Westminstenders: Social Conservativism

[RedToothBrush]

The post election autopsy is starting to show something up. Finally. Brexit is part of wider political issues and fractures. This isn't exactly rocket science but it's an inconvenient truth that has been ignored.

We have something of a conflict going on between economic conservatism and social conservatism.

The Tories as the party of business were economically conservative and put this ahead of other issues. "It's the economy stupid."

But as this has continued this has opened up social division and the gap between rich and poor has laid bare social issues.

This is where Labour and the LDs are now becoming something of a cropper. In Brexit they continued the idea that the economy was the most important this and in doing so has fuelled the idea that they don't care about social issues. They are perceived to be putting the interests of businesses as more important than those people.

Of course it's not as straightforward as this. To fund ways to stop social issues you need good economics.

Add to this the progressive movement which has become authoritarian and has lost sight of certain social issues in favour of identity politics and you start to have a real issue. One that the EU as an identity has become caught up in in this country. The wedge to drive in the cracks.

Issues haven't been tackled because identity is more important and was prioritised. And we've had scandals arising out of this.

Instead we've had the increasing demonisation of social conservativism and the idea that if you question certain things you are backward or bigoted as a means to silence people. And now we've had a massive backlash against that generalisation and lack of nuance. And not seeing what was happening and having a self awareness of how this read to more socially conservative types.

That's not to say there aren't massive issues in social conservatism which can be indeed racist, homophobic, sexist and yes very bigoted in nature. The trouble is that the failure to be able to tackle nuance which identity politics forced and a failure to understand that the pace of change needs to be set by public consensus rather than top down authoritarianism has lead us to where we are now.

Rights set up to protect certain groups have failed in practice even if they exist in law. And those who professed to stand for the interests of certain groups forgot the origins of rights.

Thus undermining the entire centre left project, which in some respects the EU embodies.

We now find ourselves in a divided and ruled scenario where those who should have benefitted most from rights can be exploited by an elite who have successfully seen an opportunity to step into the void that identity politics created.

And now the left and liberals have to wake up to this reality and come up with a solution to it.

There is a lot of uncomfortable and difficult decisions to be made here.

The solution to the culture war isn't to push back harder and to become more authoritarian in tone about the right of 'right and wrong'.

It's to address why identity politics caused the left and liberals to forget their origins and purpose and why they established certain ideals in the first place.

Meanwhile whilst they figure out just how they lost their way and were blinkered by their own self righteousness, everything that the centre left project established will be gradually unpicked. Or if Johnson can do it, without being challenged, at some considerable pace.

It comes down to remembering your roots and having a solid connection with the reality of people's lives rather than high minded idealism and a sense of superiority. This is what people saw regardless of the noble intent of Labour and the Lib Dems.

'Social conservatism' were dirty words. Now they are the reality of the present. Whether we like it or not.

Economic stability has become secondary to this desire for social conservatism.

Labour and the Lib Dems have to adapt to this and will have to offer something to those with more socially conservative views to move forward now. The alternative is a very long wait outside in the cold of politics.

Liberal democracy is about balancing needs. You have to identify needs and you have to understand how to balance them for liberal democracy to thrive. Failure to do the former means the latter fails.

And here we are.

2020 beckons.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New to all.

Can't say I really understand identity politics tbh ... I'm not sure it's anything other than politics as usual with a new name.

Cologne: I was in nearby Bonn at the time. Germany has, or had then, little very CCTV coverage as a reaction to Nazi public control. There was a mass attack on young women by a particular demographic of young men, many petty criminals, mainly North African (and not refugees). The mainstream Muslim immigrants were horrified. There was also an increase in reported incidents there of women, including elderly, being surrounded, often groped, and robbed by gangs of young North Africans under guise of dancing and larking around. It was a thing at the time - please read
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_sexual_assault_in_Egypt and
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany
Please stop saying it didn’t happen.
The German police stepped up their game, women became more aware - German women were used to going around freely before - and I assume the incidents dwindled, hence the drop off in reporting. There were also quite a number of very serious problems at German swimming pools including the rape of a youg boy and again, measures were taken to protect children and women. The Germans are slow but thorough. I think it’s very dangerous to women and children to pretend there’s no problem where there are a lot of young single males - of whatever nationality or religion - used to asserting their sexual wants.
Chatongris, were you Mistigri before? I remember Mistigri saying only racists, the far right and Brexiteers believed the attacks happened. The attacks happened, and it was a particular demographic, nothing to do with most Muslims.

