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| Populists blame migrants – but poor behaviour comes from the top down | |
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| “People just ain’t no good.” This is the refrain of the moment isn’t it? Everywhere you look, people are becoming more selfish, insular, nasty and uncaring. The coarsening of public discourse – often online – reveals anger, alienation and a dangerous kind of apathy that feeds on low-level anxiety and perpetual disappointment. | “People just ain’t no good.” This is the refrain of the moment isn’t it? Everywhere you look, people are becoming more selfish, insular, nasty and uncaring. The coarsening of public discourse – often online – reveals anger, alienation and a dangerous kind of apathy that feeds on low-level anxiety and perpetual disappointment. |
| Political rhetoric has normalised expressions of hatefulness. Almost nothing is unsayable, prejudice is not a subtext. It is out and it is proud. | Political rhetoric has normalised expressions of hatefulness. Almost nothing is unsayable, prejudice is not a subtext. It is out and it is proud. |
| No wonder Amnesty has spoken out about this “toxic” language. The rhetoric around refugees and migrants has been deliberately dehumanising. We end up now with a government that can shirk its basic responsibility of taking in unaccompanied children. Internationally, we have seen open viciousness. Tirana Hassan, Amnesty’s director of crisis research, talked of how many leaders have propagated “the dangerous idea that some people are less human than others”. We all know which leaders she means. | No wonder Amnesty has spoken out about this “toxic” language. The rhetoric around refugees and migrants has been deliberately dehumanising. We end up now with a government that can shirk its basic responsibility of taking in unaccompanied children. Internationally, we have seen open viciousness. Tirana Hassan, Amnesty’s director of crisis research, talked of how many leaders have propagated “the dangerous idea that some people are less human than others”. We all know which leaders she means. |
| Rightwing leaders specialise in conjuring visions of chaos in our peripheral vision. Donald Trump does this literally. The world outside his gated existence is a vision of hell. Murder. Rape. Terror. The authoritarian worldview depends on a fear of the anarchy and destruction about to be unleashed at any second. The enemy without. Thatcher used to do this with the “enemy within”, remember? | Rightwing leaders specialise in conjuring visions of chaos in our peripheral vision. Donald Trump does this literally. The world outside his gated existence is a vision of hell. Murder. Rape. Terror. The authoritarian worldview depends on a fear of the anarchy and destruction about to be unleashed at any second. The enemy without. Thatcher used to do this with the “enemy within”, remember? |
| The legitimisation of dread is a powerful thing. It is also extremely polarising, the constant summoning of darkness. It is exhausting. It depends on constantly feeding the idea that everything is broken, that there are no longer basic standards of how to behave. If you live online, this is easy to maintain. Everything is awful all the time. There is no dialogue, no law, just a cacophony of screams. | The legitimisation of dread is a powerful thing. It is also extremely polarising, the constant summoning of darkness. It is exhausting. It depends on constantly feeding the idea that everything is broken, that there are no longer basic standards of how to behave. If you live online, this is easy to maintain. Everything is awful all the time. There is no dialogue, no law, just a cacophony of screams. |
| And then. And then do something fairly normal. Go into a primary school. Queue for a cash machine. Stop at a traffic light and you see something different: society has not completely broken down; there are basic rules and even some civility and agreement about what these are. | And then. And then do something fairly normal. Go into a primary school. Queue for a cash machine. Stop at a traffic light and you see something different: society has not completely broken down; there are basic rules and even some civility and agreement about what these are. |
| From spitting to taunting someone over their race, gender or sexuality (discouraged by good old “political correctness”), certain behaviour in classrooms is not allowed. In doctors’ surgeries and on public transport there are signs saying such abuse will not be tolerated. | From spitting to taunting someone over their race, gender or sexuality (discouraged by good old “political correctness”), certain behaviour in classrooms is not allowed. In doctors’ surgeries and on public transport there are signs saying such abuse will not be tolerated. |
