Why did we lose?
We brought it on ourselves. We deserved to lose.
Not because we were wrong. But because we were right. Of course Black people are no better and no worse than White people. Of course a woman can do anything a man can do. Of course some people just happen to be gay. Of course slavery and colonialism were bad things. Vaccines stop people getting diseases. Science works. The world is round. Scones made with margarine are lighter and healthier than scones made with butter. Civilisation can probably weather the installation of unisex toilet cubicles in night clubs.
The Left lost because the Left was right.
Of course there is nothing wrong with electing a Black man as president of America; whether you think that Obama did a good job or not. But electing a Black man as president of America was always going to provoke the kinds of people who think there is quite definitely something wrong with electing a Black man as president of America. So we shouldn’t have done so. So we have only ourselves to blame for the backlash.
Of course there is nothing wrong with being gay. But coming right out and saying that there is nothing wrong with being gay—allowing provocative slogans like “sometimes, boys have boyfriends and girls have girlfriends” into school sex-ed books—was always going to provoke the kinds of people who think there quite definitely is something wrong with it. So we have only ourselves to blame for the backlash.
If only we hadn’t kept on spooning sand into our bucket, the other bucket wouldn’t be so damn heavy all of a sudden.
Hmm. I don’t think that can be right.
Okay.
The Left lost because the Left kept going on and on about being right.
Peter Elbow said many years ago that being right was a dangerous tactic, because people who are right are often so insufferable that people prefer to carry on being wrong just to spite them.
Don’t poke a sleeping tiger. Don’t pull the puppy’s tale. Don’t put a sharp stick in a wasps nest. If half of your country are bigots, it makes no sense to hang “down with bigotry” flags on every public building.. There is really no need to organise “bigotry is bad” marches and put “we don’t agree with bigotry” stickers on all your DVDs.
Just, you know, stop being bigots and the bigots will probably stop being bigots as well.
There is something in this. Maybe if we had just removed all the bigoted laws quietly; penciled “or a man and a man or a woman and a woman” into the marriage legislation without making a song and dance routine about it; and started casting Black people in TV roles without mentioning that we thought it was a good idea to do so the bigots would have just got used to it and stopped bigoting. Maybe it’s the gay pride marches that annoy them, not the gay people themselves. Maybe if there had been “not particularly ashamed or bothered” marches instead, we wouldn’t be where we are now.
Maybe. But I think of the Comprehensive School headmaster in the 1960s who decided that he was going to stop hitting his pupils with a big stick. The other teachers were okay for the hitting to stop, but didn’t think he ought to tell the children. “You haven’t stopped until you’ve told the children” he said.
I grok what they mean by virtue signalling; I do. My Granddad had been an actual pacifist in World War II. He never went to jail, but some of his friends did. So in the 1980s my Mother had zero sympathy for people who sat next to her in church wearing CND badges and then went ahead and voted SDP at the next election. [1] “Peace” can so easily become a fashion accessory, a signifier that you are a nice person. Ray Coleman talked about John and Yoko jet-setting around the world talking about peace as if they had personally invented it. So maybe taking a knee and the rainbow crosswalks and the kids books about how everyone is different and that’s fine are just that: virtue signalling.
Yeah. And you know what else is virtue signaling?
Actual laws which make life easier for minorities.
Actually recycling waste and giving up your motor car and not using airplanes.
Actually deciding to go vegan.
Actually voting for the Labour Party and the Democratic party.
Any time a Black man, or a woman, or a gay person appears on television.
And do you know what isn’t virtue signalling?
Wearing a poppy.
Wearing a cross.
Wearing one of those stupid red hats.
Putting a Union Flag or a Stars and Stripes outside your house.
Singing the words of God Save the Queen.
Anything anyone who isn’t a Far Right lunatic does, ever.
“Virtue signalling” is just another way of saying “Why don’t you just stop filling up your bucket?”
Okay.
But can we at least agree that the Left lost not because they were right, not because they went on and on about being right, but because they were dicks about being right?
