Porter’s Pensées

This looks like a fair summary to me.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2021/06/meaning-resignation-swedish-prime-minister-stefan-l-fven

It is well known that one of the most reliable markers for distinguishing between Brexiters and Remainers in 2016 was their levels of education. That’s a more diplomatic way of putting it, than by referring to levels of ‘intelligence’. The better (or longer) educated you were – unless it was at Eton – the more likely you were to have voted to stay in the EU. It was mainly the un- and public school-educated who voted the other way. (Not all, of course.) 

Which had a crucial effect on Britain’s politics in the months thereafter. In brief, it meant that when Johnson came to form his new government in 2019, with only Brexiters or turncoats to choose from, most of the more highly-educated and experienced members of the Conservative Party were lost to him, driven out by him in many cases; leaving only youngish, unprincipled and probably stupid Brexit-loyalists to choose from. Which is why we got Matt Hancock, Gavin Williamson, Priti Patel and the rest of that ‘fucking useless’ crew (Johnson’s words, applied to Hancock, according to Cummings), plus of course Boris himself, to bugger just about everything up in the last year or so; including Brexit itself and the pandemic.   

But of course that thought merely makes me an ‘élitist’.

A picture of the Queen in every home; and now this, recommended by the Government to be sung in primary schools:

‘One Nation’? No; Britain is four nations, as every Scottish and Welsh and Northern Irish person will tell you. ‘Great nation’? No; or at least, not particularly ‘great’, and much less so now by almost any criteria (not only military) than she used to be. 

Actually, there are some admirable sentiments in that song – tolerance, diversity and so on – but most of them sitting rather uncomfortably with the reality of life in Britain today – at least, as I observe it from afar; the ‘hostile environment’, and so on. And the whole idea of making children sing ‘patriotic’ songs in their schools must strike most Britons as being quite fundamentally un-British. It’s the sort of thing the Americans do. And apart from them, authoritarian countries, uneasy about the loyalties of their citizens otherwise. It’s a very Borissy thing; a substitute for proper political thinking, and a diversion from the incompetence and sheer reactionary devilry of his government.

My forthcoming Patriot’s History of Modern Britain should put them right about all that ‘patriotic’ stuff. If it ever appears, that is; I’m still waiting to hear from my publisher.

But it’s Midsommarafton, and I have to leave off now to dance around a phallic symbol, while pretending to be a frog, with lots of other Swedes. Maybe Boris could introduce something like it to Britain. He would make a pretty good phallus himself. And Nigel Farage could be one of the frogs.

So far as I understand, and I’m open to correction by Swedish friends, the extraordinary events in the Swedish Parliament just an hour ago – PM Löfven losing a vote of confidence initiated by an unholy alliance between the far-Left Vänster party and the far-Right Sverigedemokraterna – came about because of the Centre-Left coalition’s proposal to end rent and price controls for housing, which have long been an essential part of the ‘Swedish model’. Left and Right both want to stop that. This of course reminds me of the Thatcher ‘reforms’ of the 1980s, which have done such damage to the British housing market subsequently. Here’s one angle on them:

That’s where Sweden might be heading. I’ve warned them….!

Löfven now, as I understand it, has two options. Either he resigns as PM, to be replaced by someone else. Or he calls an extraordinary General Election. If he did that, incidentally, it wouldn’t – unlike in the UK – displace the ‘normal’ election, due in 2022. The situation is full of uncertainties, and even of perils. I’ll let you know how it goes. (Sweden tends to be under-reported in foreign media.)

I’m disappointed that the press analysis of the Conservatives’ massive defeat at the hands of the Lib-Dems in the recent Chesham and Amersham by-election explains it purely and simply in terms of the comfortable middle classes’ concerns about local property prices. I’d rather hoped that it might have something to do with Brexit, Johnson, the authoritarian turn of his government, his Covid-19 response, and his general silliness. The good folk of Chesham and Amersham are after all more likely to be well educated than the Northerners who voted the other way in the by-election before this: enough to be able to ‘see through’ Boris; and for that reason will have voted for a party – the only one, I think – which is unambiguously against Brexit, and also – its other advantage – not tarred with ‘socialism’, which is always likely to frighten the horses in Buckinghamshire. One of the major dividers in the 2016 Brexit referendum, apart from age (oldies pro, youngsters anti), was by education, with the university-educated more likely to have voted ‘Remain’. (Unless of course they were only educated in the ‘Classics’.) I was hoping that this might have been reflected in this latest election, with intelligence – or at least education – overcoming the age and class factors. But apparently not. All the Amershamers were concerned about was their own NIMBY self-interest. That is, if the commentators are right.

