unfortunately, as was warned, the elites here had no intention of governing in the peoples interests and saw this as a chance to take power from Brussels for their own end. Now we have an equally cloth eared parliament who rule in a top down rather than a bottom up manner. They have already decided what is in our best interests and will force it through – be that open borders globalism, net zero, diversity/inclusion propaganda etc. They have also rigged the system so that the electorate cannot vote it out. All parties are basically signed up to the same globalist virtues. Most decisions are not made in London but at these international meetings (G20, G7, Davos etc). The national government just implements what has been agreed there.
That’s why people are annoyed. their views are disregarded first by Brussels and now by parliament. I hear Nigel garage may be returning to politics again, so that could be interesting!
People didn’t move to the slums of cities in the 18th and early 19th centuries because they were tired of working on the land. They were kicked off the land by its owners who wanted to take advantage of new agricultural machinery. The short-sighted greed of the landowners created the new centres of economic and political power.
People didn’t move to the slums of cities in the 18th and early 19th centuries because they were tired of working on the land. They were kicked off the land by its owners who wanted to take advantage of new agricultural machinery. The short-sighted greed of the landowners created the new centres of economic and political power.
Analytics:
Three fundamental entities make up social reality;
The people constituting it (the Nation, say), the Government (supposed to serve the people) and the State—an abstract reified concept with no moral compass only interests and powers to dominate.
These distinctions are important.
Analytics:
Three fundamental entities make up social reality;
The people constituting it (the Nation, say), the Government (supposed to serve the people) and the State—an abstract reified concept with no moral compass only interests and powers to dominate.
These distinctions are important.
Perhaps it’s time for a new political party to beformed, let’s call it the “Utilitarian Party”, the candidates can stand for election to Parliament on the following platform: Mass immigration, mass surveillance, removal of home ownership, UBI, DEI and ESG (paternalism, or cuddly authoritarianism).
Why bother doing that when you can hide behind NGOs, Quangos and supranational bodies, while boasting about “Liberal democracy”.
Perhaps it’s time for a new political party to beformed, let’s call it the “Utilitarian Party”, the candidates can stand for election to Parliament on the following platform: Mass immigration, mass surveillance, removal of home ownership, UBI, DEI and ESG (paternalism, or cuddly authoritarianism).
Why bother doing that when you can hide behind NGOs, Quangos and supranational bodies, while boasting about “Liberal democracy”.
If I could make a somewhat wonkish suggestion that would transform democratic accountability in Great Britain – why not adopt the same system as the Republic of Ireland for Parliamentary elections? In Ireland there are no single-seat constituencies. Between three and five MPs are returned from each constituency. Voters rank candidates 1, 2, 3 etc. in order of preference, and if you don’t receive enough first preference votes to be elected on the first count, you have to rely on getting second or third preference votes that have been transferred from candidates that polled so badly they were eliminated – a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.
What that means in practice is that there is no such thing as a “safe” seat, and politicians ignore the wishes of their constituents at their absolute peril. Your biggest local threat comes not from political opponents but from candidates of your own party fishing for allegiance in the same voter pool. That scene from Love Actually where the Prime Minister knocks on doors is something that happens as a matter of routine. Irish Cabinet Ministers as well as Opposition leaders devote a large chunk of time each week to knocking on doors up and down the country – the current Irish Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Martin, knocked on my father’s door a few years ago in support of his local candidate in Dublin Northwest.
It isn’t a perfect system. It rewards local fixers who graft for funds to get potholes mended rather than furrowing their brows over affairs of state, but it does mean that there is no way a governing elite can complacently distance themselves from the wrath of their constituents…..
If I could make a somewhat wonkish suggestion that would transform democratic accountability in Great Britain – why not adopt the same system as the Republic of Ireland for Parliamentary elections? In Ireland there are no single-seat constituencies. Between three and five MPs are returned from each constituency. Voters rank candidates 1, 2, 3 etc. in order of preference, and if you don’t receive enough first preference votes to be elected on the first count, you have to rely on getting second or third preference votes that have been transferred from candidates that polled so badly they were eliminated – a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.
What that means in practice is that there is no such thing as a “safe” seat, and politicians ignore the wishes of their constituents at their absolute peril. Your biggest local threat comes not from political opponents but from candidates of your own party fishing for allegiance in the same voter pool. That scene from Love Actually where the Prime Minister knocks on doors is something that happens as a matter of routine. Irish Cabinet Ministers as well as Opposition leaders devote a large chunk of time each week to knocking on doors up and down the country – the current Irish Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Martin, knocked on my father’s door a few years ago in support of his local candidate in Dublin Northwest.
It isn’t a perfect system. It rewards local fixers who graft for funds to get potholes mended rather than furrowing their brows over affairs of state, but it does mean that there is no way a governing elite can complacently distance themselves from the wrath of their constituents…..
