The Covid repsonse - a question of balance

DISCLAIMER: COVID IS REAL AND IT'S RIGHT TO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY!!!

OK, now that's out the way - it's not SAGE or individual NHS Doctor's job to worry about anything outside their own professional area. For example, it's simply not in their remit to worry about the economy or unemployment or children's (lack of) education and their disastrous effects on families and individuals that will last for years. So, the fact that the NHS press their case hard for major restrictions is both natural and unsurprising.

BUT it IS the Government's job to weigh-up and balance ALL the risks, not just across physical health issues but also mental health and all the non-health issues within society as well.

This is NOT an either/or situation, even though many try to portray it as such; it's a question of balance; and I think the Government is now getting the balance wrong and that this will become clear over the next few years.

I understood it at first as, thanks to the disgraceful collusion between China & the WHO, we knew so little about Covid for months after it first started.
It could have turned out to be another Bubonic plague with 30-40% death rates but after the first lockdown, we had acquired enough knowledge to know that this was not the case.

You will note that for several months now, we've been bombarded not with the number of fatalities but with the number of 'cases'. 
The number of cases tells us nothing useful since it can be put down as a direct result of the increase in testing.

What WOULD be useful is to know the percentage of the population seriously ill or who have died due primarily to Covid (not a secondary cause).
Is that informaiton not available or is it being held back because it doesn't fit the narrative?
What would also be useful to know is, of this percentage, how many were NOT in an obviously vulnerable category. Again the answer will be statistically so small as to not fit the narrative.
So we are only being fed the information that fits the official narrative. Indeed, as happend with The Great Barrington Declaration (see here Great Barrington Declaration), social and mainstream media repress alternative views, even from acknowledged experts.

So where do I think things have gone wrong?
Well, we've known the vulnerable categories for more than 6 months now and, outside of those, we knew that most people who caught Covid either had no symptoms or at worst felt grotty for a few days as they would with a heavy cold or flu.
Yes, there were tragic exceptions but you can't make national policy based on a statistically small number of exceptions.

We knew enough to be able to identify those in the high-risk categories and could have targetted the huge sums of money specifically on helping them and their immediate family or carers to form safe-bubbles so as to live & interact safely, while everyone else took whatever precautions they felt appropriate for themselves but without bringing large swathes of the country to a virtual halt with all the economic, unemployment, mental health and many other knock-on effects it has brought.

Instead, we continue to have a heavy-handed catch-all policy which will, in my view, cause more deaths and suffering over the next few years than Covid itself.

Of course, those whose only job is to contain Covid will identify what they believe to be the safest & surest way to contain it.
Although there are disagreements across experts, the Government’s advisers have decided that full or partial lockdowns and major restricitons on movement and gatherings is the answer.
But even if we only think about health issues, what about non-Covid serious medical conditions; or medical conditions that are less serious but nevertheless very distressing or those that have now become serious because they’ve been side-lined for so long?
Here is just one example of this https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1338384574968115200?s=20 
And don’t get me started on the adverse affects on mental health or suicides or domestic abuse.

It's the continuing nature of the response focussing almost solely on Covid, and the lack of wider vision to see the damage being done to our people and society in these and many other areas that I have become more concerned about over time.
It has become counter-productive when weighed against all the other societal problems the covid policy response creates or exacerbates.

The 1918-1919 Spanish Flu killed over 225,000 in the UK. One year on from the first suspected UK Covid cases and we are at about 70,000 and in reality less as some who would have died anyway just happened to test positive for covid but that's not what ended their life, yet they were included in the figures - (all the better to scare you with?)
Of course, every death is tragic for the family concerned but Government policy has to be based on an assessment of ALL the risks to our country’s future, both medical and non-medical, not solely on the fear and emotion surrounding Covid fatalities.

The main reason that 12 months on, so many who are NOT in the known vulnerable categories are living in fear of Covid has little to do with its death or serious illness rate;
  
The main reason why so many more are now unemployed and that we have a groaning mountain of debt that will have to be paid back in higher taxes and lower real-terms pay has little to do with Covid's death or serious illness rate;

The main reason why so many individual and civil liberties that we thought inviolable, such as where we can can go, when and with whom, have been removed has little to do with Covid's death or serious illness rate; 

No, it’s down to the Government and their medical/scientific advisers' (fully backed by the Labour opposition & all other Westminster Parties) continuing to insist, aided and abetted by both mainstream and social media companies, that we need to treat Covid as if it’s the Black Death or Spanish Flu revisited, when it clearly isn’t as serious as those.

Covid is highly contagious but NOT highly deadly outside the vulnerable groups.

We should have spent the summer months identifying the vulnerable and their carers &/or families (which is easily done); made special provision for them to form safe bubbles but allowed the rest of the country to make their own decisions on the extent to which they mingle with others or use PPE.

We should have asked for retired Doctors & Nurses to volunteer to be trained on Covid-specific care and ready to work in the Nightingale Hospitals, thereby taking some pressure off the main NHS Hospitals.

As it is, I greatly fear that when the analysis is done in a few years time, it will be clear that the deaths and more widespread suffering caused by the lockdown policy response will be far greater than the number of those dying from Covid.

Short term decisions primarily made to avoid short-term criticism.

SIGH!!!

