roubaixtuesday wrote:pwa wrote:We have traditions that help us out though. We have a tradition of respecting the opinions of others within certain limits. That tradition exists in some other countries, but not all.
Yet here we are,
(1) with a campaign whose main slogan, on the side of a bus was a lie, later condemned by the UK statistics authority when Johnson repeated it as Foreign secretary
https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/ ... retary.pdf(2) with a campaign who used a dishonest leaflet threatening the arrival of 72 million Turks to whip up xenophobia.
(3) With politicians now using the threat of violence from thugs outside parliament to justify not holding a 2nd referendum.
It is this very belief that our traditions will save us which is dangerous. They have already been ripped up, without anyone even realising.
Bosnian Muslims had similar beliefs before the Yugoslav wars, having lived in harmony for centuries.
The history of Britain and Europe is one of hundreds of years of internecine warfare. Nor are all of these wars the result of funny old arrangements now disappeared with the kings and Christian religious zealots. The same human instincts and behaviours that informed the 100 Years War informed the wars of the first half of the C20th. The same instincts and behaviours inform the various proxy wars conducted by various First World (supposedly civilised) nations around the planet.
We in Britain are under something of an illusion about the norms of human behaviour, as we've spent the last seventy-summick years living through an almost unprecedented era of peace and (relative) prosperity at home, in the British Isles. WWII was a salutary lesson to many politicians, even some Tories of the time (although others were still anxious to do the Empire thing and the Cold War thing). Politics became about inclusion and a better future, not fear-of-the-other - although the "commie threat" was always a useful bogey to employ when needed, as were various little campaigns in Korea, The Middle East, The Falklands et al.
The British political world (and that of some other nations) has been slowly forgetting WWII and it's damaging effects, for some decades now. The sort of Nationalism that informed both world wars is once more waxed-large. It seems inevitable that these tribal aspects of human instinct and behaviour will once more come to the fore. There are many signs & portents, of which Brexit is but one.
Is it possible for the population at large to come to it's senses and recognise the value of not just a national civilisation of inclusion and tolerance but also an international civilisation of similar inclination? This seems unlikely to me. The success and great popularity of Trump, Putin and several others of the "strongman" ilk around the planet bode ill. Our own inability to produce politicians worthy of the name and role is also telling. Intolerance, anger and fear are all the rage - along with the vast lies, delusions and other denials of the likely consequences of being a rabid nationalist, xenophobe, racist, religious bigot or other variety of hate-'ems.
Cugel, wondering when my own bubble of civilisation will burst.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