Another excellent article from Mary. I would just point out, however, that the ONS has changed the way it collects migration data. This week’s statistics won’t show that immigration has doubled. They will merely show how inadequate the ONS’s previous methodology was.
Another excellent article from Mary. I would just point out, however, that the ONS has changed the way it collects migration data. This week’s statistics won’t show that immigration has doubled. They will merely show how inadequate the ONS’s previous methodology was.
I dropped History at the first opportunity (just shows how bad the teachers were to make such an engrossing subject so boring) but one of the few things I remember was being told that a peasant in England would’ve had much more in common with a peasant in Europe than his immediate Lord of the Manor.
The elite powers have always felt more at home with their counterparts, no matter which country they’re from. It wasn’t until they needed the serfs as cannon fodder or the like that they considered them at all. All very Animal Farm.
I dropped History at the first opportunity (just shows how bad the teachers were to make such an engrossing subject so boring) but one of the few things I remember was being told that a peasant in England would’ve had much more in common with a peasant in Europe than his immediate Lord of the Manor.
The elite powers have always felt more at home with their counterparts, no matter which country they’re from. It wasn’t until they needed the serfs as cannon fodder or the like that they considered them at all. All very Animal Farm.
Sometime, in the future… population will become the new ‘climate change’.
Called perhaps “Population change”?
The out of control immigration racket currently going on in Western countries is an obscenity on many levels but the most concerning and longest lasting damage will be the multible effects of so many more people on the environment (including climate change).
The resources are there, just not evenly spread. Too many people in the wrong place at the same time, eg an overcrowded island off the west coast of Europe will create a population emergency and a requirement to reduce the same. Not good to be old and poor.
Take away oil and the ‘resources’ are no longer there. Oil is what most of humanity owes their very existence to. It’s a fallacy to believe redistribution of resources is a solution to something caused by overproduction of offspring.
Take away oil and the ‘resources’ are no longer there. Oil is what most of humanity owes their very existence to. It’s a fallacy to believe redistribution of resources is a solution to something caused by overproduction of offspring.
The resources are there, just not evenly spread. Too many people in the wrong place at the same time, eg an overcrowded island off the west coast of Europe will create a population emergency and a requirement to reduce the same. Not good to be old and poor.
Sometime, in the future… population will become the new ‘climate change’.
Called perhaps “Population change”?
The out of control immigration racket currently going on in Western countries is an obscenity on many levels but the most concerning and longest lasting damage will be the multible effects of so many more people on the environment (including climate change).
I write from the USA.
It is not that the nation-state, per se, has failed, so much as the idea of it being in some real sense democratic.
The elites in control do not care a bit about the plebs, except to manipulate them. Those plebs have no legitimate concerns or interests in the eyes of the ruling class, they are a necessary evil (someone has to fix the air conditioner or watch the baby) but that is all. Our elites are almost literally rapacious wolves, exploiting the sheep in whose skins they camouflage themselves. “Wolf in sheep’s clothing,” if you will.
I highly recommend “The New Feudalism” by Joel Kotkin. Based in California, he has had a ringside seat to watch the elites of Hollywood and Silicon Valley take over that state through the Democratic Party, which process was a precursor to elites taking over everything, everywhere..
The question remains, if the great majority sees the government and the upper classes as uncaring (if not worse), why should those masses care about the country? The great power of the nation state was its ability to harness the loyalty of its citizens–what the Napoleonic Wars were all about. We may now see nation states that cannot command such loyalty, but receive apathy if not antipathy from their populations. The US military cannot fulfill its very modest recruitment goals—maybe the first indication of what is coming as the elite class enriches itself at the expense of the vast majority.
Who will serve, let alone put their life on the line, for their nation state today?
What do the ‘plebs’ care about then? Sorry to disappoint you, but the real world is slightly more complex than ‘elites hating plebs’ or vice versa!
I think there was an assumption – in theory if less in practice, that the elites were part of the same society and just about had a responsibility for it. The mortality rate of the officer class, especially in WW1 demonstrated the ideal.
I think there was an assumption – in theory if less in practice, that the elites were part of the same society and just about had a responsibility for it. The mortality rate of the officer class, especially in WW1 demonstrated the ideal.
Who will serve, let alone put their life on the line, for their nation state today?
What do the ‘plebs’ care about then? Sorry to disappoint you, but the real world is slightly more complex than ‘elites hating plebs’ or vice versa!
I write from the USA.
It is not that the nation-state, per se, has failed, so much as the idea of it being in some real sense democratic.
The elites in control do not care a bit about the plebs, except to manipulate them. Those plebs have no legitimate concerns or interests in the eyes of the ruling class, they are a necessary evil (someone has to fix the air conditioner or watch the baby) but that is all. Our elites are almost literally rapacious wolves, exploiting the sheep in whose skins they camouflage themselves. “Wolf in sheep’s clothing,” if you will.
