Is British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer Humpty Dumpty reincarnate?
"There's a nice knockdown argument for you!"
A recent snippet on the BBC News website caught my eye. It related to comments made by the British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer. Here it is:
Speaking on a visit to Paris, the prime minister said the best way to deal with the "snake oil" of populism and nationalism was through "delivery" and "showing there are progressive, democratic answers to the many challenges we face is the way forward".
In his first month in No 10, Sir Keir faced a wave of riots across England and Northern Ireland fuelled by far-right, anti-immigration sentiment and misinformation online.
This really got to me. Why? Something about it just felt … irritating. And it took me a while - well, a second or two - to fathom the reason. It comes down to one word. Hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy by all concerned - that is both the PM and the BBC. It seems to me that these parties often excrete blather while presenting themselves as holier-than-thou, and this little block of 80 or so words is a good example of the practice.
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
Messrs Jagger and Richards nailed it way back in the mid-1960s. But an updated version of their great song might be in order. Today, submerged as we all are in oceans of ‘communications’, it seems more likely than ever that dissatisfaction may come to the fore when investigating any topic.
That’s not an original observation, I know. Indeed, it is central to the oft-cited conundrum of identifying accurate information in a maelstrom of dis-information, mis-information and mal-information.
Investigate a topic, any topic, and you may just end up wondering “Is there any goddam truth in there at all?”
You might even be questioning whether any objective truth even exists any more. A few years ago I think it fair to say that most of us knew which way was up - at least when it came to basics. Now it seems, increasingly often, that is not the case. When one of the most challenging questions a politician or other opinion former can be asked is “What is a woman?” you really do have to wonder what is going on.
A lot of today’s confusion and dissatisfaction seems to come from an extraordinary amount of manipulation of language: sometimes outright untruths but, very often, a more subtle bending of reality.
Which brings me back to that block of words from the BBC News website.
A veritable pot pourri of disapproval and disdain
Indeed, let’s take a closer look at it. Here’s the first sentence again:
Speaking on a visit to Paris, the prime minister said the best way to deal with the "snake oil" of populism and nationalism was through "delivery" and "showing there are progressive, democratic answers to the many challenges we face is the way forward".
Unequivocal, huh? We are clearly intended to understand that ‘populism’ and ‘nationalism’ are both BAD. And ‘progressive, democratic answers’ are the GOOD antidote to these bad things.
Well, to some extent, this reflects views stemming from the Enlightenment (Kant, Mill and so on) but with any and all nuance cast aside. These issues are not as clear-cut and separate as the statement implies. For example, populism and nationalism are certainly not necessarily antithetical to democracy.
And, then, the second sentence - this time an editorial addition by BBC News - adds fuel to the fire:
In his first month in No 10, Sir Keir faced a wave of riots across England and Northern Ireland fuelled by far-right, anti-immigration sentiment and misinformation online.
Yes, there was social unrest. But why? It’s quite complicated as so many social issues often are. And the danger of over-simplifying it is that the real reasons for discontent may well go on seething away under the surface and possibly morphing into something that is ultimately far more dangerous than what have become generalized non-think bogey terms like ‘far right’.
This, I think, is what bugs me about so much of today’s discourse - its shallowness.
Pop- Pop- Populism
It seems appropriate at this point to provide a brief demonstration to help make the point about shallowness. Or, rather, to give a glimpse of a little depth. How about this from American historian, moralist and social critic Christopher Lasch (1932-1994)?
In an essay titled Communitarianism or Populism?, included in his book The Revolt of the Elites, Lasch set out the idea that populism is committed to the principle of respect …
It is for this reason, among others, that populism is to be preferred to communitarianism, which is too quick to compromise with the welfare state and to endorse its ideology of compassion. Populism has always rejected both the politics of deference and the politics of pity. It stands for plain manners and plain, straightforward speech. It is unimpressed by titles and other symbols of exalted social rank, but it is equally unimpressed by claims of moral superiority advanced in the name of the oppressed. It rejects a “preferential option for the poor,” if that means treating the poor as helpless victims of circumstance, absolving them of accountability, or excusing their derelictions on the grounds that poverty carries with it a presumption of innocence. Populism is the authentic voice of democracy. It assumes that individuals are entitled to respect until they prove themselves unworthy of it, but it insists that they take responsibility for themselves.
