Interview with a Scapegoat-Hunter

Q: You’re a much sought-after advisor in certain political circles. What is it you offer?

A: There are two types of politician. There are the naïve ones who want to help people, even if it means going against the rich and powerful. I don’t have time for them. Then there are those who recognise they need to stand with the rich and powerful, and the way to do that is win public office by attacking vulnerable scapegoats. That’s where I come in.

Q: Tell me if I’ve got this right. Politicians who ally themselves with the rich and powerful look to you for advice on how to get the wider public to support them to go after scapegoats you identify, and deflect people from seeing the actual harm and exploitation caused by the rich and powerful.

A: That’s a rather crude way of putting it. It’s actually a fine art.

Q: What do you mean?

A: Well, look at the real problems. If people realise it’s powerful and irresponsible corporations that’s behind them, you can imagine how they’d be clamouring for actions to deal with them. So you need to change the way they see things. Tell them the increasing weather extremes have nothing to do with fossil fuels, but are caused by nutters pushing crazy green policies. Warn them that more people are killed by guns because ‘liberals’ make it too difficult for people to buy guns to protect themselves. Explain to them that it is not gambling, sugary food, nicotine, or alcohol that bring about harm and addiction, but the deplorable character of addicts who have no one to blame but themselves. Remind them that unemployment is only a problem because the ‘socialists’ encourage people to be lazy and rely on welfare.

Q: Why would anyone believe you despite all the evidence to the contrary?

A: You’ve got to know which button to push.

Q: Care to explain that?

A: When people are angry, they need to channel that anger somewhere. Well-meaning politicians present facts politely – and drearily – and few listen to them. Whereas I put on my best outraged face, and rail at immigrants, refugees, feminists, anyone speaking up for ethnic minorities or human rights, and anything to do with health & safety or has ‘Europe’ in its name.  You see, these are easy targets. We’ve got most of the media, countless troll factories, all the not so well-meaning politicians, lined up to pump out scare stories about them – immigrants are taking all the jobs, refugees are getting fancy accommodation, everyone on benefit is a cheat … And say that often enough, people repeat it to their mates as though it’s the gospel truth.

Q: How does that help anyone?

A: You have no idea. Once people have scapegoats they can blame and hate, you can give them a lot of satisfaction just by hurting stigmatised groups – make them suffer, deport them if you can, let them starve and get no help when they are sick, make them feel despised and isolated, vilify them at every opportunity. At the same time, once consumed with rage and disaffection, they won’t listen to facts or expert analyses about the real causes of the social, economic, or environmental problems facing them. My rich and powerful clients don’t have to worry about meddlesome politicians stepping in to deal with their irresponsible and harmful activities. It’s a win-win. 

Q: Win-win for the rich and powerful who are basically ruining others’ lives.

A: Others’ lives don’t matter. That, incidentally, is our mission statement.

Meet the Privatisers – and their 5-point agenda

Sports fans rant about referees over any decision that goes against their team, but they know without referees there could be no sports matches at all. Beyond individual matches, leagues and competitions involving multiple teams need a governing body to resolve disputes, provide collective support, and share out resources. Similarly, for societies in general to function fairly and effectively, governments must be given a decisive role. 

There are too many challenges and opportunities that require us to work together with agreed rules. Ignoring each other, or falling out over disagreements, would drag everyone down. So why do the privatisers keep trying to subdue state institutions in favour of private powers? Why do they relentlessly attack public bodies and pretend things will inevitably be better in private hands? The answer lies in these five aims of theirs:

[1] Removing Restraints from Irresponsible Private Actions

Privatisers want to be able to do as they please – cheat consumers, mistreat their workers, bully their tenants, sell unsafe goods, pollute the environment – and they detest regulations that would restrain their irresponsibility. Hence the endless calls for deregulation and attacks on essential rules as cumbersome ‘red tape’.

[2] Diminishing the Public Safety Net

Privatisers know that without an effective public safety net against the threats of sickness, homelessness, and poverty, they could more easily pressure people into accepting their exploitative demands. By attacking ‘dependency’ on public support, they seek to increase people’s actual dependency on the whims and mercy of the rich and powerful.

[3] Increasing Wealth & Power Inequalities

Privatisers favour a system which would ensure the hard work of the vast majority of people in society produces rewards that could be overwhelmingly siphoned towards the tiny minority of plutocrats. Cutting taxes for the rich and benefits for the poor are designed to widen power inequalities, so the former can more readily dismiss the plight of the latter.

[4] Diverting Public Resources for Private Gains

Privatisers object to public resources being used for the public good when these can be transferred for making private gains for profiteers. By handing over public resources to the private sector in the form of commercial contracts or asset transfers, they can thereafter be managed to benefit a rich minority, at lower quality and accessibility, and with no democratic accountability.

