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Politics is tribal again. But this time, let's not just roll over | Politics is tribal again. But this time, let's not just roll over |
(6 months later) | |
When the financial crash happened and we were told to brace ourselves for a deep recession, I remember wondering what that would look like. "The 80s," everybody said. "Just picture the 80s." Dead high streets full of charity shops, crummy roads, an eerie emptiness where all the commerce should be … besides a few urban heat islands and the fact that bus infrastructure, miraculously, has survived, the transformation is complete. (Buses used to be so bad that people who remember this decade at all will remember most of it having been spent waiting for a 156. We used to sing folk songs about it.) | When the financial crash happened and we were told to brace ourselves for a deep recession, I remember wondering what that would look like. "The 80s," everybody said. "Just picture the 80s." Dead high streets full of charity shops, crummy roads, an eerie emptiness where all the commerce should be … besides a few urban heat islands and the fact that bus infrastructure, miraculously, has survived, the transformation is complete. (Buses used to be so bad that people who remember this decade at all will remember most of it having been spent waiting for a 156. We used to sing folk songs about it.) |
But it's the polarisation that really brings it all back. The ferocity, the extremity, the lowness of the tactics, the way people who previously lived pretty harmoniously with one another now seem locked in implacable hatred: this is the spirit of that decade. Every day the news cycle throws up fresh carrion; some events suit one side better, which is a little galling for the other side, as this week's Conservative-gasm has demonstrated. Every event creates a fresh skirmish, with no consensus about even the most basic precepts of its cause or probable effect. "Polarisation" makes it sound a bit more adult and deliberate than it is. As a lived reality, it feels more like a war. | But it's the polarisation that really brings it all back. The ferocity, the extremity, the lowness of the tactics, the way people who previously lived pretty harmoniously with one another now seem locked in implacable hatred: this is the spirit of that decade. Every day the news cycle throws up fresh carrion; some events suit one side better, which is a little galling for the other side, as this week's Conservative-gasm has demonstrated. Every event creates a fresh skirmish, with no consensus about even the most basic precepts of its cause or probable effect. "Polarisation" makes it sound a bit more adult and deliberate than it is. As a lived reality, it feels more like a war. |
And since we've had this war before, here are some lessons we could usefully learn from last time. First, we've got to stop trying to work out who's winning after every battle. Last week was marked by constant auditing, as soi-disant neutral bystanders sought to establish the victor on "welfare". Many of them called it for the right, through a combination of poll reading, debate scoring and an impressionistic evaluation of who was making the loudest noise. | And since we've had this war before, here are some lessons we could usefully learn from last time. First, we've got to stop trying to work out who's winning after every battle. Last week was marked by constant auditing, as soi-disant neutral bystanders sought to establish the victor on "welfare". Many of them called it for the right, through a combination of poll reading, debate scoring and an impressionistic evaluation of who was making the loudest noise. |
This stuff is just the fog of war – you can't take any readings from it. But in very tribal times political analysis turns into sports commentary. Each match is self-contained and complete, and at the end, the score goes back to zero. The aim of politics, conversely – if it has any meaning at all – is to move forward in a positive direction. Clearly, in this stalled era of binary position-taking, movement in any direction is pretty difficult. But the focus should always be on where you want to go, rather than who won the Today programme. If it looks like a sport, you're not doing it right. | This stuff is just the fog of war – you can't take any readings from it. But in very tribal times political analysis turns into sports commentary. Each match is self-contained and complete, and at the end, the score goes back to zero. The aim of politics, conversely – if it has any meaning at all – is to move forward in a positive direction. Clearly, in this stalled era of binary position-taking, movement in any direction is pretty difficult. But the focus should always be on where you want to go, rather than who won the Today programme. If it looks like a sport, you're not doing it right. |
With a heavy heart, I think it may be time to stop reading schlock hard-right trolls. At a small family celebration to mark the death of … er … winter, we were trying to remember whether the Daily Mail has always been this bad, and nobody could. The reason being that it was never a big thing, in the 80s, to deliberately enrage yourself by reading stuff that you knew was far to the right of any credible opponent. | With a heavy heart, I think it may be time to stop reading schlock hard-right trolls. At a small family celebration to mark the death of … er … winter, we were trying to remember whether the Daily Mail has always been this bad, and nobody could. The reason being that it was never a big thing, in the 80s, to deliberately enrage yourself by reading stuff that you knew was far to the right of any credible opponent. |
