I'm currently watching Simon Schama's History of Now on iPlayer. And he's just popped up with a quote by Václav Havel from The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
The quote he uses is:
Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.
And it comes from a longer passage about the 'post-totalitarianism':
The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his or her ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.
There is much in this essay relevant to the current debate that's ongoing over women's right and the clash with trans rights.
Post-totalitarian is essentially what Havel describes as dictatorial rule within a system but being less obvious and less about a traditional dictator figure which we understand and recognise as dictatorship. Instead it's embedded in a more covert / hidden way that makes it harder for the population to immediately identify but is no less hard for the population to resist because it's embedded into the bureaucracy of the system.
What's fascinating about this essay is how it talks about the bureaucracy of the system being how it exerts the power of conformity and stops dissent. In other words it makes it easier to control people because they have no choice.
For example: if you don't use pronouns you become 'marked'. If you become marked you have to demonstrate your loyalty. If you don't demonstrate your loyalty you aren't selected. If you don't repeat the right phrases you are heretic and further you don't belong in the party etc etc. We see it playing out with cancel culture generally but it's particularly interesting in the context of political parties themselves.
Schama's observation in the programme (episode one on truth and democracy) the ongoing relevance of this phenomena in a post truth world is very much spot on.
Trump did it. But we are also definitely seeing examples on the left.
This is the point. It comes from neither left nor right. It is a authoritarian v liberal thing.
We need to remember that the political spectrum is made up of four areas, not the two that the politicians in this country want to reduce matters to because it allows the manipulative narrative of 'you are either with us or against us'.
In this sense the liberal left and right SHOULD be united on this and that's a GOOD thing. You would also expect to see the illiberal authoritarian left pitted against the right - from the far right to the liberal right because that's the normal left v right thing too. The thing is that the illiberal left is terrified of the unity of the liberal left and right so the only tool in the box they have is to try and tar the liberal left.
Cancel culture and political parties barring women / making it difficult to raise concerns from within their system is very much in line with the premise of the essay.
If you want to read more on this
https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23
I would firmly argue that Starmer is running a risk on this - if people can see through what's happening and see that there is still structural dictatorship and authoritarian bureaucrat control over behaviour in political parties and key social institutions which political parties have significant control over (eg unions and charities in the case of Labour). And I do think people, many of whom are leftist women who have actively been shut down and excluded from speaking truth to power, are seeing this.
This opens the door to the right - which includes the authoritarian right - because of the pushing of the 'either with us or against us' narrative which is done by the illiberal left itself AND the right (as a whole) for its own agenda.
The problem is authoritarianism. But authoritarianism exists on BOTH the left and right.
The 'nazi facist' jibe coming from the illiberal left, needs to be seen in this context. It's a bit like the Stalinists shouting at Nazis and complaining about how appalling the other is. Neither is good. We shouldn't aspire to be either in a liberal democracy. If we want to use WWII era analogies we should be more like Atlee and Churchill arm in arm against this bullshit.
I would encourage people to read Havel's essay mentioned above and the points and principles he makes as it ties in with the point I've been making on MN for some time about our loss of liberalism (I don't give a flying fuck if you are from the right or left or centre on this) and how power is moving away from grass roots towards a top down approach in the UK. It's not restricted to this particular issue of women's rights but it certainly isn't 'a minor fringe issue' either. It's about the very dynamic of control without participation and consent within party politics. And that's not ok.
Labour are not alone in this. The SNP is currently imploding because the bureaucratic fabric that had central control of the party has suddenly just collapsed and more voices are being heard (still a long way to run on that). Meanwhile the Lads federal system allows the same thing by the use of small cliques which hold control of various branches of the party (the number of people actually involved is small with some of these people in multi cliques). The Conservatives do it by other more traditional means - who gives the biggest donations and was mates with you at school for example.
It's all very depressing.