Mea culpa. To anyone with a passing interest in or knowledge of political thought, what's been happening in a big way over the last seven or eight years, and for decades in a less mainstream way, is obvious. Antonio Gramsci's interpretation of Marxism, best encapsulated by Rudi Dutschke's phrase "the long march through the institutions", has really been happening. But I didn't particularly worry about it. That was partly because in the UK at least, every national ballot since 2010, whether election or referendum, has gone the 'right' way. I might not have directly supported every cause, but the results seemed the least worst outcome. But it was also because I thought the influence of the institutions was marginal. How wrong I was. The Right may be winning the electoral war, but the Left are winning the culture war by a much bigger margin.
The question is: what to do about it? The hackneyed Burkean quote around "evil triumphs when good men do nothing" is true. Don't misunderstand - I'm not literally saying the BBC, Black Lives Matter, The Guardian, trans-activists and so on are 'evil' - but they are motivated, consistent and determined to be disproportionately influential on our thinking and way of life, and a shrug of the shoulders and an air of amused detachment are no longer enough to hold back the tide. So I repeat - what to do about it?
More qualifiers so that you don't think I'm a crackpot conspiracy theorist...
- is everyone who works at the BBC a closet Gramscian? No. But is there a clear agenda underpinning the vast majority of its current affairs and news coverage? Yes, and this is true also of other broadcasters.
- do black lives matter? Of course they do. Is it true that in the US all the funds raised for Black Lives Matter seem to be secretly channelled to ActBlue, an organisation dedicated to funding the loonier, leftier end of the Democrats? It looks that way.
- do trans people have the right to be treated with dignity and respect, just like - and in exactly the same way as - any other member of society? Of course. But does that mean we have to conflate that right with the automatic acceptance of post-modern gender theory, which asserts that anyone can be any gender they like merely by the act of self-identification? No. It's madness, and massively trivialises the challenges of those affected by genuine dysphoria.
These are just three examples. Given time, I could equally opine on dozens of other institutions, ranging from the National Trust, through to the police (seriously, don't get me started on the Common Purpose-schooled idiots who now seem to be in charge of most police forces), and even the private sector. I doff my hat - the Left have been seriously skilled in taking just and righteous causes, and commandeering them for wider political purposes. In terms of the influence on people's lives, I reckon them to be at least as successful, if not more so, than the elected governments we've had in the last ten years.
Why do I mind? I think it comes down to two things:
First, I'm a rationalist and an empiricist. I distrust ideologies, as they all, left through right, disregard or gloss over the impact of human psychology. (Even the subject in which I'm most qualified - economics - is, excuse my language, largely bollocks as it's largely based the notion of the rational consumer. It's why behavioural economics is a much more interesting and insightful field). Anyway, the post-modern underpinnings of the influences on the institutions I now distrust explicitly reject rationalism and empiricism - narrative is all, and narrative becomes the reality, even if it is clearly contrary to the majority's observed truth. This explains why the BBC would run the now-notorious headline last weekend "27 police officers hurt in largely peaceful BLM demo."
Second, because the execution of these ideologies seeks to subvert, or at least sidestep, democratic processes. The Left realised long ago that, to use the words of Alan Johnson to Jon Lansmann on the last election night in December, the working class "have always been a big disappointment", what with their tiresome attachment to notions of family, community and country, and so unlikely to provide electoral success to truly left wing politics. So they've sought other methods to dominate 'discourse', and as I say they've done it very well. Though it's helped that the Right has sought to appease, rather than challenge head-on.
It feels like the scales have tipped this week however. Maybe it's just the perfect storm of the events in America, the consequences of lockdown on people's psyche, and some good weather, and it'll all blow over. But this time feels different, and to use an ucky phrase, we need a more assertive counter-narrative. It'll be hard to pitch it right without appearing to be against fairness and justice. The bigger question though is who's going to do it?
Which brings me back to the central question - what do WE do? I have no influence. What's true, however, is that there are people who 'get' this, across the political spectrum. There are sane, articulate and balanced voices on the left (Paul Embery, Maurice Glasman and other Blue Labour types) that I like and trust far more than most Tory MPs. Economic left vs. right is irrelevant at this stage, especially post-Covid. It's the cultural left vs. the cultural right that matters. I believe those of us on the cultural right need to identify and swing behind the people who don't hold political power at the moment (they appear to be the appeasers of the cultural left anyway), but can speak for us. They may be academics, trade unionists, authors, comedians, I don't care. But in the short term we need to give them a bigger voice.
I've other ideas too, but they can wait for another day...
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