Democracy, which until recently everyone seemed to support, is now despised by large swathes of the so-called ‘elites'. For example, post-Brexit, British 'elites' have seriously challenged the result of the majority Brexit vote. Some continue to rail in public against it, or worse, are actively seeking to undermine it. Many simply will not accept the vote.
Yet, as far as I see it, 'elites' do not seem to have extrapolated their position. What does railing and activism do in relation to the outcome of future UK General Elections? Why should anyone accept a) the result and b) the authority of any future elected Government? Why don't we all become anarchists and ungovernable - now? What does it do to our former consensus of how we govern ourselves i.e. through majority voting? The Brexit vote was given to the people partly because there were arguments on both sides that paralysed even the British Parliament. The EU referendum was the solution of our own Parliament to its own paralysis: the referendum was supported by all political parties.
The Enlightenment was childishly naive about human nature. Contrary to the notions of its naive, atheist philosophers, Man/Woman is not born sweet, good and innocent but deeply oriented to 'self'. 'Enlightened' idealists and republicans have never recovered emotionally from how the French Revolution resulted, within a short time, in a ghastly bloodbath. Its profound shock gave a certain William Wordsworth a nervous breakdown and, thereafter, he sought solace in Nature. Yet they continue to fail to understand that unaccountable human nature tends to cruelty, power and dictatorship, like a homing pigeon to its loft. Democracy sets the limit on power: it is the people's call to accountability. It tests the ideologies of power against their practical results via the only megaphone of the vulnerable masses. Without imperfect democracy, what is there?
Ms Phillips continues: ‘Hitherto it was accepted that those who lose a vote should, nonetheless, abide by the outcome’. The continuance of democracy relies on 'citizens accepting outcomes that they don’t like'. Losers used to ‘display tolerance, in the interest of the common good’. Also patience. No more....
To challenge and rail against a democratic vote is to challenge the very fabric of democracy itself. The irony is that the same people who worked hard to commend democracy to all other nations on earth, now reject it, in the UK. She says that they concoct fake or ‘spurious’ (actually, very patronising and insulting) arguments to ‘excuse’ challenging democracy i.e.
Yet, as far as I see it, 'elites' do not seem to have extrapolated their position. What does railing and activism do in relation to the outcome of future UK General Elections? Why should anyone accept a) the result and b) the authority of any future elected Government? Why don't we all become anarchists and ungovernable - now? What does it do to our former consensus of how we govern ourselves i.e. through majority voting? The Brexit vote was given to the people partly because there were arguments on both sides that paralysed even the British Parliament. The EU referendum was the solution of our own Parliament to its own paralysis: the referendum was supported by all political parties.
The Enlightenment was childishly naive about human nature. Contrary to the notions of its naive, atheist philosophers, Man/Woman is not born sweet, good and innocent but deeply oriented to 'self'. 'Enlightened' idealists and republicans have never recovered emotionally from how the French Revolution resulted, within a short time, in a ghastly bloodbath. Its profound shock gave a certain William Wordsworth a nervous breakdown and, thereafter, he sought solace in Nature. Yet they continue to fail to understand that unaccountable human nature tends to cruelty, power and dictatorship, like a homing pigeon to its loft. Democracy sets the limit on power: it is the people's call to accountability. It tests the ideologies of power against their practical results via the only megaphone of the vulnerable masses. Without imperfect democracy, what is there?
Ms Phillips continues: ‘Hitherto it was accepted that those who lose a vote should, nonetheless, abide by the outcome’. The continuance of democracy relies on 'citizens accepting outcomes that they don’t like'. Losers used to ‘display tolerance, in the interest of the common good’. Also patience. No more....
To challenge and rail against a democratic vote is to challenge the very fabric of democracy itself. The irony is that the same people who worked hard to commend democracy to all other nations on earth, now reject it, in the UK. She says that they concoct fake or ‘spurious’ (actually, very patronising and insulting) arguments to ‘excuse’ challenging democracy i.e.
- ‘the Brexit majority was very small’
- (uneducated, small minded) 'people did not understand what they were voting for’
- ‘they were led astray by Russian trolls’
- ‘they never envisaged how difficult it would be’
- ‘no intelligent human being could ever vote the Brexit way’.
Reading between the lines, she says, the underlying meaning is that Brexit was delivered by people with the ‘wrong’ views and that ‘these people’ do not count as equal or respectable human beings. This way madness lies: for Brexit was simply a case of the majority of people not being sufficiently convinced by the arguments. Remainers either miscalculated e.g. in pursuing 'Project Fear' (which showed lack of wisdom) or they had no better case to make (which showed their case was weak). Either way they were 'losers'.
Weirdly, in my view, the comments above are coming from those one previously thought were moderates, apolitical, and not even overtly 'liberal'. They are also coming from those who have vehemently campaigned for equality, fraternity, respect and human rights. Surely they realise, being highly educated, that this is how the Nazis and Stalinists viewed some of their fellow human beings - as inferiors, unworthy of even life, let alone basic rights? The idea of two-tiers of people, comprised of a superior 'elite race' and inhuman 'deplorables' easily escalates into the kind of societies that resulted in the Nazi concentration camps and gulags.
Ms Phillips is also alarmed by the current hardening of positions into polarised ‘camps’. She wants to be able to hold nuanced, carefully balanced positions, on many topics. She wants to support 'rapists being locked up' while not supporting the #MeToo campaign’s presuppostion that every woman is whiter than white; she wants to worry about the flaws in President Trump while conceding that he has achieved some good things. No doubt she wants to hold the Leave position while conceding that things will not be easy. She does not want to be put in a straight jacket of one of two (black or white) camps.
MeToo.
Reference: Melanie Phillips’ article in the Times 16 October 2018
'Liberal sore losers don’t respect democracy'
Just caught up with your posts after an interval.I'm reading George Orwell's Essays. He too dislikes elites - in his case the 'fellow travellers' of the immediate pre and post WW2 era. Here's a short quote:" In our age, the idea of intellectual liberty is under attack from two directions. On the one side are theoretical enemies, the apologists of totalitarianism, and on the other its immediate practical enemies, monopoly and bureaucracy."
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