I highly recommend “The New Feudalism” by Joel Kotkin. Based in California, he has had a ringside seat to watch the elites of Hollywood and Silicon Valley take over that state through the Democratic Party, which process was a precursor to elites taking over everything, everywhere..
The question remains, if the great majority sees the government and the upper classes as uncaring (if not worse), why should those masses care about the country? The great power of the nation state was its ability to harness the loyalty of its citizens–what the Napoleonic Wars were all about. We may now see nation states that cannot command such loyalty, but receive apathy if not antipathy from their populations. The US military cannot fulfill its very modest recruitment goals—maybe the first indication of what is coming as the elite class enriches itself at the expense of the vast majority.
“Thus emancipated from any meaningful working-class ability to hold their feet to the fire, it’s all too predictable that those in a position to do so should opt for what Turchin calls the “wealth pump”: that is, abandoning rule for the public good, in favour of pursuing their own narrow class interests. In this case, that means turbo-charging finance and property via mass immigration, while running social solidarity infrastructures into the ground, and looking to others of the same post-national class for political, cultural, and ideological solidarity as they do so.”
Mary is generally deeply perceptive and writes incredibly well, and this is no exception. It of course makes depressing reading for anyone who voted Leave in 2016. In fact this must also apply to the majority of Remain voters who will have had perfectly good reasons for their choice, but who for the most part surely did not envisage that Brexit might fail on the basis that mass participation democracy had already been killed off. Everyone who voted in 2016, no matter what their choice, would have voted on the implicit assumption that their voice actually matters and that the question asked of them would be settled democratically.
Are we now to really just accept that it was always a sham? That the elites cared no more about the views of EU supporters than they did about Brexit supporters? Because that is the inevitable conclusion we must draw if Mary’s theory is correct here: even if you are politically aligned with the elite agenda now, if tomorrow it changes into something to which you don’t consent, you’ll find that it makes not a damn bit of difference.
I must also quibble slightly over Mary’s view that immigration represents a Brexit failure. In the sense she argues, yes of course the numbers make a mockery of a principle promise that Leave voters accepted in 2016. On the other hand though, the immigration numbers we now are largely a result of the State operating a policy over which it has control (ECHR conventions notwithstanding). Immigration remains high because the UK state wishes it to remain high. It is not any longer a problem we can blame on Brussels. It’s still a breach of the Brexit promise, yes, but that breach is the doing of this democratically elected government.
And this leads on to a point that I’ll use as an answer to Mary’s conclusions here: the fact that using repatriated powers well has turned out to be difficult in practice and not something our elites are comfortable being expected to do, does not change the fact that at this stage, the voters can still impose those expectations upon our elites.
We may have lost a good deal of the democratic power we used to have, but ultimately it’s still up to us, not the elites who crave power without responsibility.
“Thus emancipated from any meaningful working-class ability to hold their feet to the fire, it’s all too predictable that those in a position to do so should opt for what Turchin calls the “wealth pump”: that is, abandoning rule for the public good, in favour of pursuing their own narrow class interests. In this case, that means turbo-charging finance and property via mass immigration, while running social solidarity infrastructures into the ground, and looking to others of the same post-national class for political, cultural, and ideological solidarity as they do so.”
Mary is generally deeply perceptive and writes incredibly well, and this is no exception. It of course makes depressing reading for anyone who voted Leave in 2016. In fact this must also apply to the majority of Remain voters who will have had perfectly good reasons for their choice, but who for the most part surely did not envisage that Brexit might fail on the basis that mass participation democracy had already been killed off. Everyone who voted in 2016, no matter what their choice, would have voted on the implicit assumption that their voice actually matters and that the question asked of them would be settled democratically.
Are we now to really just accept that it was always a sham? That the elites cared no more about the views of EU supporters than they did about Brexit supporters? Because that is the inevitable conclusion we must draw if Mary’s theory is correct here: even if you are politically aligned with the elite agenda now, if tomorrow it changes into something to which you don’t consent, you’ll find that it makes not a damn bit of difference.
I must also quibble slightly over Mary’s view that immigration represents a Brexit failure. In the sense she argues, yes of course the numbers make a mockery of a principle promise that Leave voters accepted in 2016. On the other hand though, the immigration numbers we now are largely a result of the State operating a policy over which it has control (ECHR conventions notwithstanding). Immigration remains high because the UK state wishes it to remain high. It is not any longer a problem we can blame on Brussels. It’s still a breach of the Brexit promise, yes, but that breach is the doing of this democratically elected government.