I’ve been rather remiss at blogging recently; mainly because I’m trying to finish my Patriot’s History of Britain, and because I’ve been a little ‘under the weather’. I’m surprised anyone isn’t, in view of what’s going on in the UK. But I was sort of cheered this morning by an invitation sent out to old members of my Cambridge college to stay there during the summer for £57 a night (no meals. Or ‘bedmakers’, I presume!). It’s because in the pandemic season they’ve got no conferences to take the rooms. I have conflicting emotions about Cambridge: detesting the upper-middle class and deeply sexist culture there, which ultimately led me to resign my Fellowship; but having enjoyed it tremendously as an undergraduate: not only the study, but the social life, and the Cambridge dramatics, which I was involved in. In fact, looking back, I regard it as the high point of my life. I often dream about it, from all these miles away. (‘Varsity’ in my day, of course. ‘Uni’ was plebeian.)

So I may do this, perhaps in August, during the trip I have to make to the UK anyway to check references for the book. I’m hoping that by then travel restrictions will have been relaxed sufficiently for me to fly there without quarantining (I’ve had the vaxes), and to fly back to Sweden afterwards. I don’t want to be stuck in Boris’s Britain for longer than is necessary.

Here’s a pic of my college’s ‘Old Court’ (1340s). You can just see my old room in the shadows on the right – ground floor. Above it is the roof of the Cavendish Lab, where I’m told the atom was split.

Proper blogging to resume soon, I hope.  

Dominic Cummings really does look like the evil Mekon, as I suggested last year: https://bernardjporter.com/2020/02/13/journey-to-mekonta/. For those not brought up on the Eagle comic in the 1950s, the Mekon was the leader of the ‘Treens’ of the planet Venus – tall green men wrapped in copper hoops, and presumably women too, though we never see them – and the mortal enemy of ‘Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future’. This was all set in the 1990s – forty years in the future to the Eagle then.

God I loved the Eagle! And I’ve just bought a reprint of the first Dan Dare series – the Venusian one – to recapture my boyhood in my old age. The Mekon is introduced in the 30th issue, of 3 November 1950. He (or he may be an ‘it’) is a fantastically intelligent creature, with a huge brain, who worships only ‘science’, and despises human feelings, emotion and sympathy. 

Isn’t Cummings a bit like that? He certainly sounds a bit inhuman, and technocratic. And also somewhat Saturnine (yes, wrong planet, I know). I’m not however totally convinced about the intelligence that everyone attributes to him. He’s bright, certainly, but his main intellectual power seems to stem from the fact that he’s unwilling to be fettered by morality. Hence his altering one of his past blogs on one occasion to give the impression that he foresaw Covid-19 before everyone else. And if he’s so smart, why did he work so hard and effectively to get Johnson into power when – as he says now – Johnson clearly wasn’t up to it?

My characterisation of Cummings is that he is bright but has no depth. Just as Johnson is funny but has no depth. Life is not just numbers, algorithms, sheer logic, technology, intelligence, efficiency. Nor is it a game you learn at Eton. It has layers too. Cummings only sees the surface of things, and Johnson the fun side. Dan Dare, thou shouldst be living at this hour. You’d sort them out!

Here’s something I was sent on Facebook – I can’t remember by whom. (Lucy?) The style is a bit clunky – I imagine the original Chomsky version must have been better written – but it helps explain what’s happening to us (in Britain) now.

Noam Chomsky, one of the most important intellectuals in life today, has drawn up the list of 10 media manipulation strategies. Give 5 minutes and you won’t regret it. If only to expand your knowledge.

1-The strategy of distraction. The primordial element of social control is the distraction strategy which consists of diverting the public’s attention from major problems and the changes decided by political and economic elites, through the flooding technique or flooding continuous distractions and insignificant information. Distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public from becoming interested in essential knowledge in the area of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics. Keeping the audience’s attention deviated from real social problems, imprisoned by themes without real importance. Keeping the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think, back to the farm like other animals.

2-Creating problems and then offering the solutions. This method is also called a ′′ problem-reaction-solution “. It creates a problem, a ′′ situation ′′ planned to cause a certain reaction from the public, with the aim that this is the source of the measures they want to accept. For example: letting urban violence intensify, or intensify or organize bloody attacks, with the aim of the public being those requiring security laws and policies to the detriment of freedom. Also: create an economic crisis to make social rights demotion and dismantle public services accept as a necessary evil.

3-The Strategy of Graduation. To make an unacceptable measure accepted, you only need to apply it gradually, to dropper, for consecutive years. This is how radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the decades of the 80s and 90s: minimum state, privatisation, precariousness, flexibility, mass unemployment, wages that no longer guarantee dignified incomes: so, many changes that would have brought about a revolution if they were implemented at once.