[At the time of writing this, there is talk of a possible new variant of the virus, so of course, if the facts change, I'll change my view but at the moment, I'm content with this analysis.]

Extremism and why we need to avoid it!

Those who feel that they do very nicely from the UK being in the EU or are fearful that their life may be made worse or are more ‘One-World’ than ‘Nation State’ in their view, are full of doom and gloom; they see their opponents as either stupid or evil or both. 

Those that feel that the way the EU operates is undemocratic and contributes to their life &/or our country’s life in a negative way just want out no matter what the consequences; they see their opponents as either stupid or evil or both. 

Both extremes are wrong as extreme views usually are because life and modern societies are massively complex.

In contrast, extreme views are very simplistic; they lack nuance or issue-specific judgement. Hence, they are often hypocritical and/or contradictory and therefore produce injustices of their own.

Convincing yourself either that a complex problem is in fact simple, or that simplistic unnuanced ideas will properly solve complex problems is just ridiculous; but worse it’s dangerous.

Dangerous because you either don’t change anything at all, including things that need to be changed; or you change too much and throw the baby out with the bathwater.

All or nothing style views/ideologies must be avoided whenever possible and strongly resisted when they arise. 

Of course, it’s much harder to think non-ideologically, open-mindedly, treating each issue on its merit and doing our best to tread a careful path through a maze fraught with dangers, but the alternative, simplistic extreme ideology, always leads to authoritarianism, then dictatorship and gulags/concentration camps and the loss of human rights and individual freedoms.

It would be retreating back into the past where 90% of people were serfs at the beck & call and whim of a small number with all the power; your only freedom is the freedom to do what you're told, on pain of imprisonment, torture or death.

So let’s make the effort not to go down this path, shall we?
Let's strongly resist the extremists, whether they be governments, large corporations or powerful lobby groups and get back to good faith reasonable interactions where we disagree.

How is the 'Woke' ideology manifesting in society?

Woke ideology (a combination of post-Modern Marxism and Critical Race Theory) is polarising society. It's removing genuine empathy & compassion and replacing it with dogmatic moral superiority, which is an unempathetic, closed-minded, dismissive and often aggressive mindset.

Woke ideology encourages emotional responses like anger, resentment, bitterness, victimhood and condemnation. These leave very little room for empathy and compassion, let alone humility and forgiveness, which are paramount for genuine societal fairness and harmony.

Woke ideology claims fairness, tolerance, inclusivity & kindness but when you see its methods, how it deals with non-conformity, dissent and criticism, it displays none of these. It even excuses acts of violence & intimidation.

Actions speak louder than words.

Woke ideology puts all the emphasis on being ‘socially aware’ but there is a total lack of ‘individual self-awareness’.
This is how you get the intolerant, unfair, unkind & abusive behaviour – the righteousness of the ideology overrides the individual conscience’s duty to say, ‘No. That’s not how I should be behaving’.

Once you’ve decided that you are on the ‘right’ side of history, that you are a righteous person following a righteous cause, then self-reflection is unnecessary; that’s for the un-righteous people. They need educating, in the chilling phrase.

We’ve seen this in many religions over history. Jesus preached peace yet the desire for the whole world to follow & believe in Christianity led to many individuals behaving in ways Jesus would have utterly condemned.

The righteousness of the cause justified the behaviour. The ends justify the means.

Thus ‘woke’ adherents ostracise those they disagree with as heretics. They treat whiteness, and even maleness, as a form of original sin. And, above all, they demand their fellow citizens constantly repent these sins and affirm the true faith. If not, they are excommunicated (mobbed, threatened, cancelled).
Once you decide that you dislike someone’s socio-political opinions so much that you are happy to call for them to lose their livelihood, you have lost any credibility as a reasonable, tolerant or kind person.

Woke ideology is as much a dogmatic neo-religious creed as it is a political movement and needs to be challenged as such.

The School Exam Result Conundrum

 So, we have anger over the way exam results have been decided and I’m sure some pupils have indeed been adversely affected. Certainly, those who didn’t put in enough work for their mock exams but who would have knuckled-down and got at least one grade higher in the real exam may feel aggrieved.

However, whether you assume that the mock exam grade is the best that child could attain, or you assume that each child would have put extra effort in and got a higher grade, you have the same problem.
An assumption is being made and there is no way of proving that it's correct.

I guess they could take the mock exam results for each school for the last 3 years and see how often a better grade was attained in the real exam (particularly for those who didn’t get a passing grade in the mocks). Then somehow try and apply that.

But let’s say that on average over the last 3 years, 50% of pupils who failed their mock got a passing grade in the real exam. Who decides which pupils get given a pass and which remain a fail? It’s an impossible thing to do fairly. (Very easy to do unfairly of course!).

There are those on social media who claim that the teacher assessed grade should just have been used with no other factors taken into account.

However, it doesn’t take a genius to realise that this would have resulted in a massive inflation of grades.

It would take a very brave teacher to give a poor grade, particularly a FAIL grade, knowing that they would be confronted by hundreds of parents claiming ‘you hate my child’; ‘you’ve ruined my child’s life prospects’ etc etc. You could even envisage threats of violence and 'we know where you live'.

And that’s before the pressure put on teachers by their senior leadership team to be generous because the Head doesn’t want all the aggro from complaining parents and the bad-mouthing and petitions on social media etc.