Again, there is something to this. You might as well be hung for a velociraptor as a T-Rex. If, regardless of what I do, my neighbours are going to think I worship Cthulhu, then I have nothing to lose by actually signing up to a cult.
It is possible that some people were so upset at being told they couldn’t display the Union Flag or wear a Poppy or say Happy Christmas, and so bored with the Left calling them fascists if they did so, that they said, well, all right then, I might as well become a fascist. [2]
The Right are obsessed with purity: who sings the words of the national anthem and whether you put your hand over your heart and if you bowed low enough and wore your poppy for long enough and cheered loudly enough.
But maybe, I don’t know, the Left fell into this trap as well: so that wearing the right badge and using the right hashtag and choosing the right words became more important than actually, you know, not being a fascist?
I have heard Centrists—people who stand at our end of the see-saw but draw the line at actually putting any sand into the bucket—complaining that me and Jeremy Corbyn care more about doctrinal purity than we do about winning elections. Maybe we do. Some of our lot said we’d rather lose the election than win it under Starmer. But Tony Blair himself said in very nearly so many words that he’d rather lose the election than win under Corbyn.
Maybe we became too willing to call the other side bad names? Maybe if we hadn’t been so inclined to call people who thought that on the whole the EU was a mistake “little Englanders”; and to call people who want to maybe tighten up our immigration policy “Gammons”; and to call people who are embarrassed about ladies maybe catching a glimpse of men weeing “TERFS” then we wouldn’t be where we are today? Because the Brexit supporters and the anti-immigration advocates and the gender denialists are famously moderate and diplomatic in their language towards us, after all.
I am in favour of civilised discourse. When there is a good faith difference of opinion, even a very strong one, there can usually be a good faith compromise. Not every bad piece of homework necessarily has to get an F: there are D’s and C minuses available. There is some old footage on YouTube of Jonathan Miller debating with Enoch Powell. They both clearly hate each other’s guts, but are managing to be civil about it. David Frost took the trouble to ask Oswald Mosley questions, rather than moving directly to a James O’Brien style interrogation. [3]
But if your opponent is a barbarian, I am not sure that you can have a civilised discourse with them.
Yesterday on Facebook a user openly posted “Fuck Ramadan” under a news item about a local mosque. It took Facebook less than two seconds to decide that this didn’t violate its rules about hate speech. On Threads, which was the site I escaped too when Twitter became—what Twitter has become —I saw someone complaining literally in so many words that he went to hospital and was seen by a “witch doctor” instead of a proper medic and that it’s the fact that we employ “primitives” that has created the NHS crisis. I have seen an AI generated video about what London will be like in twenty five years time. I am not going to describe it, but I do not think that I am exaggerating here, it is far more extreme than anything in Mien Kampf.
And yes, maybe, these people were more like a little puppy dog yapping and biting than someone with an actual point of view; more like a little boy pulling his knickers down to get a rise out of the big folks than an actual exhibitionist.
But can it really be the case that children are only naughty because grown ups have told them they mustn’t be? Can I really not call these people out? Do I really have to say that the person who thinks when the Islams take over the streets of London will literally flow with shit has a perfect right to express his legitimate concerns?
Racism doesn’t exist.
What’s the reason?
Because when it exists, liberals think it is not very polite to call it racism.
[2] No one at any time told anybody that they couldn’t display the Union Flag or wear a Poppy or say Happy Christmas. Birmingham is not under sharia law; praying is not illegal; pub landlords do not have to employ PC inspectors and if you say you are English, no-one comes and throws you in jail.
[3] “So. Bit of a Nazi aren’t you? Are you a Nazi? It’s a simple question. A Nazi? Are you a Nazi? Are you a Nazi? Are you a Nazi?”
On Threads, which was the site I escaped too when Twitter became—what Twitter has become —
ReplyDeleteAh, well, there's your mistake, you see. If you must go for a Twitter ersatz, go with Bluesky, I say. Much less of that sort of thing. (Then again, I suppose you have an ethnologist's interest in seeing some amount of that sort of thing.)