Is Democracy Exhausting?

Perhaps the circumstances will have to involve our self-image shrinking to the point where we see ourselves as ‘just another country’ - a small fish in a big pond ?

For obvious historical reasons England (mostly) remembers the last 500 years, when it was an important world player - for a time arguably the most important world player. A consequence of this seems to be that our politicians still don’t think of themselves as ‘running things as best they can’ and trying to ‘future-proof’ against the much larger forces which actually determine the global political/economic weather. Instead they feel that they still are one of those forces and that if only they push hard enough then they can change the weather. Any politician whose aim is to muddle along, accepting that what happens will really be determined in Washington or Beijing or Berlin, will find the Daily Mail readers giving them the bum’s rush. So the system attracts those of a pushy, competitive, forceful disposition and that spills over into every aspect of political life.

The recognition that external forces are the biggest factor in life encourages co-operation - there’s nothing quite like an enormous threat for binding people together. Maybe it’s easier to recognise that you’re a tiddler when your economy is 39th (GDP) or 60th (PPP) in the world Economy of Denmark - Wikipedia than when it’s 5th or 9th ?

VB

Yeah, I get the history. bit, though I reckon you forgot the 60 years of post-war decline

I do know what you mean though: for reasons which entirely escape me, pillocks like JRM can blag their way through a host of softball questions, swatting them away an air of imperial superiority , depsite that very smugness having done so much to land ‘us commoners’ in the shit. Likewise, i don’t understand those who buy certain papers which fill them with lies entirely apposite to what are their interests.

Still. Our Proud History © isn’t enough to explain our being so f’kin obtuse. “We have a great history so we don’t do supranational” doesn’t seem to have had an effect in Germany & France (also on wikipediea, check em out) nor Spain or Poland. All the recent hoo ha about Customs unions somehow ignores that has sod all to do with EU and everything to do with the WTO. History buffs will spot a few familiar names on the member list. But that’s wading into Brexit territory, which is covered elsewhere

Anyway, whether it’s post-empire delusion, the right wing press feeding a myriad of lies, a socioligcal ‘englishness’ that avoids the politics of pragmatism (at ome, at least: it was once our foreign policy) … I don’t really know. While very few people these days idenitfy with a political party as in the days of old, the 'right 7 wrong fundamentalism hasn’t gone anywhere, And mores the pity.

Jokers to the left, clowns to the right. Democracy is looking rather easy at the next election unless someone provides a “none of the above” box.

I didn’t forget the 60 years of post-war UK decline. It coincides with my life. My point was that the UK’s political institutions aren’t dealing realistically with it yet.

Germany, right, I checked Wikipedia and it says their history as a unified nation only goes back to 1871. This was immediately preceded by the Austro-Prussian War in which two of the 39 independent members of the loose ‘German Confederation’ actually fought one another. Since 1871 they’ve lost a world war, had a period of hyper-inflationary economic collapse, lost another world war and then been radically divided for 30 years or so by an Iron Curtain. It seems to me that history explains rather well why they’re not stuck with the imperial and nationalist baggage that the UK is.

As for France and supra-nationalism … you know, maybe it’s not a coincidence that Chauvin was French. Off the top of my head I can think of very few nations who are less prepared to ditch their own interests in favour of the views of others. North Korea, perhaps. Israel. One of the best examples of European supra-nationalism was the agreement that the organisation’s government institutions would be based in Brussels. After all it would be comically big-headed to insist that the parliament, say, traipse around from country to country just so that everyone’s ego could be massaged. So all the members were prepared to forego their own national interests and have the proceedings take place in somewhere relatively small and neutral. Well, nearly all the members.

VB

Quite. Only 1 in 10 associate themselves with a mainstream political party now. And yet I can count on one hand the politicians who dare to appeal, to be different, to speak something resembling truth without dogma.

On-message-ness plays a huge part, but is nothing compared to what the mainstream media dishes up and which sets the tone of debate. The ruling / managing class do their plucky best, despite the scourge of single moms / benefit cheats / immigrants / the EU … the list goes on.

I’d wager that the vast majority of politicians know full well that our system has become dysfunctional to the point of being not fit for purpose, but saying it and - moreso - doing something about it is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Perhaps VB is right:

…but even if he is, and - say - Brexit becomes so toxic to those who had their fingerprints on it, will this in itself be enough to change the level of debate, make decision making more open and inclusive (and I don’t mean in the Corbyn sense), and have us as a society see past the demonizing yah-boo in the morning papers and demand more of our leaders? I’m hugely unsure of that.

4 Likes