I was uncertain for the whole last week that Labor would win. Partly because the movement of the polls was in the wrong direction, partly because of the relentless misinformation, and partly because Bill Shorten’s speeches were not precise, and did not say what Labor would not do – which was vital. Labor should also have broken with the misinformation that coal mines bring jobs…. but for whatever reason that seemed impossible.
However the main reason for my despair was reading right wing internet groups. Some of this reading was deliberate and some of this was because I was getting quite a lot of promotional material on Facebook without asking for it. Please note, any remarks here are impressionistic and not a mark of extended research…
The appearance of these groups is of seething hatred and dedication, together with apparent loathing of general uncertainty and uncertain boundaries in particular.
Groups tend to argue by abuse and by flat statement as a way of reinforcing boundaries (if you can’t take it then you are not one of ‘us’), but expressions of disgust and certainty are not uncommon online. The point is that ‘we’ are the righteous, and need to expel the different to keep the boundaries going.
According to participants, nearly everything bad that happens to normal people happens as a result of some left wing policy. Low wages and unemployment, because of restrictions on the economy, migrants, refugees, positive discrimination, green tape and so on. Corporate power is a problem, because the left is all on board and wealthy (a point Tony Abbott made in his retirement speech – it is wealthy electorates who are concerned about climate change, while real people understand the Coalition and know the Coalition is best). Cultural crisis occurs because of cultural marxists, radical homosexuals and transsexuals destroying ‘our culture,’ and weakening its self-preserving boundaries by insisting that foreign Islam, other races and gender constructions are acceptable. It is also felt that Leftists are snobs, hate ‘us’ and make no attempt to understand ‘us’ (or that such attempts are aimed at undermining ‘us’) – and indeed the common left lament that the people have failed has more than a hint of this. Green policies are further attempts to sacrifice working people to rich people’s needs, radical lies and snobbery. Taxation is theft, and its always the working people who get taxed by high taxing parties, which is pretty true; only its the Coalition that does this.
It is common to see people in these groups blame corruption in the Church, the police or politics on leftist values, or the sixties. There is a single handy explanation for everything, despite 40 years of largely right wing dominance.
This blaming merges with scapegoating of particular groups, as a form of avoidance of responsibility. And indeed, one of the problems of the modern world is that we are all responsible. Some more than others perhaps, but not ourselves ever – and we all often fight to avoid recognising that part-responsibility.
The Israel Folau issue (the sacking of a very expensive footballer for claiming gays would go to hell) was surprisingly important because it clearly ‘showed’ oppression of religion, or at the least suppression of authenticity, while demonstrating that the left had joined with the corporate sector in attacking working people who expressed righteous anger with people who attacked gender roles, boundaries and certainties. Again the scare campaign that Labor was going to force our kids to be gender fluid only makes sense in this kind of environment, of existential boundary fear. However, it is a mistake to think that traditional gender roles have much support either, even if people claim they do. Its more complex and flexible than that.
In a few academic articles I have got into trouble with reviewers for arguing that trust in authority has little to do with belief. While these groups fiercely distrust the left they don’t trust the political right either. If their own side is irrefutably shown to have lied or schemed against them, the response is not to consider the possibility of being wrong, but to state “all media lie,” “all politicians lie,” “both sides are the same” or something similar. This allows people to keep their opinion while dismissing evidence that it may be false. This is what contemporary skepticism (or ‘independent thinking’) means, being skeptical of counter-evidence to your own, or group’s, position.
People seek to defeat the uncertainty of a complex crumbling society by being stable, righteous, and avoiding responsibilty by finding scapegoats, who, if removed would solve all the problems people face. For the left it might be capitalists or neoliberals, for the right it is leftists, feminists, gays, transsexuals and sometimes abortioneers. Obviously I think the first position is more likely to be correct
The Coalition campaign made fertile use of these trends – they are much better than Labor at it, perhaps because it avoids criticising real power. More and more, Labor depends on the powers that undermine them, for funding, publicity and respectability.
The basic assumptions of these groups were supported by the Murdoch press and other media promoting the general social fantasies they depend on such as ideas that the coalition manage the economy better, the economy is primary, virtue involves identifying or punishing out-groups. The Labor party ignored this part of life, or perhaps they did not see it or dismissed it as the work of a few fanatics, rather than of a relatively large group of people, who would support anyone who promised to get rid of what they perceived as the leftist challenge to their existence.
Due to communication having to involve interpretation rather than transmission of meaning, it is more or less impossible for such groups to actually hear what people on the other side are saying. Once identified as from that other side, then the boundaries are to be reinforced: that person’s comments are to be attacked, and the person ideally driven away if they cannot be converted. This then leads to a shouting war which tends to reinforce the separation and the further rejection of ‘good communication’.
What to do? The first thing is to admit these groups exist, and that they are powerful and real expressions of ordinary people’s lives. Even intellectuals can often be quick to blame the left for problems or for hostile fanaticisms… Rather than convert them intellectually, they need to be listened to and understood, and then argued with, with some understanding rather than just a condemnation which reinforces their boundaries and life worlds. This requires patience.
It is another example of the paradox that if we are to do anything democratically it will be slow (perhaps too slow), but if we don’t do it democratically and bring people along, then we will fail.
Tags: climate change, Disinformation, knowledge, religion, social category theory
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