And this leads on to a point that I’ll use as an answer to Mary’s conclusions here: the fact that using repatriated powers well has turned out to be difficult in practice and not something our elites are comfortable being expected to do, does not change the fact that at this stage, the voters can still impose those expectations upon our elites.
We may have lost a good deal of the democratic power we used to have, but ultimately it’s still up to us, not the elites who crave power without responsibility.
I live in South Florida; I probably have more in common with the residents of Malaga or Ibiza, that I have with the residents of Brownsville, Texas.
Immigrants to South Florida are Venezuelan physicians and dentists. Second generation Cubans own law firms. We have a solid core of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants who do the yardwork, but immigration, per se, is a non-issue here.
As a matter fact, Donald Trump has a solid constituency among Republican, right-wing, Spanish-speaking second generation Americans who are in favor of a strong immigration policy.
I agree that the idea of big, continent-spanning nations probably don’t make much sense anymore, except for international trade.
I live in South Florida; I probably have more in common with the residents of Malaga or Ibiza, that I have with the residents of Brownsville, Texas.
Immigrants to South Florida are Venezuelan physicians and dentists. Second generation Cubans own law firms. We have a solid core of Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants who do the yardwork, but immigration, per se, is a non-issue here.
As a matter fact, Donald Trump has a solid constituency among Republican, right-wing, Spanish-speaking second generation Americans who are in favor of a strong immigration policy.
I agree that the idea of big, continent-spanning nations probably don’t make much sense anymore, except for international trade.
Open borders seem to be incompatible with human nature. In the long term, the weakening of enforcement mechanisms for positive social behavior that was pointed out in this article I think will lead to deterioration of society, and borders will then return in an effort to reestablish harmony and competence. Or maybe all that it will take is the thrill of blowing up our civic heritage wearing off.
If it is true that the nation-state has permanently lost its valance, I wonder at what geographic scale future borders will emerge. 80% https://bawsca.org/water/supply/hetchhetchy of the water in the California bay area comes via aqueduct over >200 km from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, so it seems like local cooperation and maybe therefore freedom of movement will extend over at least those sorts of geographic areas. Apparently, autonomous regions of the U.S. energy grid extend over even larger areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection, with 30% of energy consumed in California being generated out-of-state in the broader ‘WECC.’ If there is a return to federalism in the future, maybe these material interests will determine its contours.
How does this compare to the minimum viable scale of governance in the pre-nation-state era? Surprisingly to me, that of the modern era is not so much larger. Aqueducts in the Roman empire extended well over 100 km, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Valens. So, maybe material conditions have remained constant enough for similar structures of government to emerge as in the ancient era.
Open borders seem to be incompatible with human nature. In the long term, the weakening of enforcement mechanisms for positive social behavior that was pointed out in this article I think will lead to deterioration of society, and borders will then return in an effort to reestablish harmony and competence. Or maybe all that it will take is the thrill of blowing up our civic heritage wearing off.
If it is true that the nation-state has permanently lost its valance, I wonder at what geographic scale future borders will emerge. 80% https://bawsca.org/water/supply/hetchhetchy of the water in the California bay area comes via aqueduct over >200 km from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, so it seems like local cooperation and maybe therefore freedom of movement will extend over at least those sorts of geographic areas. Apparently, autonomous regions of the U.S. energy grid extend over even larger areas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Interconnection, with 30% of energy consumed in California being generated out-of-state in the broader ‘WECC.’ If there is a return to federalism in the future, maybe these material interests will determine its contours.
How does this compare to the minimum viable scale of governance in the pre-nation-state era? Surprisingly to me, that of the modern era is not so much larger. Aqueducts in the Roman empire extended well over 100 km, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Valens. So, maybe material conditions have remained constant enough for similar structures of government to emerge as in the ancient era.
A really fascinating article, but is she arguing for a reformed EU?
I don’t think so, because the EU has shown itself unwilling to make any reform or compromise in a direction that increases national autonomy. Remember the pathetic negotiation that David Cameron brought back before the referendum. Having said that, I don’t think there is any solution to the problems Mary has outlined, so attempting to reform the EU is no worse than any other suggestion.
You’re right, she’s not arguing for a return to a reformed EU, but if we’re seeing a limiting of the agency of the [middle sized] nation state, what comes next? Vulnerability, or an attempt to pool resources and sovriegnty to maintain some clout in the world? I’ve no idea of the answer.
No Mary is not doing that.
I heard an interesting theory recently concerning the gradual emergence of the state- it sort of defined who you were allowed to enslave and who you were not. Your subjects you could tax instead of rob and enslave. That could be just as profitable. And this would also create the incentive to at least limit the predations of the robber barons within the state. It is not clear to me what passes for a social contract today. In any case , the modern equivalents of the robber barons surely stand to gain from the demise of older structures of authority and legitimacy.
