No surprises and surprises are so much fun with gifts. But why is this ‘gift’, the human emotion of guilt, important to our politics?
The wealth of the Victorian Age facilitated a number of developments. Not only were there vast amounts of money sloshing about, earned from the colonies and industry, but also the infrastructure and the engineering of Great Britain was blossoming and the population was going through the roof. As money begets money, everything in Victorian Britain was on overdrive.
‘Courage drives liberty and liberty drives abundance.’
Affluence allowed the middle classes to reflect. They had the wealth and resources to be virtuous, commensurate with the religious fervour of the day. To be fair, the social inequalities and pressures, the growth in industry and population and the extremes of wealth and poverty, all set the scene. The rationalism of the Georgian period had given way to romanticism and the political and social reforms that ensued had some dangerous flaws in them. With the changes taking place in a relatively short period, mistakes were inevitable. There was an air of charity and philanthropy; guilt became a virtue.
A legacy does not have to be benign and of all the inherited benefits of the Victorian Age one of the most influential was the ‘Gift of Guilt.’
But guilt is a burden and those with perceived guilt want to offload their burden on others. It is always the way. Are we guilty of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, fascism and colonialism? Is it the caller who has the problem and the responder who picks up the tab? Guilt, the destroyer of lives, the cross to bear; an illness that is little understood and difficult to resist.
Are we racist if we celebrate our difference, our diversity? Are we being mistaken for thinking we are special, or celebrating our successes? Have the ‘Socialists’ made a mistake of classification or interpretation? Or do they just want to share their perceived guilt?
Karl Marx’s ideals produced a schism between the classes. That changed the benevolent development of social reform into a class struggle that spawned more suffering than anyone could possibly have imagined. Socialism set man against man, overshadowing the work and ideas of many great social reformers in their efforts to improve understanding, humanity, love and liberty.
With class struggles, all were brought down to the lowest denominator with, of course, the exception of those who were more equal than the others.
Many groups bought into this new social thinking. Rooted in religion, they were well equipped with guilt to fight this new war that had to be fought. From this middle class, intellectual, self-righteous group was formed the Fabian Society. Along with the Social Democratic Federation, a Marxist group, the Fabians were a founding organisation of the present Labour Party.
This faulty gene, this intellectual flu, had developed into a cancer.
‘Abundance gives way to complacency and selfishness.’
Complacency also gave way to extreme intellectual arrogance. The idea that virtue can be imposed only served to demonstrate the patronising control of the ‘working class’ by their new leaders. The questions then to be asked are what is virtuous and where are they leading us? To exorcise their guilt they have created victims of the working classes and driven a wedge between groups in society.
We have all struggled to understand the irreconcilable differences between left and right. In the end, both wings of politics want to use common man; one to enslave with imposed virtues, the other to exploit for self-interest and aggrandizement. Perhaps the fork in the road was the split between social and classical liberalism? Perhaps it was the difference between co-operative federalism and co-operative individualism? In the end it came down to which political party could offer the most to the newly franchised electorate and democracy suffered.
‘Complacency gives way to dependency.’
This is where we are again. The Conservatives are again offering everything to everyone. Will it be enough? Have we all had enough?
A simple test for altruistic motives and courage is to question their commitments. Will they risk their power base by introducing a fairer electoral system? Will they have a national discussion on AGW and whether CO2 is truly a pollutant or a plant food? Will they devolve power from Westminster to the ‘regions’ and the ‘communities’?
Will they go back to that fork in the road and choose classical liberalism and co-operative individualism?
These are the things we need to advance our society, and these are the places the old two party system will not go. We need change and anything else is a prevarication and a procrastination.
To have peace and solitude from the mad carousel of life, the claustrophobic crunching of society. The pressures, stresses, demands and responsibilities.
Sifting through the small pieces of fine paper, the serrated edges, the pastel colours, the denominations, faces of long gone dignitaries from places far away. Places with different cultures, different languages teasing the imagination while the faces stare with a silent call of meaning that will never be answered. Then a stamp would be chosen, carefully selected for sticking in ‘the book’. The philatelist hypnotised by the occupational escapism. The illusion that nothing else matters.
The village cricket match on a hot summer afternoon. The hum of the sun punctuated by the crack of leather on willow. The dog that barks in the stillness of evening. A sharp resonant sound somehow in tune with the solitude, the air, and the dreamy space between day and night.