Finally, even if a teacher IS brave enough to give a true and poor grade, they know that a lot of other teachers around the country will be inflating for the reasons given above. So, by NOT inflating your own pupils, you are knowingly disadvantaging them!

So, what would I do? Well, there’s no perfect answer, that’s for sure.
  
Within that context, I would take the mock result and, if the teacher assessment was the same or one grade higher, I’d stick with that. I simply would not allow any more than a single grade inflation from the mock result. 

Importantly, you would not announce that this is how you’re doing it until after the teacher assessments had been received, otherwise they would all just put each pupil up one grade from the mock automatically (because why wouldn’t you?).

Not perfect as I said but would be acceptable to the vast majority as it is in a general sense ‘fair & reasonable’, I suggest; some may even say 'generous'! There would be some grade inflation but it would at least be contained.

And when you have a method which seems ‘fair & reasonable’ to the majority, it makes it much easier to stand firm against the minority of complainants as well as showing you in a generally good light.

What do you think?

The Slow Game & The Fast Game - The attempted take-over of Society

A friend on facebook was decrying the relatively weak response to the virulently anti-Semitic social media output of a Grime artist called Wiley. This is my long-form response.

This is where intersectional (or group versus group) thinking gets you.

For the radicals who think in this way, there is a hierarchy of group oppression. We are not individuals choosing to co-operate to the extent we feel comfortable, we are simply a statistic within groups to which we are allocated, the members of which all think and behave the same way as each other. They have the same needs, desires, views, rights, privileges etc.

It's much easier to formulate and enforce rules and codes of behaviour for a relatively small number of groups than it is billions of independent thinking individuals.

So what's behind this radical group power ideology?

Should any individual within a group disagree with the 'correct' views & behaviours assigned to that group they are bullied into line or thrown out.

For decades after WW2, the Jews were at the top of the ‘oppressed groups’ hierarchy, now they are almost as low as 'whites'. Why? Because they are too successful both as a country (Israel) and more generally around the world to be considered ‘oppressed’ anymore.

And women, particularly, 'white' women, have also dropped down the order a lot in recent years. They have also done ‘too well’ over the past few decades to score highly in the current radical intersectional victim hierarchy. As an example, look at the social media grief J K Rowling took for simply stating biological facts and suggesting that it's OK for women not be comfortable with biological males in their sports and toilet areas.

At the top of the ‘oppressed groups’ currently are two groups: 1. 'Black' people - not Asians as they also do far too well. More specifically, 'Black' people who can trace their lineage back to slaves (this is after all primarily a USA issue exported to the rest of the world as we saw with the George Floyd protests and riots); and 2. Trans-people – mainly trans-women (biological males); we don't seem to hear as much from or about trans-men (biological women) for some reason.

But where does this ‘groups not individuals’ and ‘hierarchies of group oppression’ ideology come from?

Very simply for the sake of brevity, Karl Marx.

Marx believed that the fight was between the ‘oppressed working-class’ group and the privileged 'upper and middle-class’ groups.

Now unfortunately for Marxists, a combination of capitalism, patriotism and democratisation in the ‘West’ has meant that the living standards and general living conditions of the lower classes have improved enormously over the last 150 years or so.

In the mercifully few countries where forms of Marxism did happen, the death toll and economic failure showed that the ideology doesn't work in practice, however many different ways & times you try it.

Thus, the success of democratic capitalism over the last 5 or 6 decades has meant that (neo-)Marxists have abandoned the working-classes as their means to power and have instead formed a two-pronged attack. I think of these as the ‘slow-game’ and the ‘fast-game’.

The ‘slow-game’ was to gradually, and I mean over many decades, infiltrate major institutions such as education, the judiciary, the civil service, the media and management of large corporations. Give them their due, they’ve been highly successful.

The ‘fast-game’ which is to re-structure society along group racial and sex/gender-difference lines as fast as possible and before the majority realise what's happening, has been able to gain ground so fast recently primarily due to the co-operation of universities, large corporations and the media, particularly but not exclusively, social media.

There is a race to the bottom (or should that be the top?) of victimhood groups which is not being challenged and indeed is encouraged by large swathes of the media.

In the UK there is not a single TV channel that doesn't conform to the intersectional group hierarchy ideology.

Why did so many working-class people who have never voted anything but Labour, vote Tory at the last General Election? Because, while they are happy for left of centre ideas on the economy, they are socially conservative.

Sadly, both in the USA and the UK, the Left-of-centre parties have moved so far to the left in their societal views that they need a pair of binoculars to even see the centre ground.

The question we have before us now though is, ‘does it matter?’

The radical intersectional group ideologues and their wealthy elite supporters believe that they have the cultural and economic power to enforce their views.

Trump’s election and the Brexit vote were very aggravating for these elites but it has only made them double-down and push harder and faster for the destruction of society as we know it and the rebuilding of it along neo-Marxist intersectional victim group lines.

Everyone equal before the law?

The law enforced without fear or favour?

Of course, it never worked perfectly in practice but at least the principle was acknowledged and agreed upon.

No longer!

We now see the Police deciding whether or not to act based not on whether the law is being broken but 'who' it is and 'why' they are doing it. So if you are breaking the law for a 'good' reason, e.g. anti-racism, almost no action is taken.