I heard an interesting theory recently concerning the gradual emergence of the state- it sort of defined who you were allowed to enslave and who you were not. Your subjects you could tax instead of rob and enslave. That could be just as profitable. And this would also create the incentive to at least limit the predations of the robber barons within the state. It is not clear to me what passes for a social contract today. In any case , the modern equivalents of the robber barons surely stand to gain from the demise of older structures of authority and legitimacy.
Not exactly on topic, but can someone explain what a minus number in red by the thumbs up means? And how to give it? Or how to avoid getting it? (I got it on my very first comment on Unherd) I see some comments here have it…
Hi fel, it’s a score based on the number of up or downvotes the comment receives.
Great quote: “citizenship doesn’t imply a bond of belonging or loyalty, but is instead more like a gym membership.” But that is probably where we are going.
To combine mass migration with a decent welfare state we may unfortunately have to have state services delivered on a tiered basis, like a gym or an insurance policy. The more you pay in and the longer you’ve been here, the more you get out. It would be good to be wrong about this, but I can’t see the numbers stacking up any other way.
But honestly Mary I really don’t think Brexit was ever going to be the solution.
I do wish someone hadn’t dragged the response to the covid pandemic into the debate – it really has no relevance whatsoever, but of course an endless ping pong starts up of course on that subject rather than the subject in question!
The British government including the PM introduced draconian lockdown laws, on three occasions. They didn’t need to do so (certainly not legally or because they were being instructed by the World Economic Forum or something). The much smaller nation of Sweden and some others did not. You might at the most perhaps argue groupthink….
There is also nothing in the concept of nation states that says they cannot, be authoritarian, even if Britain hasn’t usually been so….
Some good points, but scoffing at “sixth form schoolchildren” being given the vote by Labour? Sixth formers can already vote, and have been able to since 1969. I voted for the first time during my A Level exams. Rather derisive tone from Mary here, sadly.
Some good points, but scoffing at “sixth form schoolchildren” being given the vote by Labour? Sixth formers can already vote, and have been able to since 1969. I voted for the first time during my A Level exams. Rather derisive tone from Mary here, sadly.
If the author had properly examined the historical processes which created the European nation states, including the United Kingdom, in particular the links between liberalism and nationalism, she would be asking herself the question whether the EU, far from being some sort of homage to the Hapsburgs she alleges, might be in the early stages of presiding over the emergence of a European nation state, which would both meet her abstract principles of sovereignty and even more its reality, by being a power on a global scale, something no individual European nation can now achieve.
There’s a logic in there, Europe as a collective lifeboat in a turbulent world. Together the countries of Europe might ride out the storms. The problem is that there is no cohesive European culture or faith that can hold this together. Just a Euro-blob steering the boat back and forth.
I think you may under-estimate the extent of shared European feeling, as seen in attitudes towards Ukraine, for example. A sort of European nationalism also suffuses much new thinking on the Continental Right (which separates it from new Right thinking in the UK, that is so much more dependent on American influences), in FI, Vox and the younger generation of the FN, for example. Above all, Christendom has very deep roots even if it is presently largely without the impulse of overt and active Faith.
I think you may under-estimate the extent of shared European feeling, as seen in attitudes towards Ukraine, for example. A sort of European nationalism also suffuses much new thinking on the Continental Right (which separates it from new Right thinking in the UK, that is so much more dependent on American influences), in FI, Vox and the younger generation of the FN, for example. Above all, Christendom has very deep roots even if it is presently largely without the impulse of overt and active Faith.
There’s a logic in there, Europe as a collective lifeboat in a turbulent world. Together the countries of Europe might ride out the storms. The problem is that there is no cohesive European culture or faith that can hold this together. Just a Euro-blob steering the boat back and forth.
If the author had properly examined the historical processes which created the European nation states, including the United Kingdom, in particular the links between liberalism and nationalism, she would be asking herself the question whether the EU, far from being some sort of homage to the Hapsburgs she alleges, might be in the early stages of presiding over the emergence of a European nation state, which would both meet her abstract principles of sovereignty and even more its reality, by being a power on a global scale, something no individual European nation can now achieve.
Sounds like you Britons should have stayed in the modern EU instead of reverting to some past, long out if date, nostalgia of good old colonial times. Now you guys are neither here nor there but trapped in a kind of never never land, relics of old ‘grandure’ with nothing to show for it (unless you’re the ‘elite’ 0.1%), with none of your wishes granted and the little you had being taken away.
Who do you think has been paying for all those SUVs in Dublin suburbs, and all that expensive farm equipment? At some point in the not too distant future German voters are going to decide they no longer want to pay the bills for you, the French, Italians and Spanish. You might wind up having second thoughts yourself when that happens.
And Ireland will neatly turn itself into Europe’s richest and biggest tax haven, at huge cost to the ignorant and myopic EU…. and nu britn!