chaton I’d say identity boxes is aboit putting people in a box and deciding they must all think the same way.

catfromjapan I didn’t notice more than one particular poster using the Cologne threads to abuse groups, I presume they were banned, I remember hitting report a lot but for the same name!

*identity politics

Freudian slip 😂

Can't say I really understand identity politics tbh ...

You may not understand it, but you appear to be fully signed up to it judging by the content of your posts 🤷🏻‍♀️

Personally, I am very suspicious of the support for women and feminism by some people who post on issues such as trans / Muslims on the feminist board. They are more than likely the same people who would complain on other boards about feminists speaking up for themselves and discussing things such as male violence, gender pay gap, domestic abuse. But are more than happy to use the feminist boards to whip up concerns about trans issues etc. They don't care about women but they really have an issue with LGBT people, Muslims etc.

Have to say, I think Red is right about the political shift to identity politics and the shortcomings - as a praxis - of identity politics.

I think the move to identity politics came out of the shortcomings of previous political explanations - but rather than a more nuanced approach to those older explanations (eg. Marxism) we seem to have moved to identity politics.

And that's been facilitated by the USA's dominance - and the US has always been very hostile to class-based or economic- based analyses.

And I think she's right that technology also facilitated that push. Indeed, old-fashioned Marxism would weigh in behind that analysis.

And, yes, Cologne and other issues fall right in those fracture points.

It's all fascinating - but I would rather be watching from a distance.

I read a thread denouncing Stuart Hall and the Birmingham Cultural Studies unit for their role in the rise of identity politics.

And I was sad.

I see Hall and co as having seen the shortcomings of Marxism and worked to give it nuance and nimbleness in a changing world.

But while many theorists did that, all that work has been 'forgotten' really, as part of a road not taken.

Identity politics was chosen instead.

And it's so weird, because there is so much theoretical work done in the 70s 80s and 90s on the limits of identity politics.

And here we are.

For the most part, everyone on these threads (including me) is very indulgent in identity politics.

identity politics: a tendency for people of a particular religion, race, social background, etc., to form exclusive political alliances, moving away from traditional broad-based party politics

Examples include identity politics based on age, religion, social class, profession, culture, language, disability, education, race or ethnicity, language, sex, gender identity, occupation, sexual orientation, urban or rural habitation, and veteran status.

So yes, seeing yourself as a Remainer or a Leaver definitely falls under this idea. And the inability of Westminstenders and the Brexit Arms to communicate does give a good example of the 'them and us' boxes and polarisation.

This is why the referendum was a particularly bad thing to have happened when it did, because it accelerated and fueled the pattern of what was already happening. Everything about the last 3 years has been about this idea of 'winning' rather than exploring problems properly.

This isn't a new idea either. From wiki:
Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. discussed identity politics extensively in his 1991 book The Disuniting of America. Schlesinger, a strong supporter of liberal conceptions of civil rights, argues that a liberal democracy requires a common basis for culture and society to function. Rather than seeing civil society as already fractured along lines of power and powerlessness (according to race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc), Schlesinger suggests that basing politics on group marginalization is itself what fractures the civil polity, and that identity politics therefore works against creating real opportunities for ending marginalization. Schlesinger believes that:

movements for civil rights should aim toward full acceptance and integration of marginalized groups into the mainstream culture, rather than … perpetuating that marginalization through affirmations of difference

I think there is probably a lot to be said for this. And I think it's interesting that someone with the background and understanding of liberal democracy in the immediate post war period had these ideas in the early 1990s.