If you're a member of an ethnic minority, the Police seem more concerned about being called 'racist' than doing their job. Just look at the grooming gangs in various UK cities that had been abusing young girls for decades, not because the authorities didn't know, but because they were more concerned with keeping good multi-cultural community relations than protecting the innocent.

So, in summary, intersectional politics is different to classical Marxism but is a definite off-shoot. They are both group power ideologies. And just like all other attempts at implementing group-based political utopias, it is more divisive and will do more harm than the systems they rail against.

Radical, violent change always over-estimates the benefits and under-estimates the problems from their change because wise thoughtful people don’t allow themselves to become radicalised. Only the closed-minded zealots do - and they never know when to stop.

Theory v Practice. Thoughts v Actions when it comes to Racism

We all know that things which may seem great in theory don’t always work in practice.

Let’s look at this 'theory' doing the rounds in certain social media threads that ALL 'white' people are racist by definition; that it’s simply inescapable.

I’ll leave to one side for now the fact that any idea which translates to ‘heads I win, tails you lose’, is not one to which any sensible or reasonable person should subscribe, and make another argument.

First, a definition. Racism is where, given exactly the same circumstances, you treat someone worse if they are not the same skin colour as you.

Again, I’ll put to one side that there are a host of reasons why we might decide to treat someone worse or better in any given situation and that claiming it ‘could only be’ racism or lack of it is not a coherent argument but let’s stick to skin colour for the sake of this discussion.

Thought is NOT a crime. This isn’t Orwell’s 1984 and it’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t become that. There is a massive difference between what we THINK and what we DO.

Let’s take driving around in our car. Over the almost 40 years I’ve been driving, I’ve probably racked-up a thousand times where I’ve thought something like, ‘what kind of crap driving do you call that? You need a bloody good slap!’ But out of those thousand times, how many times have I actually chased someone, forced them off the road and given them that slap? ZERO.

So, even if we do have a bad thought flash through our minds (and all of us do, daily), very few people act them out because most of us are aware of the ‘wrongness’ of the thought & the ‘wrongness’ of the consequences if we acted it out.

Indeed, that very awareness of ‘wrong’ makes it far less likely that we would carry the thought into action. Rather, the awareness makes it much more likely that we won’t!

Thinking and doing, are NOT the same thing; not by a long way. So, for the vast majority of us, even if we believe that we may have racially prejudiced tendencies in our thoughts, the knowledge that it is wrong to think like that means we make a special effort NOT to carry them into action. If anything, we are likely to over-compensate.

Here’s another thought. There is always a problem when science (and I mean hard empirical science not easily manipulated social science) can’t help us. Science can only help if we can measure something accurately and consistently so that we get a lot of quality accurate unfalsifiable data. Anecdote is not quality data. Opinion is not quality data. Even personal accounts are not quality data because they can be exaggerated, deliberately skewed, or even falsified.
Quality data is simply not possible when it comes to the amount of racism there is, or who is and who isn’t racist. It cannot be demonstrated in a proper scientific manner. This is why you get some claiming racism is everywhere and others claiming there is no racism at all. We only have personal experience PLUS what we want to believe to go on, and these will be different.

Now, where something cannot be clearly demonstrated (proven), do we assume that people are innocent or guilty? And here’s the rub. 'White' people are being asked to accept guilt that many deny and that certainly cannot be proven. We are, contrary to the basic premise of law, being asked to believe the accuser and convict the accused without question. Why many ‘white’ middle-class liberals are happy to do that is for another discussion. 
You shouldn't feel the need to 'admit' to being a racist to somehow prove you're not a racist; and you don't need to 'admit' you're a racist to be a decent non-racist human being!

So, I ask you to ask yourself this question. ‘In any given situation, am I admitting that I would treat someone differently based purely on the skin colour they have?’

If the honest answer to that is ‘yes’, then that is indeed racist and you do need to change that way of behaving. 

However, most people will be able to say, perfectly honestly, that they wouldn’t behave in that way. And telling them that they would, is not an acceptable argument because you are telling them that, whatever they know about themselves and however they actually behave, they are guilty, whether they believe they are or not. 

That is a very authoritarian, oppressive, controlling and insidious way of thinking, though it’s clearly convenient for those making that argument.

So, for the majority of us who can honestly answer ‘no’ to the question, why would we go along with the idea of ‘automatic 'white' racism’?

Perhaps you know and can actually name people who are definitely racist. You’ve heard them speak and it’s clear and unarguable that they are racist. I would suggest that for the majority of us, that’s simply not true. Or if it is, how many of the people we know come into that category? If the answers more than one or two, you need to do something about the circles you move in.

I know it’s easier to just cast an entire group as guilty or not guilty - it certainly saves having to have a coherent argument but that’s the point. Because, at an individual level, very few (as a percentage of the total) people can be clearly demonstrated to be racist, this 'assumed' group guilt is all there is. 

This is where the idea that it's 'the system' that's racist not necesarily individuals comes from. However, as any system is operated and enforced by individual people, it doesn't take long to come full circle back to - 'and therefore ALL 'white' people are de facto racists'.

But it’s lazy thinking and can only be justified if you accept that social issues can be addressed by ideas that force guilt (or innocence) onto every individual within a (made-up) group, come what may. 

That individuals in a group do not differ in thought, word or deed; which is nonsense of course.

This is how authoritarian dictators think. ALL Jews are bad, for example.