[5] Undermining the Ethos of Public Service

Privatisers never tire of pointing to flaws and problems in the public sector, deliberately ignoring the fact that these are rare compared with the harm and deception routinely perpetrated in the private sector. They want to demoralise public servants, drive them away, so that public service is weakened and less able to help people poorly treated by the private sector.

Privatisers will always try to exploit public dissatisfaction with this or that aspect of their government, and stir it into a rejection of democratic governance altogether. It is not because they remotely care about other people, far from it, all they want is to deceive enough people to get them the power they need to impose their self-serving agenda on society.

Can Anybody Help: civics revisited

For many people, words like ‘politics’, ‘democracy’, ‘government’, ‘citizenship’, either strike them as boring, or worse, have negative connotations of being something that gets in the way of individuals living their lives without outside interference.

What they don’t recognise is that how they get to live their lives depends critically on the state of democracy and how they are governed. But they are not likely to know much about that when it is almost the social norm to avoid having informed conversations about such matters. Friends worry about antagonising each other. Teachers feel safer to keep silent rather than risk being accused of showing bias. Even politicians jump at the chance of saying ‘let’s keep politics out of this’ as though the subject is best brushed aside.

In reality – and here the facts speak for themselves – human beings are vulnerable to so many threats and problems as isolated individuals. Alone, we are more likely to succumb to disease, injuries, attacks, abuse, oppression, natural disasters, and other predicament. Throughout history, the plea ‘Can Anybody Help’ has only been answered reliably when there are adequate collective arrangements in place to give a satisfactory response. To understand what would constitute ‘adequate collective arrangements’, we need to learn about politics, democracy, and matters of government.

In the absence of civics education, we are left with simplistic regurgitation of dangerous ideas. We have the advocacy for authoritarian, ‘strongmen’ politics – with diverse lineages coming down from Hobbesian absolutists, Bonapartists, fascists, Stalinists, converging towards contemporary right-wing ‘populists’ who seek to wield unrestrained power to do as they please. And we have the propagation of anarchistic, libertarian politics – echoing the demands of the likes of Mandeville, Godwin, Spencer, Rand, to leave individuals to their own devices without any government stepping in.

It is hardly surprising that an increasing number of people, old and young, are drawn to unscrupulous politicians who insist they could do so much better for their country if they were not hindered by accountability procedures, safeguards for human rights, and public scrutiny; and that their country would thrive if government would leave it to the private sector to sort out healthcare, education, energy, water, housing, business dealings, etc.

It hardly requires much time to remind people the dire consequences of dictators imposing their ruthless and arbitrary rule on countries they have gained power over; or the terrible effects of leaving key matters to the private sector through privatisation or callous deregulation. 

As educators, we must communicate, explain, and engage as widely as we can so that our fellow citizens can better understand how the threats they cannot deal with on their own needs democratically controlled government institutions to pool resources and devise responses which genuinely help the people concerned.

The hijacking of conventional and social media by manipulators, the brazen attacks on teachers by ideologues and culture warriors, the systematic spreading of lies and false rumours in political campaigns, the undermining of universities by fundamentalist and corporate influences, are all making it critically urgent to counter distortions with facts, analyses, and explanations. Through reports, drama, classroom discussions, historical accounts, and a variety of other tools, we must reach out to those who are worried that they have been forgotten, and show them help is available, but only from those who are committed to serving the people through a strong, democratic government.

Evil is a Character Issue

In polite society, one is expected to refrain from calling anyone evil with the possible exception of Nazi extremists or serial killers. Many people who care neither for honesty nor politeness, however, readily accuse blameless folks of the utmost villainy. 

So, while courteous commentators hold back from exposing the wicked, the wicked go around lambasting the innocent, the compassionate, the rational for being evil. ‘Evil’, immoral manipulators tell us, are the refugees who escape from war zones, scientists who warn us of climate change and infectious diseases, politicians who want to help those in dire need, and anyone who complains about being mistreated because of their gender or ethnicity.

Have words like ‘good’ and ‘evil’ lost all their meaning? Have relativism, nihilism, irrationalism spread so widely that it is no longer possible to make clear moral judgements anymore?

It’s time we remind ourselves that evil is a character issue. Human reflections over centuries have found expressions in folk stories, fairy tales, and classic novels – all highlighting the traits we find praiseworthy: caring for others, standing up for the weak, defying oppressors, willing to explore the facts rather than acting rashly, delighting in the happiness of others; and correspondingly, putting the spotlight on the opposite characteristics that are repugnant and contemptible: being callous about the plight of others, taking advantage of the weak, obsequiously aiding the powerful in quashing the defenceless, deceiving others for personal gains, jumping to dangerous conclusions without any due consideration, seeking to inflict pain on others.

