An interesting video on the virtue of obedience and the problem of freedom. Somewhat pessimistic as to the future, but this is unlikely to surprise anyone paying attention to recent cultural changes.
The post title is taken from a comment made round about 10:58.
3 comments:
dearieme
said...
I had thought Heath/Wilson must be the nadir of British politics. Then came Blair.
I'm going to subdue my instinctive response and not blame Tony Blair. My suspicion is that while Prime Ministers and other 'heroes' may capture the attention, they are pushing against an open door when it comes to social change. I do think that successful leaders/heroes find themselves surfing on the top of a social wave of change - but they are not the wave itself.
Would the UK be different is it were not for Thatcher, Blair, Johnson, or Farage? Details would be different, but at the level of grand statement like 'obedience is freedom' our leaders and heroes are just figureheads. And some figureheads (Major, Brown, Cameron, May) expose how 'key figures' are not that important.
dearieme - we need a good, well-researched book on the damage Blair did. Someone may have written one already - worth checking.
DJ - yes, Blair is a handy target to blame for malign trends which may have occurred anyway. But he was outstandingly good at selling those trends, willing to do so and perhaps willing to push them further than anyone else. In this sense he is to blame. A figurehead but not only a figurehead.
3 comments:
I had thought Heath/Wilson must be the nadir of British politics. Then came Blair.
I'm going to subdue my instinctive response and not blame Tony Blair. My suspicion is that while Prime Ministers and other 'heroes' may capture the attention, they are pushing against an open door when it comes to social change. I do think that successful leaders/heroes find themselves surfing on the top of a social wave of change - but they are not the wave itself.
Would the UK be different is it were not for Thatcher, Blair, Johnson, or Farage? Details would be different, but at the level of grand statement like 'obedience is freedom' our leaders and heroes are just figureheads. And some figureheads (Major, Brown, Cameron, May) expose how 'key figures' are not that important.
dearieme - we need a good, well-researched book on the damage Blair did. Someone may have written one already - worth checking.
DJ - yes, Blair is a handy target to blame for malign trends which may have occurred anyway. But he was outstandingly good at selling those trends, willing to do so and perhaps willing to push them further than anyone else. In this sense he is to blame. A figurehead but not only a figurehead.
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