I wrote a dissertation on the limits of Foucault's theory that political subjects would spring into being from being identities formed in legislative and social discourse - using a real-world example.

I find the modern use of Foucault wildly at variance with what he wrote and oddly credulous to boot.

It's a weird old world.

I did Foucault. All I remember is how much I hated studying Foucault and I do not a single word more about what Foucault said! It probably went in, but it just did my head in at the time and I instantly switched off.

Me too that opaque text. I just googled as I’d forgotten, took me back to just trying to decipher stuff.

He was a very odd person and a very odd writer.

Extremely contradictory too - which he told his readers.

So weird to see how he's used now.

But ... social media.

It's the way people use it - to create self-assuaging enclaves and then push each other on to create ever more 'pure' (and we could use the word 'extremist' here) forms of their pet beliefs. Expelling and blocking any uncomfortable views and voices.

I've been watching that evolve over the last few weeks on some left wing groups I've joined.

I'm sure they're lovely folk in real life. But social media provides the tools for people to become bloody odd.

And I know we create 'safe spaces' on MN - but it is nothing like these closed groups I've been watching.

So goodness knows what goes on in supremacist and actual violence-espousing groups.

the inability of Westminstenders and the Brexit Arms to communicate

Not entirely true

There are posters from all 'sides' on the Arms threads - all are engaged with in good faith by everyone else

It's only trolling, goading & abuse that gets kicked back at and rightly so

There are a few posters who cross between the two threads - it's just a shame there's not more 🤷🏻‍♀️

This was posted on the Arms thread last night by yolofish (a WM regular)

It's very prescient & definitely something I believe in & can drink to:

"On a message of peace love and understanding (copyright Mr. E. Costello) I think most of us actually want the same things: for people to be safe, housed, fed and have a job that makes them feel worthwhile and enables them to bring up their families in security.

Peace and love to all."

Had planned to post another picture of new cat today
but she has vanished into the back of the Christmas tree

Justanother
Butchers sell the cuts that supermarkets do not ....
Mine sells lots of premium meat but also sells the really cheap stewing cuts which are amazing (£5/kg)
Peregrina
My butcher hires college students and trains them up
he also has semi retired ex Dewhurst chaps

• he had 25 staff working today ranging in age from 16 to 75

I've followed a few of the trans threads, as have others on here. The anti transactivist reaction seems valid to me. I agree that there's an obsession with it, just as on this thread there's a justified obsession with the minutiae of Brexit. These things matter enormously to 1) feminists, 2) ardent remainers. The lunacy / surreality of the trans / Brexit agendas and the likely permanent loss of things that are an important part of the fabric of our lives naturally provoke strong reactions.

It's only trolling, goading & abuse that gets kicked back at

'trolling, goading & abuse' - see disagreeing, questioning, and piss-taking

'kicked back at' - see bombarding pp with memes and insults and bombarding MN Towers with complaints til they delete.

Yes..if only Westminstenders and Brexit Arms could communicate..

Plaice Mat King and a really nice Christmas to you all.

I am very slowly starting to read the threads again. I needed the break from the craziness of the campaign and the weeks after.

The lunacy / surreality of the trans / Brexit agendas and the likely permanent loss of things that are an important part of the fabric of our lives naturally provoke strong reactions

Provocative word that - lunacy.

Considering what was deleted before on this thread.

Re identity politics, I think the uk is/was particularly sensitive to it because it’s already separated by classes (and the strong wish to not ever mix followed by looking down on people from other social classes )

Butchers sell the cuts that supermarkets do not ...

Not round here. We had a pretty dismal tour of local butchers a while back (some have since closed). Even the best of those was digging stuff out of the freezer.

But then that's what the internet is for.

www.wildmeat.co.uk/

Beats dragging your sorry arse across 5 counties braving a series of increasingly interesting accessibility challenges just to be greeted by a sea of blank faces.

2020 will be no better for the High Street than 2019, I fear.