And this is what a lot of 'white' middle-class liberals are coming up against. They’ve decided that they will feel better about themselves if they admit to being racist (why?). But how can they admit to their own racism, and from that accept ‘white group guilt', while at the same time absolving themselves of any personal shame?
(NB They DON'T really feel ashamed. You don't admit to the world something you are genuinely ashamed of. It's abstract/theoretical shame at the most; it's not real).

How do they accept that they are part of a group ('white' people) which MUST ALL be racist devils by definition, but put themselves on the side of the 'anti-racist angels' in the hope that they will get some kind of absolution by doing so? 

Simple, by claiming that we are an overwhelmingly racist society and pointing the finger at all other ‘white’ people, 99.99% of whom they have never met, let alone have any knowledge of the content of their character and attitudes.
This view that a small number of people can speak for, let alone accept guilt on behalf of, a group they have no choice but to belong to, the majority of whom they have never spoken to, is presumptiously arrogant and distinctly authoritarian in tendency.

And all these other people in the ‘white’ group that they throw under the racist bus while performing this self-flagellating faux-absolution? Well, they don’t matter do they? Because if I who have such high moral standards admit to being racist, then they MUST BE racist as well, right?

Job done; absolution achieved - or so they (wrongly) think! To retain power over you, you never get absolved, only tolerated until you put a toe out of line and then...........

But thinking they have cleansed their souls of racist stain, they carry on with their comfortable middle-class life in the knowledge that they won’t be affected in any meaningful way by the societal chaos they have helped unleash. But at least by saying that they and all other ‘white’ people are racist, that the country they live in is systemically racist, they won’t be cancelled or get shouted at on social media by the mob and will still get invited to trendy-lefty parties and can tell themselves how morally superior they are – phew, that’s alright then!

"Never be a spectator of unreasonableness or stupidity. The grave will supply plenty of time for silence." ~ Christopher Hitchens.

The Psychology of Political Radicalism Pt1

Some of you may know that for the last few months I have been immersing myself in the radical political areas of social media. 

I am trying to get to grip with the psychology of the closed-minded politically ideological bigots; and believe me they come from all classes, educational and intelligence levels of life. 

Indeed, many of the worst are toward the top end of society in class &/or wealth &/or academic terms.

Here’s some preliminary thoughts with regard those on the ‘radical Left’. They are, after all, by far the noisiest and most culturally influential at the moment.

Today's radical culture warriors see themselves as ‘righteous opponents of oppression’.

They are deluded.

Their relentless politicisation of even the most ordinary aspects of everyday life divides and angers more people than it impresses and actively impedes the chances of societal harmony.

There’s an ‘algorithm of status’ on the progressive Left. 

Simply put, the more radical your views and demands, irrespective of the wisdom or the consequences, the higher your status rises.

This is why the demands will never end. 

It’s who they are. 

They would have no purpose, their life would have no meaning if they weren’t spending their time pointing the accusing finger of bigotry at people, thinking about and activating to tear down our society.

Their personal status within the ‘tribe’, their internal feelings of self-worth are so bound up in radicalism that to say, ‘ok, that’s enough now’, would, psychologically, be a form of bereavement if not suicide.

This is why, when everyone else sees anarchic nonsense & intimidation akin to the smothering totalitarianism of Stalin, Hitler & Mao, all radicals and their allies do is double-down and scream even louder.

In addiiton, there are issues around 'bitterness' 'resentment' and 'guilt' that I will explore in a future blog.

Be the Best Person You Can Be - Not Easy!

So my recent forays onto a variety of social media platforms has led me to make the following observations which I offer to you.

We should all aim to be the best person we can be – not as easy as it sounds.

This:

IS treating everyone exactly the same irrespective of immutable characteristics like race, skin colour; sex etc

IS looking at each situation on its merits; not from a judgemental starting-point. Not easy but much easier if you recognise the importance of it.

IS empathising – which doesn’t mean having to agree

IS treating others fairly – which again doesn’t mean having to agree but does mean hearing them out &/or giving them a fair chance

IS allowing people to be themselves as long as they are polite. Disagreeing with you does not make them a stupid, rude or a bad person!

IS helping people when you reasonably can as long as your ‘help’ will genuinely make things better and isn’t going to make things worse down the line

IS being prepared to admit you were wrong 

IS allowing someone to make a mistake without insisting on the harshest punishment

IS being prepared to acknowledge when someone makes a good point

IS allowing people to say things that you disagree with (and even really dislike) without abusing or trying to silence them; debate them!

IS seeking out conversation, dialogue & debate in a calm & fair-minded way and not retreating into a 'safe bubble' of confirmation bias

IS being prepared to alter your view after reflection. It is NOT weakness to change or alter your view, quite the reverse

This:

IS NOT thinking that you are better/more moral/more deserving than others

IS NOT refusing to engage with people who disagree, as long as they are polite and using reasonable language

IS NOT being afraid to say when you disagree as long as you do so politely & calmly

IS NOT trying to silence people who disagree with made-up accusations, like ‘xxx-ist’ or ‘xxx-phobe’, when they simply disagree with you

IS NOT resorting to physical or verbal violence to get your own way

IS NOT saying what someone else wants you to say just to ‘appear’ nice or because it’s the easy option

IS NOT feeling the need to tell everyone what a good, worthy & moral person you are; looking for affirmation & pats on the back.  

