Even a brief survey of the UK political and media landscape leads to various conclusions, but there are two linked and unmissable aspects –
Imbecility - the UK has a major problem with influential stupidity.
Intransigence – the UK has a major problem with influential blockheads.
Influential imbecility is not a few wrong moves which could be corrected, it is an intransigent shift towards what appears to be a significantly lower level of intelligence within governing classes, institutions and professions. It is not new and not restricted to the UK.
One possible route down the rabbit hole is fashionable elite conversation. However fanciful or absurd they may be, some memes seem to become particularly fashionable, rather like a superior brand of urban myth. Some myths have clearly evolved into official policy, perhaps because elite thinking must remain on a higher plane – or private jet to be more materialistic.
It is as if an important social censor has been degraded – the censor which should detect stupidity within influential social contexts. Not a surprising conclusion unfortunately, influential stupidity has always been a problem.
Yet something may have moderated influential stupidity in the past, and an aspect of that moderation could have been a sense of place, of physical belonging, an essential stake in what works and has worked in the past, socially and culturally.
A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labours men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbours, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood.
George Eliot - Daniel Deronda (1876)
Perhaps this is it and always was. Those who would rule our lives should be well rooted in some spot of native land. Maybe an international, globalist outlook hinders a grounded viewpoint because those who could easily be elsewhere are in a sense nowhere and not suited to rule anywhere.
George Eliot - Daniel Deronda (1876)
Perhaps this is it and always was. Those who would rule our lives should be well rooted in some spot of native land. Maybe an international, globalist outlook hinders a grounded viewpoint because those who could easily be elsewhere are in a sense nowhere and not suited to rule anywhere.
4 comments:
There was certainly influential stupidity in the past, but I think it was kept separate from government. It's always been kept away from disciplines like engineering, farming, and building, etc. because the consequences of failure were so bad.
Until recently, politicians knew that taking a less than serious approach to government would have got them lynched, invaded by a foreign power, starved, or personally impoverished. Now, it's more like a game or a racket. Cameron was the most transparent example.
Sam - yes, the unserious approach to government is odd because it is so easy to assume voters should reject it, but they don't. It's not easy to imagine how it could be corrected other than by hardship of some kind.
It's my theory that the lack of seriousness is due to affluence. There is now so much prosperity that indiscipline has grown like topsy, to the point that only hardship and existential failure will remedy it. Fortunately we have a government that will provide it.
Tammly - I agree, hardship seems to be an important aspect of taking life seriously. We have fake hardships now, as if we need some kind of challenge to keep us going.
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