We know what evil is. We recoil from the Wicked Queen whose vanity drives her to have Snow White murdered. We are sickened by Iago whose hatred of the kind and noble Othello leads him to ruthless manipulations that destroy the lives of others. We despise Uriah Heep whose greed fuels his every move to ruin others to make greater gains for himself. We are repelled by Voldemort who cares only to gain power for himself and treats everyone else with disdain.

And we come across such characters in real life. They are the demagogues who will spread devastating lies to advance themselves; the self-righteous bigots who tirelessly goad people into hating those who are neglected and vulnerable; the plutocrats who use every trick in the book to make more money for themselves in ways that are unremittingly harmful to others; the powerful and irresponsible who enjoy getting away with intimidating, insulting, and injuring people who have not got enough resources to fight back.

Such people, with the support of social and mainstream media (which they own or have considerable influence over), will present themselves as ‘good’, models of ‘success’, heroes even. But look closely at their character – how they routinely mistreat other people, how they mock those less fortunate than themselves, how they actively seek to block and reduce help for people in need, how gleeful they respond to the sufferings of innocent people, how dismissive they are about the pain they have casually caused others, how they grovel before the more powerful and sneer contemptuously at the powerless.

It does not matter what office anyone may hold, or how wealthy they are. They are defined by their character. 

See them for what they are.

Alcoholic Politics: a diagnosis

‘Alcoholic Politics’ refers to the condition of being addicted to political influences that are seriously harmful.

‘Alpoholics’ – to coin a term – are unhappy with their lot. Some are understandably aggrieved that they are paid a pittance while their superrich bosses pocket millions. Some are obsessively angry that they do not get as much help as those people who just happen to have suffered more in life. Whatever the reason, they turn to political inebriation – the stuff that takes your mind off reality, conjures up imaginary escapes that actually lead nowhere, removes your inhibition to be rude to others, gives you a sense of high, and plunges you to depressive rejection of any sensible path ahead.

Demagogues and political con merchants target their intoxicating brand of facile delusion on Alpoholics, who just can’t get enough of that bewildering sensation of not having to deal with anything anymore. One gulp after another of that heady potion sends them to that illusory realm where taxes are no more, regulations are removed, big corporations willingly treat their workers with fairness and generosity, diseases are never infectious, the poor lift themselves out of poverty, and all immigrants and refugees are banished.

When the hangover hits, Alpoholics blame responsible politicians and every kind of ‘do-gooder’ for trapping them in a world where evidence-based public policies are essential for keeping us safe from violence, ill health, exploitation, economic insecurity, climate chaos, and countless other threats. They don’t want to face the reality of people needing to learn from each other, work together to find solutions, and cooperate on overcoming their problems. It’s so much easier to get drunk on false promises, scapegoat blaming, and incoherent ranting.

The thing with Alpoholics is that you can’t tell them to stop. You can’t confront them with the nonsense they spout. They can’t grasp what is going on. What you can do is to try in their moments of sobriety help them see what is really happening. Shouting abuse at innocent strangers, joining in riots, echoing threats against the lives of others – is that how on reflection they want to be seen by their children, their parents, themselves?

Instead of being lectured, they need support – someone who will listen to them, to whom they can turn to talk things through. In practice, this can take the form of a neighbourhood network of mentors – which may include some who had been Alpoholics themselves – who are ready to meet with someone willing to explore recovery, taking one step at a time, shedding the addictive pull, and reconnecting with others without twisted perception or inflamed emotions.

Most of all, they need to be given hope, to have some goal they feel worthy of working towards. Countering the constant flow of depressing news and manipulative negativity, attention should be directed at efforts that make life tangibly better for people they care about. Big announcements about national targets rarely engage people deeply. It is the day-to-day experience of kindness, helpfulness, and understanding that builds trust, and keeps people focussed on the good that can be done, and away from destructive illusions.

Faux Checks & Unbalanced: US style

If there was a time when countries around the world were supposed to emulate the US in terms of democratic development, we have surely reached the point where everyone should learn to avoid the pitfalls of the American system of government.

Every government needs non-party-political experts and administrators to ensure that assessments are carried out reliably, and plans are implemented fairly and effectively. But the US favours having political appointees in a myriad of positions, including the most senior ones for all major government departments and agencies. There is no requirement for appointees to have any relevant expertise or proven experience, so long as they fit with what the person at the top of the chain of command wants.