To my mind, this is so much more moral and sensible than the current insistence that I see in business and social communications of all kinds for a cloying, ill-thought-out compassion. It may also, of course, have something to do with the fact that I was brought up in a poor Wesleyan Methodist household!
What’s Humpty Dumpty got to do with it?
The residual moral conscience that I retain from that childhood obliges me to provide some explanation for my cheap shot of a headline to this post.
Image: Humpty Dumpty by Sir John Tenniel
We’re in the world of Through The Looking Glass1 and Humpty Dumpty has explained to Alice that the fine cravat he is wearing was an un-birthday present from the White King and Queen. An un-birthday present, he explains, is a present given on a day that is not one’s birthday. Alice then helps Humpty Dumpty do the math so that he can confirm …
‘… that shows that there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents -’
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory,”’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t - till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knockdown argument for you!”’
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knockdown argument”’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’
So, there we are. Simple as that. And Humpty Dumpty-ism seems to be enjoying a heyday at the moment.
And finally …
… some thoughts that tie back to the conclusion that I reached earlier in this piece about Hypocrisy.
To be clear, hypocrisy is the practice of falsely presenting an appearance of virtue or falsely professing a belief to which one’s own character doesn’t conform. In other words, dissimulation or pretence.
But maybe that doesn’t really cover the issue because, to be fair, many people do believe in the virtue-signalling that has become so popular.
Therefore, it is time, perhaps, to reintroduce an old word that more precisely covers the topic - Cant.
‘Cant’ was used in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to mock people who, in their religious practices, simply parroted texts and verses2 - and it became a sort of melange of puritanism and bigoted intolerance.
It’s back big-time, isn’t it? It seems to describe the secular-religious (if that makes sense) fervour that often accompanies ‘wokeness’. For example, the insistence that some men can be women, and vice versa, and that the way to ensure that no more oil wells are licensed is to throw paint on to highly valued paintings in an art gallery.
These examples seem to me to represent a twenty-first century mixed-up versions of that melange of puritanism and bigoted intolerance.
The point is, this is not new. In fact, it seems to be a recurrent theme that occurs when major technological and/or societal change is underway. Towards the end of his short life, Lord Byron (1788-1824) castigated what he saw as the bigoted intolerance of political and social goings-on at the time in England as “The Age of Cant”.
And, to come right back to my start point, so much of today’s cant has to do with language.
George Orwell, in his book 1984, put forward the idea of Newspeak …
Newspeak was the official language of Oceania and had been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Socialism.
… and explained …
The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. (My emphasis)
Now then, we may not have Newspeak - not yet, anyway - but are we on the pathway to a version of it? Sure looks like it to me. And the magic control word is ‘disinformation’.
Control of language seems to happen, more and more, by demonizing supposed wrongthink as disinformation.
A big breakthrough of the digital age is interconnectivity on a global scale. Anybody, anywhere, can communicate with everybody, everywhere. And, boy, is that scary to anyone who hopes to control the information flows!
In earlier posts (for example, here) I’ve discussed the fear and controlling unleashed by the invention of printing with movable type. This time, with digitalization, that fear and controlling must be multiplied by … what? … 10? … 100? … 1,000?
And, of course, the new technology-enabled capabilities do allow those who wish us ill to swiftly and widely get their propaganda out to a huge audience.
The question is, how best to counter the bad guys?
It all boils down to two options:
Let it all hang out.
Grip it like hell.
What’s your choice?
I’ll pursue this conclusion in a future post.
Thanks for reading.
Lewis Carroll. Through The Looking Glass (1871)
Ben Wilson. The Making of Victorian Values (2007)