Success in politics, as with so many things, is often about learning from past mistakes. What is surprising, perhaps, is how few in politics – full as they are of their own sense of certainty – are able to do this...
At every opportunity, almost all of those that hold positions of authority within our country since June 2016 have acted to try to reverse the verdict of the people. Most of our Europhile Establishment don’t even regard what they have been up to since the referendum as an error. They still assume that they are somehow ameliorating the effects of a terrible misstep made by their inferiors.
The fact that all those urbane, educated people at the apex of our country, full of a sense of their own entitlement, have been slower to learn than Nigel Farage tells you something about the state of our elite.
Like the Bourbons or the Stuarts or the Romanovs, the chances that they might learn from what they have got wrong before it is too late look remote.
At every opportunity, almost all of those that hold positions of authority within our country since June 2016 have acted to try to reverse the verdict of the people. Most of our Europhile Establishment don’t even regard what they have been up to since the referendum as an error. They still assume that they are somehow ameliorating the effects of a terrible misstep made by their inferiors.
The fact that all those urbane, educated people at the apex of our country, full of a sense of their own entitlement, have been slower to learn than Nigel Farage tells you something about the state of our elite.
Like the Bourbons or the Stuarts or the Romanovs, the chances that they might learn from what they have got wrong before it is too late look remote.
The piece is well worth reading. Certainly in my experience the inability to learn from mistakes is characteristic of the public sector generally. It is not a simple problem and to that degree the success of the Brexit Party may be misleading.
4 comments:
Isaiah Berlin made the important observation that when we have a plurality of values, there is no guarantee that different values will be compatible. Our political class have long assumed that there is a sort of conceptual apex where democracy, justice, economic competence, truth, etc. all converge.
They are now finding out that no such position exists, or at least that we have not envisioned it yet. I suspect that many of them are aware that they are sacrificing democracy in order to save what they think of as economic competence and internationalism. They are probably a bit regretful, but think it a price worth paying.
Unless we can find that "sweet spot" where all values converge, I suspect we are moving towards a situation where we are a bit more democratic, and a bit less polished and prosperous. If that's the deal, I'm all for it. God knows, we've had enough of the old system where we get more stuff to play with every year, providing we put up with increasing amounts of shit.
There does seem, no there is, a strange correlation as to what is happening now around Brexit in the political and elite classes and the same tunnel vision on so many matters of emergency facing the nation at this time.
The can has been kicked the road on so many fronts, whether monetary, infrastructure, immigration and the refusal to admit that it has any bearing on anything, just good for us, and the fact that Europe is going the same way, all are dismissed as not something for the little people to worry about, we know better, but they don't, so with a bit of luck the whole edifice will collapse, what will happen then is anybodies guess but it will happen and the sooner the better.
The concept of "Public Service" does not seem to exist any more.
I have come to the conclusion that the games being played around Brexit
by so many self-appointed experts are simply cynical and destructive to any
possibility of communication between different factions.
They are not speaking the same language.
Regards from a sunny and peaceful Dublin,
Maria Buckley
Sam - Isaiah Berlin was right. I sometimes see it only slightly differently as linear thinking in a nonlinear world. Linear thinking cannot explain the nonlinear world and never will.
I agree with you - a situation where we are a bit more democratic and a bit less polished and prosperous would certainly be a step forward. The problem is, if you try to promote such ideas you risk entangling yourself with linear environmental thinkers who tend to be not at all democratic.
Wiggia - what you describe is rather like the problem where those on the shop floor know where the pinch points are because they see them all the time, but senior people don't see them and only trust their own perceptions.
Maria - good point - in that sense "Public Service" does not seem to exist any more. I don't know why positions are so entrenched - we have a referendum result so the obvious thing to do is to make it work.
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