Only those with low self-esteem need this. 

Just BE that person without the ‘look at me’ element; it’s called leading by example. Words & gestures are cheap & easy, as well as being ultimately self-regarding.

IS NOT fixing your societal & political view between the ages of 14 & 21 and refusing to even consider exploring them after that

IS NOT saying or doing things that you know deep down are wrong for purely tribal/political reasons

IS NOT assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is either stupid or evil

IS NOT assuming bad-faith in people who don’t see things the way you do

IS NOT blaming others if your life isn’t turning out as well as you hoped

IS NOT saying ‘I’ve got a problem, what is someone else going to do about it.’

IS NOT trying to deflect from the shame of your own failings by spending your time searching for failings and pointing fingers at others

Psychology of Politics on Social Media: Integrity

Further to my interests in psychology, I have been reading & engaging across lots of social media platforms recently. 

It's the effect that social media has on our socio-political views & interactions that interests me particularly, (I do realise that there's more on social media than just that).

Two things have become clear: 

1. that there are a lot of folk out there holding with absolute certainty, hard-line (even extreme), closed-minded ideological views; but 

2. who also think of themselves as being reasonable, open-minded and moderate. 

How they have come to rationalise these juxtapositions I’m not entirely sure but I think it may have something to do with only paying attention to what people in their own ideological tribe think and say. 

Only reading/hearing the same views as you already hold is comforting, but can lead to a belief that there is no other sane/reasonable/acceptable way to look at the world. 

You establish a self-regarding, self-congratulatory, bias-confirming ideological monoculture.

The dangers of this are obvious.

On social-media, we seem to build-up little cliques of 'friends'/'followers', and we make sure that anyone who thinks differently on socio-political issues is, one way or another, ejected from the conversation.

This can be by simply ignoring them; rudeness/dismissive responses; individual or mob aggression (trolling); blocking; reporting to the platform authorites; or even, in some cases, writing direct messages telling them that they are no longer welcome because they don't have the right opinions, or simply that they find differing opinions/criticism 'upsetting'. 

The combination of conceit & low self-esteem that makes someone hide within a 'safe, same-view' bubble is fascinating, though sad and disheartening for our future. 

Conceit because they believe that it is neither necessary nor helpful to hear alternative takes or criticisms of their views. They even believe they have the right to determine what other people can or cannot say to them.

Low self-esteem because anyone who can't handle in a mature way alternative takes or criticisms of their views without claiming to feel 'unsafe', clearly has issues and deserves our compassion. 

However, the answer to their low self-esteem is surely to help them raise their self-esteem, not wrap them in cotton wool & force everyone else to walk on egg shells around them.

Anyway, how do these folk square being so certain about how society should be run with the belief that they are reasonable, open-minded & moderate people?

Well, most of us know some people in our own political 'tribe' with even more hard-line/extreme views than us; as such, we MUST be moderates mustn’t we? 

Well, no.

'Moderate' ideologues are still far from any reasonable centre ground.

The error comes back, I think, to this narrow cocooning belief that your side of the political divide is all you need to take meaningful notice of. You know the other side exists but you ignore it or just shout at it. 

So, if on a scale of 1 to 10, you're at 5 or 6, then you're a reasonable moderate. 

You forget that there is the same scale on the other side such that you have to be at 1 or 2 on your side to claim 'reasonable moderate' status across the entire political spectrum.

We know that to effect change in ourselves requires first, the self-awareness to realise that we are not as ‘reasonable, open-minded & moderate’ as we tell ourselves; 
and second, the necessary mixture of humility & self-confidence to genuinely want to, & then actually do something about it.

Humility because if you think that your IQ or education level or some other life-experience mean that you can't be wrong, and that 'lesser' people should give you servile respect (i.e. just accept what you say as correct), then you are doomed to a very narrow outlook on life (as well as being a very difficult person to interact with unless that interaction involves simply agreeing with you!)

Self-confidence in the sense that you can be calm, objective & open to reasonable points from the other side without feeling in any way threatened. You can even alter your view without feeling a failure.

These character traits are very difficult to find in self-selecting & self-policing social-media cliques.

No wonder, because humility and the self-confidence to be calm and objective are the very opposite character traits to those they so often possess.

Dr Bret Weinstein has another idea about how we come to rationalise contradictory behaviour. 

He says that often, we 'cave-in' to pressure simply because it’s the least hassle option. We fear the backlash from resisting the pressure; from disagreeing; from saying 'no'.

We know we’re wrong to take the easy option & cave-in, and feel ashamed, but we’re too cowardly to admit it, even to ourselves; 

Instead, we rationalise our behaviour and double-down to convince ourselves that our new 'caved-in' position is in fact, ‘right’.

It’s very psychologically damaging to feel shame and cowardice, so as a defence mechanism, we rationalise that ‘red is blue’ or ‘bad is good’, just to let ourselves off that damaging psychological hook.

The defence mechanism in the human brain is a marvel. We can convince ourselves that ‘left is right’ or 'up is down' if our cowardice and sense of shame are strong enough. 

So, my suggestion for engaging in socio-political dialogue on social media with integrity, is to be humble but brave.

Don't shy away when you disagree. Ask probing questions; make alternative suggestions; say if their sources are clearly biased or if they're merely asserting opinion with no evidence etc.