And Ireland will neatly turn itself into Europe’s richest and biggest tax haven, at huge cost to the ignorant and myopic EU…. and nu britn!
We haven’t reverted to nostalgia of good old colonial times.
What a crass thing to say.
We will not be governed by a bunch of foreign crooks that’s all.
All you achieve with these silly remarks is to emphasise that you are incapable of debating without resorting to dishonest caricatures of those with whom you wish to disagree.
Who do you think has been paying for all those SUVs in Dublin suburbs, and all that expensive farm equipment? At some point in the not too distant future German voters are going to decide they no longer want to pay the bills for you, the French, Italians and Spanish. You might wind up having second thoughts yourself when that happens.
We haven’t reverted to nostalgia of good old colonial times.
What a crass thing to say.
We will not be governed by a bunch of foreign crooks that’s all.
All you achieve with these silly remarks is to emphasise that you are incapable of debating without resorting to dishonest caricatures of those with whom you wish to disagree.
Sounds like you Britons should have stayed in the modern EU instead of reverting to some past, long out if date, nostalgia of good old colonial times. Now you guys are neither here nor there but trapped in a kind of never never land, relics of old ‘grandure’ with nothing to show for it (unless you’re the ‘elite’ 0.1%), with none of your wishes granted and the little you had being taken away.
So many errors in MH’s thinking that difficult to know where to start but…
Firstly the contention the Tories et al are not ‘listening’ – this is v true, but Author over-simplistic as to why. She thinks it’s because a certain elite wants to protect it’s advantages. There is a bit in this. But it’s also because politicians are afraid to tell people the truth because it involves difficult trade offs people won’t like. For example re: immigration – MH gives no indication how she thinks we’ll fill all our vacancies in low skilled work – picking crops, working in a care home etc, as just two examples. She certainly isn’t stepping forward to do these herself. And thus what that means for the people not being listened to – you won’t have food as cheap, you won’t get great care when frail etc is not shared as part of an adult discussion after which we listen to what people then want to do. She thus, probably inadvertently, perpetuates an infantilisation of the people whom she feels are not being listened to. Come on, both sides of the coin have to be applied. Now these are just two examples. Our immigration can be lower without question, but fundamentally the conversation has been desperately immature and truth is ‘dislike of the other’ whilst a minority opinion was a card the Author’s side played when it wanted to win.
Secondly the Nation state – the naivety behind the ‘woe is me’ stuff on this beggars belief. We’re a little island. If we don’t pool our influence it’ll be little to no influence at all. Lesson is being learnt everyday now. The problem is the last 50yrs we’ve been immature about it. The World looks at us like the stroppy child still to grow up, and whilst we’ve still huge strengths on this they are right.
Repeating the same patronising nonsense over and over again doesn’t make it become true.
I honestly look forward to reading his comments. The thoughts of a New Labour zombie, staggering through a world that increasingly makes no sense to him. He could be a character from a new AI-generated Evelyn Waugh novel.
‘j watson’ – if you see this, I implore you, please never change.
Delighted you take an interest AM, thank you.
Delighted you take an interest AM, thank you.
I entirely agree AR. 7 years of Brexit twaddle we’ve had to put up with
More deflection and fallacy,. I have no time for ideology, so I reject Utilitarianism and Technocracy. That does not make me a brexiteer but someone who believes in a liberal democracy, not the sham one you keep pushing.
More deflection and fallacy,. I have no time for ideology, so I reject Utilitarianism and Technocracy. That does not make me a brexiteer but someone who believes in a liberal democracy, not the sham one you keep pushing.
I honestly look forward to reading his comments. The thoughts of a New Labour zombie, staggering through a world that increasingly makes no sense to him. He could be a character from a new AI-generated Evelyn Waugh novel.
‘j watson’ – if you see this, I implore you, please never change.
I entirely agree AR. 7 years of Brexit twaddle we’ve had to put up with
I think you are spot on that politicians do not want to have public discussions of complex policy problems because the electorate in general is not interested in complexities.
That said, I think your take of the immigration question is wrong. Immigration has been characterized by many as an economic question, but that’s primarily because the economics is politely acceptable to discuss in public. But the reality is that immigration is now and always has been primarily a cultural question. “Come to this country and assimilate” is a very different proposition from “Come to this country to change it.” – this just isn’t polite to say out loud.
What Britons are tired of, I think, is how quickly immigrants are changing the country. A country which was once 99% white, (nominally) Christian, English-speaking, etc., which had a shared history, literature, etc. – is now being rapidly changed by people with very different histories, languages, cultural priorities, instincts, assumptions, etc.