| Of course, I witness appalling behaviour but I also witness good behaviour. Seats are given up on buses. People queue at cash machines. Small talk is made in the supermarket. This is not to say that life is not extremely hard for many people, but somehow the world that many politicians conjure up of constant division is their world. | Of course, I witness appalling behaviour but I also witness good behaviour. Seats are given up on buses. People queue at cash machines. Small talk is made in the supermarket. This is not to say that life is not extremely hard for many people, but somehow the world that many politicians conjure up of constant division is their world. |
| For the decline in basic civility and treating each other as human comes often from the top down. It is not just politicians such as Nigel Farage who spew out lies and hostility to migrants; what does Theresa May mean when she says “citizens of nowhere”? How can a supposed Christian go back on the Dubs amendment? How can it be OK for a Tory grandee to start woofing at a female politician when she stands up to speak? These people are not meeting the standards of behaviour required in a primary school classroom. Their “we are going to hell in a handcart” mentality depends entirely on displacing antisocial behaviour to the lower orders/migrants/Mexicans/Muslims. | For the decline in basic civility and treating each other as human comes often from the top down. It is not just politicians such as Nigel Farage who spew out lies and hostility to migrants; what does Theresa May mean when she says “citizens of nowhere”? How can a supposed Christian go back on the Dubs amendment? How can it be OK for a Tory grandee to start woofing at a female politician when she stands up to speak? These people are not meeting the standards of behaviour required in a primary school classroom. Their “we are going to hell in a handcart” mentality depends entirely on displacing antisocial behaviour to the lower orders/migrants/Mexicans/Muslims. |
| This fear is maintained further by reporting the public space as something that is always dangerous. Again, where we do share public space, it may well be fraught, but our experience is not only bad. Watching the BBC2 series Hospital, one cannot but be struck by how hard so many people work in the NHS. An ethos of kindness and cohesion may seem idealistic at the moment, but to say that it exists nowhere takes us into a spiral of despair. I hear many parents saying they no longer know how to talk to their children about sharing and bullying or simple respect because the kinds of behaviour we see from public figures is so out of control. The bullying is top down. A lack of empathy or compassion is flaunted as glinting iconoclasm. | This fear is maintained further by reporting the public space as something that is always dangerous. Again, where we do share public space, it may well be fraught, but our experience is not only bad. Watching the BBC2 series Hospital, one cannot but be struck by how hard so many people work in the NHS. An ethos of kindness and cohesion may seem idealistic at the moment, but to say that it exists nowhere takes us into a spiral of despair. I hear many parents saying they no longer know how to talk to their children about sharing and bullying or simple respect because the kinds of behaviour we see from public figures is so out of control. The bullying is top down. A lack of empathy or compassion is flaunted as glinting iconoclasm. |
| In the face of this, to insist on kindness in public may seem wishy-washy. But kindness is hardcore. That’s what I thought when I heard Brendan Cox talk about it. To insist on kindness, togetherness and unity. To say that atomisation and fear will not destroy us, and to hear it said by Jo Cox’s husband is moving. In her memory, he wants everyone to get together in June for street parties, bake-offs or whatever they fancy. Maybe this sounds a little old-fashioned in a world of monster trolls and hate speech. Well, we are always told that solidarity is old fashioned, that there is no such thing as society but, as Jo said: “We have far more in common than that which divides us.” | In the face of this, to insist on kindness in public may seem wishy-washy. But kindness is hardcore. That’s what I thought when I heard Brendan Cox talk about it. To insist on kindness, togetherness and unity. To say that atomisation and fear will not destroy us, and to hear it said by Jo Cox’s husband is moving. In her memory, he wants everyone to get together in June for street parties, bake-offs or whatever they fancy. Maybe this sounds a little old-fashioned in a world of monster trolls and hate speech. Well, we are always told that solidarity is old fashioned, that there is no such thing as society but, as Jo said: “We have far more in common than that which divides us.” |
| As the neocon journey morphs into full-blown conservative nihilism, it is critical now to say that sometimes we rub along in our shared spaces, that we make society as well as break it. For if we truly believe hell is other people, we are really lost. | As the neocon journey morphs into full-blown conservative nihilism, it is critical now to say that sometimes we rub along in our shared spaces, that we make society as well as break it. For if we truly believe hell is other people, we are really lost. |