Perhaps the most important lesson of recent history is that triangulation doesn't work. There was no third way. There was just a government going the wrong way while pretending to have found a new way. Gordon Brown is pilloried for having said no more boom and bust, but the idea underpinning that was far more ridiculous, and was all Tony Blair's: no more left and right. There will always be critical ideological differences between people who put their faith in competition and those who put theirs in co-operation. These will always define the nature and reach of our ambitions for what society should look like. Let's not just roll over this time, OK? | Perhaps the most important lesson of recent history is that triangulation doesn't work. There was no third way. There was just a government going the wrong way while pretending to have found a new way. Gordon Brown is pilloried for having said no more boom and bust, but the idea underpinning that was far more ridiculous, and was all Tony Blair's: no more left and right. There will always be critical ideological differences between people who put their faith in competition and those who put theirs in co-operation. These will always define the nature and reach of our ambitions for what society should look like. Let's not just roll over this time, OK? |
But what feels more important still, this week, is not to be downhearted. It is very easy to feel alienated in divided times, as you're constantly confronted by how profoundly we differ in the way that we see the future, and one another. But I think you have to look at it like a family dispute. Nobody looks their best when they're angry: it's denaturing. Then common ground miraculously reappears, in the face of an outside threat or an early night. | But what feels more important still, this week, is not to be downhearted. It is very easy to feel alienated in divided times, as you're constantly confronted by how profoundly we differ in the way that we see the future, and one another. But I think you have to look at it like a family dispute. Nobody looks their best when they're angry: it's denaturing. Then common ground miraculously reappears, in the face of an outside threat or an early night. |
If (heaven forfend) the politicians of your side ever disappoint you, that is even more a reason to stay in the conversation, rather than leave it. With a few exceptions, politicians don't make the landscape, they just reflect what they see as the landscape. You are the landscape, whether you're demonstrating, or signing a petition, or buying a Judy Garland single. | If (heaven forfend) the politicians of your side ever disappoint you, that is even more a reason to stay in the conversation, rather than leave it. With a few exceptions, politicians don't make the landscape, they just reflect what they see as the landscape. You are the landscape, whether you're demonstrating, or signing a petition, or buying a Judy Garland single. |
This is another reason to remain cheerful: all political parties struggle with their misery wing. The right has its hardcore anti-Europeans, who'd have us hunker down alone and wait for the discovery of a fresh empire or another North Sea to boost our fortunes. The left has its communist utopians, who won't see a virtue in any solution while money still exists, and cannot make peace with the idea that any one person should be richer than any other. | This is another reason to remain cheerful: all political parties struggle with their misery wing. The right has its hardcore anti-Europeans, who'd have us hunker down alone and wait for the discovery of a fresh empire or another North Sea to boost our fortunes. The left has its communist utopians, who won't see a virtue in any solution while money still exists, and cannot make peace with the idea that any one person should be richer than any other. |
Neither of these positions makes a groundswell. Political popularity is a lot like regular popularity. If you're wondering whether your worldview will ever come to be reflected in a political manifesto, ask yourself whether you'd be invited to a party. | Neither of these positions makes a groundswell. Political popularity is a lot like regular popularity. If you're wondering whether your worldview will ever come to be reflected in a political manifesto, ask yourself whether you'd be invited to a party. |
I miss leftwing pop, and the incredible leftwingness of comedy. I miss the weird but demonstrable conviction that, even if everybody was a Tory in the voting booth, everybody was a leftie when it came to watching primetime television. I miss a culture with an unabashed agenda. It's not quite the 80s this time round; we haven't seen all of this before. But we've seen enough to do things differently. | I miss leftwing pop, and the incredible leftwingness of comedy. I miss the weird but demonstrable conviction that, even if everybody was a Tory in the voting booth, everybody was a leftie when it came to watching primetime television. I miss a culture with an unabashed agenda. It's not quite the 80s this time round; we haven't seen all of this before. But we've seen enough to do things differently. |
Twitter: @zoesqwilliams | Twitter: @zoesqwilliams |
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