But to talk about that is supposedly “racist” which has somehow become the only sin in the modern West. Rebutting the historical lies spread by the modern Left is probably the best and quickest way to reshape public debate about immigration. It’s *OK* to want England to be English instead of Polish or Nigerian. That’s not “racist” – or, if they change the definition of ‘racism’ to make it racist, then it’s OK to be racist. Time to stop being scared of the Scarlet ‘R.’
PS. “We’re a little island”? A little island that conquered the world. The UK is still the world’s 6th largest economy and (after the US, I suppose) the largest net exporter of cultural influence on the globe. Man up, Britain.
On immigration I’d favour a ‘naturalisation’ process where full citizenship does place some obligations – most obvious being good command of the language, but could be more about values etc.
I agree too there is something pernicious in elements of the discussion on racism – it is v dangerous to underappreciate where and how racism still occurs. It is also dangerous and self defeating to exaggerate it’s occurrence.
But where you and I differ is I’m much more self confident the core values of our great country remain solid and permeate us all regardless of skin pigmentation or place of birth. Look at who’s the PM, Home Sec, Foreign Sec – I may not agree with them on all things but does their background and colour make us all less British? I think not.
You do also display a fascinating dichotomy – we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?
There is an issue about scale of immigration, and as we’ll see today that’s exploded even though post Brexit. That goes back to the open discussion issue – Govt too scared to outline the economic trade-off
“we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?”
Britain conquered the world but *chose* not to assimilate some of the children of empire – it did that by deciding that what it was, and what it had accomplished, maybe wasn’t such a good thing after all.
As it was becoming economically difficult to sustain the empire (roughly, the period between the wars), there was also a shift in opinion (among the elite, at least) about the merits of having an empire and what to do with it. With the collapse of the church the moral justifications for empire eroded, and it became fashionable to suggest that England, far from solving problems around the world, had created them. So when those problems came home to roost, many believed it was wrong to tell them that they should adopt British culture.
Obviously we’re speaking in generalities, but the British empire became an economic and military burden, and then a moral one. They could hardly tell arriving Pakistanis (or whomever) to be more British when they were simultaneously apologizing for what Britain had (supposedly) done to them.
“we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?”
Britain conquered the world but *chose* not to assimilate some of the children of empire – it did that by deciding that what it was, and what it had accomplished, maybe wasn’t such a good thing after all.
As it was becoming economically difficult to sustain the empire (roughly, the period between the wars), there was also a shift in opinion (among the elite, at least) about the merits of having an empire and what to do with it. With the collapse of the church the moral justifications for empire eroded, and it became fashionable to suggest that England, far from solving problems around the world, had created them. So when those problems came home to roost, many believed it was wrong to tell them that they should adopt British culture.
Obviously we’re speaking in generalities, but the British empire became an economic and military burden, and then a moral one. They could hardly tell arriving Pakistanis (or whomever) to be more British when they were simultaneously apologizing for what Britain had (supposedly) done to them.
On immigration I’d favour a ‘naturalisation’ process where full citizenship does place some obligations – most obvious being good command of the language, but could be more about values etc.
I agree too there is something pernicious in elements of the discussion on racism – it is v dangerous to underappreciate where and how racism still occurs. It is also dangerous and self defeating to exaggerate it’s occurrence.
But where you and I differ is I’m much more self confident the core values of our great country remain solid and permeate us all regardless of skin pigmentation or place of birth. Look at who’s the PM, Home Sec, Foreign Sec – I may not agree with them on all things but does their background and colour make us all less British? I think not.
You do also display a fascinating dichotomy – we conquered the world and largest exporter of values and culture, yet somehow can’t absorb/assimilate some of the children of empire into our land?
There is an issue about scale of immigration, and as we’ll see today that’s exploded even though post Brexit. That goes back to the open discussion issue – Govt too scared to outline the economic trade-off
If you label our nation as the stroppy child I’m assuming you’d be happy for other nations to impose parental guidance and discipline. Oh didn’t we recently try that route by agreeing that the infamously corrupt European Commission act as our overseer?
You touch on the issue of to what degree is/was there a democratic deficit in EU. That’s quite a complex issue we can’t do justice to here but it’s not where you think it is I would contend. Nonetheless we’ll be largely following their rules even though not part of the club and now have no say in them. That’s v clever.
We NEVER had a day in the EU rules.
We NEVER had a day in the EU rules.
You touch on the issue of to what degree is/was there a democratic deficit in EU. That’s quite a complex issue we can’t do justice to here but it’s not where you think it is I would contend. Nonetheless we’ll be largely following their rules even though not part of the club and now have no say in them. That’s v clever.
There’s no chance of a mature conversation about the issues. No politician is likely to start such a conversation, because s/he would be crucified by the media and the other side. What you really need is a politician who is, perhaps, somewhere on the spectrum and who is so (unjustifiably) convinced of their own genius that they don’t give a rat’s about calling down opprobrium on themselves (vide Thatcher, M – a complete dingbat, but successful for that very reason; cf Johnson, B – a pretend dingbat who was just a very naughty boy).