So, if the US President happens to want to appoint a vaccine-denier to look after the health of the country, a climate change-denier to deal with energy policy, someone whose geopolitical assessments aligned with Putin’s to oversee national security, an individual who sees no educational role for the federal government to take charge of education, and people who cannot be trusted on law and order to head up Justice or the FBI – it will all happen unless enough of the mostly subservient members of his party in the Senate dare oppose him.

As for the idea that the US has a written constitution that provides impartial safeguards, what that constitution permits or forbids is always up for interpretation by the Supreme Court – and whenever a case comes up that is contested on party political lines, the court’s views are split between its members who were appointed by a Democrat president, and those appointed by a Republican president. Which version prevails depends on which side has the majority, and at the moment, the Republican side has a 6-3 advantage. Not surprisingly, it struck down a Democrat president’s policy to give relief to student loans, but supported the Republican demand to overturn the right to abortion. 

When it comes to the rule of law, the US President can, like some medieval monarch, pardon convicted criminals without any justification. There is no question of excluding cases where there is a personal interest, no requirement for any form of an impartial board to assess the propriety of any decision. To compound the irony, while the US system enables individual states to bar convicted felons from voting in elections, it allows a convicted felon such as Trump to run for and obtain the office of US president. And as president, the Republican majority Supreme Court has declared that he is immune from prosecution for any ‘official’ act – however egregious – he might undertake.

Meanwhile, citizens in certain states are given greater voting power than others. Every state, whatever its population, can elect two US senators. For example, the half a million people in Wyoming are represented by the same number of senators (and thus have the same political influence in the Senate) as the almost 40 million people in California. Imagine the 41,000 residents of the County of Rutland in the UK having the same number of representatives in one of our legislative chambers as the 3 million people of West Midlands. 

And this disproportionality reappears in the electoral system for the US president, making it possible for a candidate to receive fewer votes from the people than their rival, and still win the presidency by dint of an archaic electoral college arrangements that inherently give citizens in the smaller (more rural) states greater influence than others.

The US since the days of President Woodrow Wilson has talked of bringing democracy to the rest of the world. It cannot leave it any longer to start rebuilding it at home.

What is Our Shared Identity?

Some people have very strong views about who ‘We’ are. They invoke ‘We’ as an identity badge that keeps them apart from various kinds of people who they would like to see excluded from their conception of ‘their’ school, business, neighbourhood, or country. 

But what is it that matters so much to them in cutting off certain people?

It turns out that it’s a mixed bag of dreads and dislikes. Examples include things like shades of skin tone, facial features supposedly associated with ‘race’, country of birth, language spoken – even particular dialect or accent, one’s place of worship, religious affiliation, attachment to certain customs, or how one dresses. 

However, does any of this make sense?

Is skin tone remotely reliable as a marker for who can be trusted? Have we not all received help from people who speak more than one language? Do we need more futile religious wars before we reach the familiar conclusion that we are better off living in peace regardless of obscure theological differences? Don’t customs change and become no less engaging? And why get wound up over headdresses when designated ‘hijabs’, while one can be so meekly deferential towards them when they appear as a nun’s wimple? 

The people who cynically stoke obsessions with such irrelevant differences often fall back on the claim that they point to critical divergence in values. ‘We’ are supposed to have one set of admirable values, and these ‘others’ allegedly do not share them and should therefore be kept away. So, what are these values?

According to what may be termed the ‘Chauvinist’ conception of values, ‘good’ and ‘right’ are somehow derived exclusively from being ‘white’, subscribing to some anti-compassion religion that nonetheless claims to be ‘Christian’, despising other nations, holding that women should be subservient to men, deferential to ‘get rich quick’ gurus, outraged by any form of ‘unconventional’ sexuality, and inclined to glorify aggression. In reality, these are not widely shared values at all, though they are quite influential amongst many people who gravitate towards certain types of political party.

By contrast, the shared values we do regard as important, and would want others to exhibit are what may be called Values of Mutual Concern – these are the values embedded in the Golden Rule of doing to others as we would want others to treat us; the values that underpin solidarity and facilitate cooperation. In essence, as we would want to experience kindness, fair treatment, and adequate support when we are in need, we value the display of kindness, fair treatment, and adequate support whenever people are in need. If anyone has malicious intent or set on harmful behaviour, we would have to guard against them. But otherwise, we want to live and work with people who will be considerate and helpful to each other without picking over factors that have no bearing on their readiness to give and receive consideration and help. 

Whatever organisation, neighbourhood, or country, we find ourselves in, WE on reflection are likely to see that far from wanting to be near people who would treat others with callous indifference or even vile aggression regardless of how considerate or helpful they might be, the ones we would prefer any day to be our colleagues, neighbours, compatriots are those who are disposed to deal with others respectfully, fairly, and reciprocally.

Hear any more about the importance of shared identity? Remember what kind of people WE truly want to be identified with.