Chants can be like that when a caller fills the void with an indomitable message and the group response comes back. A primeval and collective identity carries the responders beyond pain and rational thinking. Gregorian, gospel, sporting, military and group suffering, all used this idiosyncrasy of the human condition.
But what if the message gets corrupted?
The sky is red as the sun steps down and night prepares to move in.
Unconscious to my mind becomes conscious in parts. as information is absorbed and understood. Education is freedom of a sorts. That is why the education system is a low fruit for the ideologues. The unconscious has answers that the conscious has not assimilated. I am not sure I agree with Jung as he implies that there is an entity whereas influence could be an idea broadcast without malice or intent. This is of course a conspiracy theory within Jung’s mind. Sometimes things are simpler than we want to admit especially if we do not understand. To put one’s feet on firm ground and be honest with oneself is all that can be done. To me IPX, it is those very arrogant intellectual utopians that need to be challenged for they are imposing themselves on people who want freedom to get on and enjoy their lives without interference, social responsibility withstanding. I love criticism am not processional nor educated but that seems not to matter in this crazy world.
I always enjoy reading your comments and thank you..
from PMB Afraid I don’t ‘do’ so much emotionalism but Kim makes one point that did strike home. Socialism does tend to ‘level down’. When it goes as far as the Russian revolution and it’s aftermath the USSR – well we all know what the dictatorship of the proletariat was like don’t we? So what is the answer for us, now? The UK that is. Now with Boris in charge, hopefully we really are getting out of that Union of Disparate Economies that are struggling to hold together and that bureaucratic monolith that is heading towards a similar dictatorship, enforced by it’s own police and army. I don’t actually know what the answer is. All I can suggest is that we need to break the two party system somehow. Would proportional representation do that? I’m worried that new parties only seem to get off the ground when they are backed by the same old big financial backers. Why for instance hasn’t Ukip managed that? Unlike Brexit it does have other policies. Another point that Kim mentions is Complacency. May be ‘the common man’ is managing to survive within the present system and has enough ‘entertainment’ to keep him quiet (though I wouldn’t call it happy) so we just jog along.
Your comment to me is like a challenge, an invitation to expel ideas and energy. There is lots and lots that can done! And it can be so much fun! In the end PMB it is what is inside yourself. We don’t have to accept the propaganda. Then we can tell others why. We can find groups of like minded people and organise campaigns. We can do so many things that aren’t being done. The most important is that we can have our eyes open and a smile on our face.
I made an earlier comment that got lost in the ether, thank god. I was tired and the words were wrong. The point is we are human and make mistakes. Your rational approach returns to the big question ‘What do we do?’
My own personal want is to create Leaflets and Pamphlets to put messages out. I would be quite satisfied if I could do this. Then I could be a spectator in the knowledge I have given someone an alternative view, an idea or just an opportunity to question.
The next question with that thought is ‘What are the messages?’ My own thoughts are that with our wonderful language there are words that would expose and inspire. I find slogans particularly interesting.
There are a number of issues which should to be addressed such as religious radicalisation, cultural Marxism, man-made climate change and unaccountable governance, to my mind. But the one which particularly interests me is to improve democracy by devolving decision making. That is Localism with Subsidiarity. Clearly power corrupts. I know, local politicians can be bad too but the closer responsibility gets to the people the safer our country will be. We all have our own ideas.
There will be people who can change things, we have to keep the flame going, imho. Thank you.
A very interesting piece, thank you for these reflections on our rather strange times. I often wonder if in fact people are always and everywhere in a state of ‘trance” – induced somehow via society, the media, education,… it’s just a matter of how deep it is and whether they are perhaps dimly aware of the fact, and could we as it were snap out of it even if we knew, who was creating it or how?
The psychologist Carl Jung said something rather insightful reflecting after WWII on the terrible madness of the 30s and before that, that had grown out of the schism you mention between the romantic optimism and material envy or guilt that was present in the previous century, and that caused utopians for 200 years or more to dream of a perfect society that would ‘satisfy’ mankind on every level, and on the scheming that certain groups (as you mention) were using to create this new order of things – whether anyone liked it or not (or was even aware about it).
He said “Wherever we are still attached, we are still possessed; and when we are possessed, there is one stronger than us who possesses us… (and)…Unless you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it ‘fate’.”