I have upticked you for your humour about Boris, but with respect, I don’t think Thatcher was a digbat at all. She just had the misfortune to be battling the same type of unconservative colleague that has so exquisitely neutered the post Brexit potential for change over the last five years.
This problem has been brewing for quite a while.
It’s certainly difficult and much IMO relates to how media functions in UK, although increasingly not unique.
But one senses just a glimmer a more mature discussion beginning to happen on certain issues that Brexit’s failure is making more possible than otherwise would have been the case. It may well prove we had to go through that shambles and deceit to grasp the discussions we really did need to have.
I have upticked you for your humour about Boris, but with respect, I don’t think Thatcher was a digbat at all. She just had the misfortune to be battling the same type of unconservative colleague that has so exquisitely neutered the post Brexit potential for change over the last five years.
This problem has been brewing for quite a while.
It’s certainly difficult and much IMO relates to how media functions in UK, although increasingly not unique.
But one senses just a glimmer a more mature discussion beginning to happen on certain issues that Brexit’s failure is making more possible than otherwise would have been the case. It may well prove we had to go through that shambles and deceit to grasp the discussions we really did need to have.
Repeating the same patronising nonsense over and over again doesn’t make it become true.
I think you are spot on that politicians do not want to have public discussions of complex policy problems because the electorate in general is not interested in complexities.
That said, I think your take of the immigration question is wrong. Immigration has been characterized by many as an economic question, but that’s primarily because the economics is politely acceptable to discuss in public. But the reality is that immigration is now and always has been primarily a cultural question. “Come to this country and assimilate” is a very different proposition from “Come to this country to change it.” – this just isn’t polite to say out loud.
What Britons are tired of, I think, is how quickly immigrants are changing the country. A country which was once 99% white, (nominally) Christian, English-speaking, etc., which had a shared history, literature, etc. – is now being rapidly changed by people with very different histories, languages, cultural priorities, instincts, assumptions, etc.
But to talk about that is supposedly “racist” which has somehow become the only sin in the modern West. Rebutting the historical lies spread by the modern Left is probably the best and quickest way to reshape public debate about immigration. It’s *OK* to want England to be English instead of Polish or Nigerian. That’s not “racist” – or, if they change the definition of ‘racism’ to make it racist, then it’s OK to be racist. Time to stop being scared of the Scarlet ‘R.’
PS. “We’re a little island”? A little island that conquered the world. The UK is still the world’s 6th largest economy and (after the US, I suppose) the largest net exporter of cultural influence on the globe. Man up, Britain.
If you label our nation as the stroppy child I’m assuming you’d be happy for other nations to impose parental guidance and discipline. Oh didn’t we recently try that route by agreeing that the infamously corrupt European Commission act as our overseer?
There’s no chance of a mature conversation about the issues. No politician is likely to start such a conversation, because s/he would be crucified by the media and the other side. What you really need is a politician who is, perhaps, somewhere on the spectrum and who is so (unjustifiably) convinced of their own genius that they don’t give a rat’s about calling down opprobrium on themselves (vide Thatcher, M – a complete dingbat, but successful for that very reason; cf Johnson, B – a pretend dingbat who was just a very naughty boy).
So many errors in MH’s thinking that difficult to know where to start but…
Firstly the contention the Tories et al are not ‘listening’ – this is v true, but Author over-simplistic as to why. She thinks it’s because a certain elite wants to protect it’s advantages. There is a bit in this. But it’s also because politicians are afraid to tell people the truth because it involves difficult trade offs people won’t like. For example re: immigration – MH gives no indication how she thinks we’ll fill all our vacancies in low skilled work – picking crops, working in a care home etc, as just two examples. She certainly isn’t stepping forward to do these herself. And thus what that means for the people not being listened to – you won’t have food as cheap, you won’t get great care when frail etc is not shared as part of an adult discussion after which we listen to what people then want to do. She thus, probably inadvertently, perpetuates an infantilisation of the people whom she feels are not being listened to. Come on, both sides of the coin have to be applied. Now these are just two examples. Our immigration can be lower without question, but fundamentally the conversation has been desperately immature and truth is ‘dislike of the other’ whilst a minority opinion was a card the Author’s side played when it wanted to win.
Secondly the Nation state – the naivety behind the ‘woe is me’ stuff on this beggars belief. We’re a little island. If we don’t pool our influence it’ll be little to no influence at all. Lesson is being learnt everyday now. The problem is the last 50yrs we’ve been immature about it. The World looks at us like the stroppy child still to grow up, and whilst we’ve still huge strengths on this they are right.