4-The Strategy of Deferring. Another way to get an unpopular decision accepted is to present it as ′′painful and necessary”, gaining public acceptance, in the moment, for future application. It is easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate sacrifice. First, because effort isn’t that taken immediately. Second, because the public, the mass, always tends to naively hope that ′′everything will be better tomorrow′′ and that the required sacrifice could be avoided. This gives the audience more time to get used to the idea of change and accept it resigned when the time comes.

5-Reach to the public like children. Most advertisements directed at the large audience use speeches, arguments, characters and a particularly childish intonation, many times close to weakness, as if the viewer was a few years old creature or a mental moron. When you try to deceive the viewer the more you tend to use a childish tone. Why? Why? ′′If someone addresses a person as if they are 12 or under, then based on suggestionability, they will probably tend to a response or reaction even without a critical sense like that of a 12 person. years or less′′.

6-Using emotional aspect much more than reflection. Take advantage of emotion; it’s a classic technique to provoke a short circuit on a rational analysis and finally the critical sense of the individual. Additionally, the use of emotional register allows the unconscious access door to implant or inject ideas, desires, fears and fears, compulsions, or induce behaviors.

7-Keeping the public in ignorance and mediocrity. Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used for their control and slavery. The quality of education given to lower social classes must be as poor and mediocre as possible, so that the distance of ignorance that plans between lower classes and upper classes is and remains impossible to fill from the lower classes.

8-Stimulating the public to be complacent with mediocrity.Pushing the audience to think it’s fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and ignorant…

9-Strengthening self-guilt. Making the individual believe that he is only the culprit of his disgrace, because of his insufficient intelligence, skills or efforts. So, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual devalues himself and blames himself, which in turn creates a depressive state, one of whose effects is the inhibition of his action. And without action there is no revolution!

10-Knowing individuals better than they know themselves. Over the past 50 years, science’s rapid progress has generated a growing gap between public knowledge and those possessed and used by dominant elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology, and applied psychology, the ′′ system ′′ has enjoyed advanced knowledge of the human being, both in its physical and psychological form. The system has managed to learn better about the common individual than he knows himself. This means that, in most cases, the system exercises greater control and greater power over individuals, greater than that which the same individual exercises over himself. 

I’ve posted this (below) on Facebook already, but feel it should get the widest attention possible, at least among Radical/Socialist anti-Brexiters in the UK and anti-Trumpists in the USA. (The others won’t want to be bothered with it.)

Is it time, incidentally, for us ‘intellectuals’ who fear being dismissed as ‘elitists’ if we ever imply that our opponents are ‘stupid’, to get over that and tell it as it is? I’ve generally used terms like ‘misled’ up to now, which I still feel is right and fair. ‘Stupid’ would imply that there’s no hope for them, which is a depressing thought for a rational and thinking democrat. But I despair at the fellow in Hartlepool, for example, who was quoted saying that he voted Conservative because ‘the Conservatives have given us nine food banks, and Labour didn’t give us any’. ‘Misled’ doesn’t come anywhere near it.

But then of course democracy isn’t a matter of thought, but of feelings. That’s what the Right – people like Demonic Cummings – long knew, and what gives them the advantage over us.

Anyhow, read the article. It’s a long’un, but well worth it.

https://eand.co/why-the-working-class-is-turning-to-fascism-e4548784e7de

I think I know what constitutes genuine anti-semitism. I’ve just had a comment submitted on one of my blog posts (the ‘Oo let ’em in’ one) which definitely falls into that category. It’s from someone who has never commented on any of my posts before, so far as I can tell; but as it’s written under a pseudonym I can’t know for sure. I’ve always strongly objected to anonymous or pseudonymous posts, unless there’s a very good reason for the anonymity: personal risk, for example. I regard them as cowardly, like anonymous letters were seen in the old days. A few years ago I wrote a series of posts about this practice, for the LRB Blog, I think. And I never respond to such comments.

This one’s main argument (so far as I can work it out) is that Jews are at the hub of a world-wide conspiracy to flood otherwise happy countries with foreign immigrants, because Jews can’t ‘control’ happy people as they would like to do. The solution: ‘We just have to get the wretched jews off the back of humanity.’ – OK, my bar for calling something ‘anti-semitic’ might be pitched quite high; but this clearly offends.

My problem is this. I don’t believe in censorship, and have never ‘disallowed’ a comment on this blogsite, unless the author has asked me not to post it. It is interesting to see other people’s views, even if one disagrees with them. Maybe I should allow this comment: partly in order to read the responses to that. I’m strongly inclined not to; but would be interested in other readers’ views.