Simply because I wanted a space to engage more, think more and write more about social democratic politics. Because I want things to be different and that’s not going to happen unless people make it so.  I believe, rightly or wrongly, that the current parliament has been regressive for the country.  I think the left are better at managing the economy than common mythology has allowed and their policies are more effective than they have been given credit for.

Telling Stories

That is because politics is less about facts, less about the practical realities of ordinary lives and more about the subtle arts of persuasion: of being skilled at telling sublime stories, modern myths and the subtle rhetoric of making true become false and false become true.  It’s frustrating if you want politics to be about facts because political discourse allows for no such thing.  The facts are never allowed to speak for themselves and lies are encouraged to flourish.

Instead you find yourself in a world where the 2008 financial crash is said to be caused by those who were least involved and have been punished mostly harshly by the outcomes.  You find those who gambled unwisely and took all the rewards carried no risk after all and continue thrive.  You see those who provided the assets to prop up the financial sector roundly criticised for their profligacy.  We will never know how a different government would have handled 2008 and what they would have done instead.  We will never know how an economy that was already recovering in 2010 would have mended under a different government to the one we got in 2010.  We do know the myths that have taken root to justify the blatant asset stripping of our state and subjugation of public sector and low paid workers.

It is not enough to act.  It is not enough to cry unfair at blatant manipulation of the public record.  It is not enough to complain about the Fourth Estate without leveraging social media in response.  The left needs to find its voice and  add intellectual weight and articulate stories itself to advocate and argue for what the left does.

Terrorism, Critical Theory and Politics

Then there was the horrific criminal attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The small-minded but deadly violence of that assault and related attacks was atrocious.  Such blatant acts of violence and criminality are easy to condemn.  There is no place for such assaults in our world.

The debates about freedom and responsibility that have been unleashed are harder to comprehend and form a position on.  I have read many words about these attacks since that awful day in Paris and no doubt there are many more to come.

Some represent extremist views from the full spectrum of political and philosophical dogmas but others have been complex and more nuanced. It’s been worrying how easy it’s become to use this assault on free speech to shut down divergent views and open debate with variants of the line “ah but whatever our faults we don’t react with an AK47”. Whilst true, this kind of absolutism disallows any form of self-reflection, critical thought or opportunity for any of us other than the perpetrators to reform.  The terrorists are not winning but neither are the disenfranchised.  There are unfortunately no easy and simplistic answers to many of these questions.

I do know that to paint Western society as entirely perfect and liberal and Muslim society as entirely barbaric and conservative is the most ridiculously simplistic answer of all. All societies have their benefits, problems and violent outliers to different degrees. Different times suffer different wars. In our time many conflicts connect to Islamic insurgents though others don’t. I don’t pretend to understand the complexity of it all.

One article in particular stuck with me and that was by Slavoj Žižek in the New Statesman

In it he said:

“it is the right moment to gather the courage to think”

He traces the faultlines or violent, radical Islam and liberal Western responses through critical theory finally settling on Walter Benjamin to tie the failure to mobilise dissatisfaction in more constructive progressive ways to a failure of the Left to lead that way.  Instead conservative voices, opportunist demagogues and violent radicals are seizing on dissatisfaction full not just of “passionate intensity” but also passionate insecurity.

Now you may not agree with his argument that the difference between permissive liberalism and Islamic fundamentalism is but the latest false dichotomy: false because they are both reactions to the same dissatisfaction and reactions to each other.  They cannot exist without each other.  You may also not agree with his view that “those who do not want to talk critically about liberal democracy should also keep quiet about religious fundamentalism”.   I however don’t wish to tolerate radical Islam but nor do I wish to use its presence as an excuse to avoid taking a critical look at my own society.

Failings of the Left

It’s all too easy to react furiously and to blame others if the world is not as you would like it but the first thing to do is examine yourself before tackling the incomprehensible. Change can only and always start with yourself.

The rise of fundamentalist, perhaps violent, ideology of any variety will fill a vacuum left by the failure to offer any credible response to people who, rightly or wrongly, feel like they have a raw deal.

It’s hard for me to say it but since the post-WWII settlement I think the radical, reformist Left’s intellectual hinterland and it’s political appeal has been slowly seeping away.

The failure to change anything, anything, following the 2008 financial crash and the ability of others to turn that narrative into one of state spending culpability justifying unnecessary austerity and a vicious ideological slashing of the state that is iniquitous and damages whole swathes of our society is as big a defeat for social democracy as I’ve lived through.

I stood by and let it happen.

It should be impossible for any left leaning pluralist to ignore the siren screams of discrimination, corruption and violent crime.  We won’t all participate in Politics on a grand stage but that doesn’t been we should abdicate our responsibilities to participate in our politics locally and/or and join debates about what is a better society, what is sustainable living in order to build it from the ground up. I believe that society and that lifestyle comes from social democratic politics so I should stand up for that.

Stand Up and Be Counted

The analysis on major parties by Ofcom showed that nor is it is not enough to have an opinion. You have to have an obvious and measurable opinion in the hyper mediated world. You don’t just have to stand up you have to stand up and be counted.

Their analysis of current support uses only opinion polls not party membership. Their analysis of elections considers not just elected representatives but share of the vote. If that is the case then protest votes and tactical votes become invisible. No vote is ever wasted if it means more media recognition that alternatives exist and people are willing to vote for them. That told me it was not enough to be against what I disagreed with but I had to more obviously and actively be for what I believe.

I certainly don’t agree the answer to disaffection with politics is to turn your back on it and not vote. If you don’t like it you have to do more. You can’t complain that all politicians are the same if you aren’t willing to represent difference.

All this led me to believe, despite my misgivings, I should do something, however small, to be a more democratic and engaged citizen and to represent and advocate social democracy in public discourse. So this is a start.