You'll get called names; you may even get threatened; you'll be called racist; bigotted; misogynist; bully; xxxx-phobe etc. 

But these are just cowardly ploys to get you to self-censor. 

However, ALWAYS be polite; ALWAYS acknowledge when there is some truth in what they say; and NEVER succumb to the temptation to name call or threaten.

That way, your conscience is clear AND you can look yourself in the eye because you have your integrity intact.

The Political Activist-Ideologue: A Profile

If the last General Election taught us anything about how most people make their voting decisions, it’s surely that extremism doesn’t pay. Particularly when that extremism is allied with the distinct whiff of lack of patriotism.

Now I for one am very pleased and mighty relieved about this but there are a small but vocal percentage of folk who are not pleased; not at all!

So, who are they, how do you spot them and how should you engage with them?


What is an Activist-Ideologue?


Political activists tend to be ideologues – it sort of goes with the territory, since you have to have really hard-line, even extreme & closed-minded views about something to become a fully-fledged activist.

Very simply an ideologue is someone who believes very strongly in a set of principles; and that’s fine, nothing wrong with that at first glance. 
Except that most ideologues (and certainly in socio-political areas) believe so strongly in their ideology that they have closed their minds entirely to any other way of looking at things.

In effect these activist-ideologues close their eyes, cover their ears and shout, “la, la, la, I’m not listening” continuously until the person putting an alternative viewpoint or asking difficult questions gives up and goes away. Either that or they organise a mob to shut them down, which is all too frequent.

These activist-ideologues would see objective open-minded, critical thinking as: ‘unnecessary’ (because I’m right); ‘weak’ (because I’m righteous & strong); ‘dangerous’ (giving the enemy a chance to make their case); ‘treacherous’ (I may have to leave my beloved tribe); ‘humiliating’ (how stupid am I if I’ve been wrong all these years?); ‘frightening’ (I’ll lose all my friends if I alter my views even slightly).

So they keep their minds firmly closed.


How to spot an Activist-Ideologue

When you read/hear what they say you will note that there is never any attempt to look at both sides of an issue, or at best they throw up an extreme straw-man of the opposing view, just so they can easily tear it down. 

We all acknowledge that there is always more than one way of looking at important issues - activist-ideologues don’t acknowledge that or at least, they believe there is only one ‘right’ way to look at important issues – their way.

So there is little, if any, nuance in their views. It’s usually just one tub-thumping assertion after another. There is little by way of reasoned argument.
If they give evidence at all, it’s usually from a like-minded opinion source. 

As Andrew Doyle said recently,

“Ideologues always quote other like-minded ideologues to support their existing prejudices. Nothing new here.” 

That your opinion being backed up by someone else of the same opinion is NOT compelling evidence doesn’t seem to occur to them.

When you analyse what they say/write you will get some of the following attitudes, and if you’re (un)lucky, all of them! 

Massively judgmental, morally superior, finger-wagging, self-righteous, aggressive, closed-minded, angry, bitter, resentful, condescending, patronising, supercilious, dismissive; coercive - and I could go on but I won’t as it’s too depressing.

Of course, the thing that binds all these traits together is a staggering lack of self -awareness. 

They all practice hypocrisy – defending (or ignoring) people in their own tribe for the same behaviour as they constantly attack those in other tribes for.

There’s absolutely no place in their thinking for forgiveness or giving someone a second-chance or the benefit of the doubt, unless they are of their own ideological tribe, at which point these merciful traits often miraculously appear; (though not always, as feminists of the 1960s and 1970s are finding out from trans-gender activist-ideologues).


What do these Activist-Ideologues hope to achieve from their judgemental, morally superior closed-minded rantings? 

Well, it depends what their purpose is. 
If they are simply preaching to the choir just to make sure everyone in their tribe knows they’re still onboard the ideological train, then I imagine it works very well.

However, surely the point of activism is not just to feel good about yourself & get applauded by those who already think the same way as you, but to persuade those who don’t agree with you. 

Yet aggressively asserting your views and saying that anyone who disagrees is either stupid or evil, obviously won’t achieve that. Or at least it’s obvious to all but Activist-Ideologues.

But in fact, they’ve moved away from attempts at reasoned argument and persuasion to the nastier and more blatantly authoritarian tactics of coercion (e.g. censorship); bullying (e.g. organised Twitter/Press mobs); harassment (e.g. anonymous threats & false complaints); propaganda (‘facts’ either made-up, distorted or ignored to suit); and moral blackmail (claiming victimisation/oppression) to get their way.


Activist-Ideologues then are partisan extremists. 
Dictators in the making is another way of perceiving them.

As Bo Winegard said recently, “As fun as it might be to anger your political foes, it generally accomplishes little more than transient satisfaction. Long term change requires broad consensus and compromise, two things that are anathema to extremists and partisans”.

We can safely say that broad consensus and compromise is NOT how activist-ideologues think. 

You see, they don’t see themselves as extremists or closed-minded and of course, if you can’t see a problem, you ain’t gonna be able to fix it. 
We all know that to rectify any deficiency in ourselves we first need the self-awareness & humility to recognise it as such. 


Activist-Ideologues are lacking in either self-awareness or humility.

So, if people who constantly and consistently espouse very hard line, very judgemental & apparently simplistic black & white views don’t see themselves as extremists or closed-minded ideologues, how do they see themselves?

Well, clearly, they have a firm and unwavering view that they are ‘right’. Now his can lead to, shall we say, unfortunate behaviour but sadly it goes much deeper than this. 

The reality is that their political ideology has become like a fundamentalist religion. So, they believe not simply that they are ‘right’ but ‘righteous’

And of course, the ‘righteous’ can do no evil; they wouldn’t be righteous if they could, would they? 
And thus this circular reasoning brings them to the conclusion that whatever measures they need to take to make their particular ‘Righteous Kingdom’ come into being, is not just acceptable but necessary. 

Boy, do you give yourself plenty of rope to hang other people with when you rationalise your thinking like this!


How to spot Activist-Ideologues

Look for heavily politicised posts. Usually boldly or aggressively asserting things with no evidence or citing someone, or a press opinion, from their own tribe. 

Look for barely controlled anger and often rudeness, (e.g. calling those who disagree ‘stupid’, ‘evil’, 'fascist' or 'nazi' etc). Look for demands and extremely simplistic nuclear option solutions (e.g. sackings; law enforcement action on their opponents etc).

When responding to an Activist-Ideologue & politely disagreeing or asking reasonable questions, look for evasion, waffly ideological generalisations, dismissive/rude/aggressive language, ignoring any question or point they can’t answer etc.


To engage or ignore Activist-Ideologues?

Of course, we can ignore them but I think we must be braver than that because the activist-ideologue, with their lack of self-awareness and humility, simply sees no opposition as an acceptance by everyone that they are right; victory! 
It simply encourages them in their ‘egotistical righteousness’.

So, I try to ask questions, point out flaws, make suggestions and generally try to encourage them to think more deeply & openly about their position.

The key things are: ALWAYS be polite. ALWAYS keep your temper and NEVER stoop to aggression, dismissiveness or name calling.

Now, of course, this rarely gets them to change because if Activist-Ideologues were open-minded, reasonable and capable of altering their views, then there would be no such thing as Activist-Ideologues and I wouldn’t need to write this blog warning against them!

However, and very importantly, it does remind them that not everyone agrees with their narrow, simplistic and jaundiced view of the world, and even that small check on their ego is better than nothing.

Summary

Here is another quote from Bo Winegard which sums-up the Activist-Ideologue.


“It's quite easy to disguise our demons as avenging angels of righteousness and thus to celebrate our cruelty as a justified retaliation or a necessary pre-emptive strike against a sinister enemy.”

And finally, after I finished this piece (honest!), I read an article by Andrew Doyle which almost brought me to tears so in tune with my thinking is it.

The whole piece is so worth reading for anyone tired of the angry closed-minded mud-slinging. Andrew Doyle on the need for critical thinking

Should Johnson just be following the science?

Everyone wants to know if Johnson's government really has been 'following the science' on Covid-19.
To me, this is far too simplistic, bordering on unintelligent, way to look at it.
Surely it goes like this:
Early on when we don't know enough about it, you have to err on the side of caution. That means, in effect, assuming that it will be very medically bad and you don't want to have the NHS overwhelmed.

You have two choices then; go for herd immunity (no official lockdown, just advice), or proper lockdown.
The Government was leaning toward the former but got spooked at the level of criticsm for appearing cavalier &/or 'uncaring', so changed to a lockdown strategy.
At this stage it was essentially a uni-dimensional (medical/scientific risk) decision making process. They were getting conflicting advice as to which option was best medically, but had to make a choice.
They chose to play it ultra-safe and go for lockdown.
I don't blame them, even if with hindsight it may prove not have been the optimal way to go.
Then as time goes by and more data comes in, you start to know with some degree of certainty which groups are most affected by the virus and how it spreads and how to minimise the spread in the best ways. You're ramping up tests and PPE from a very low base and are very wary of changing the lockdwon policy too early in case the progress made reverses creatng even more howls of criticism.

You may start to think that some of your earlier decisons were, with hindsight, not the best, but you have to continue from where you are; you can't put the clock back overnight with everyone worried sick and in lockdown.
But 8 weeks on, we are at (if not past) the point where the decisions have to be genuinely multi-dimensional.
Not just looking at the medical/scientific risk but at the economic, social, educational and psychological risks as well.
These multi-dimensional decisions are the toughest to make because some risks will conflict with each other and there will always be groups of people who don't like what you decide to do.

Putting aside those who are just out to criticize this Government come what may, (and sadly there are quite a lot of those), this will be because they want their particular risk prioritised above all the others.
The obvious example at the moment is the Teachers Unions.
I'm feeling charitable so I'll say that they are simply wanting it to be a uni-dimensional (medical/scientific risk) decision and there's no attempt to take advantage of this situation to make life hard for a Tory government - (aren't I kind?!)

But we have to move passed the uni-dimensional way of thinking now, and think longer term.
Let's remember that Johnson was pressed repeatedly for a road-map and criticised for not providing one. When he provides one, all the people who feel their group or their particular main risk hasn't been duly prioritised loudly complain. Who would have guessed?

So, bearing in mind there will be a vociferous set of people who disagree whatever he does, I hope Johnson just does what his instincts tell him in a multi-dimensional risk scenario, and we'll see what happens.

One thing's for sure, it's long past only being a medical/scientific risk that has to inform Government decisions now!