Lordre: social

Showing posts with label social_change. Show all posts

Is the word "globalism" useful?

In a past article, it seems I violated one of my own rules by referring to what I called globalists. Why use a term that is seen as a dog whistle to the far right, or to the followers of fringe conservative radio shows (probably in America)?

Well, that's not what it is, really. Words come into use, and we may use them somewhat differently. But, if we should succeed in explaining ourselves properly and eloquently when making our case, it matters not.

Globalism-localism

The answer is that there are many terms referring to them same thing, and this one seems to be in increasing use, which makes it likely that someone will search for it online. One can speak of elites, or of internationalists, or of international capitalists, or of corporate interests. Such terms, when used in an accusatory way, are really referring to a class of people, an economic or social core, similar to but not the same as the beneficiaries in a global core-periphery relationship.

The "global" people are a core, the beneficiaries of global relationships in a global social network, whereas the "local" are the periphery in some way, the ones whom the perceived transnational elite are concerned with managing or benefiting from. All talk of whether you are good enough, or useful enough, or ought to behave in this or that way, is typical of a certain class of people to whom we are here referring. They assume that the world's population is somehow theirs to manage, and that this should be done according to their values, which is in stark contrast to those who believe their local cultures or national interests come first.

If you have a leader who, in trying to convince the people of their vision, becomes condescending about the attitudes and sensibilities of their people, and appeals to some sort of global reality or global change rather than the national or local realities, they may be a globalist. As such, it makes sense to speak of globalism and localism as the counterparts to core and periphery or to the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and this binary may be more helpful to any discussion of politics than the old binary of "left" and "right". Such a new distinction helps to explain the diversity of conflict and protest worldwide in a way that left and right do not.

Beyond left and right

Left and right have ceased to be very useful things that one can actually use in an analysis of a political conflict. Left simply refers to the publications, organisations and celebrities that label themselves as the left, and it is otherwise unidentifiable. Whatever they say is left-wing. In practice, the professed left may be aligned with corporate interests or capitalism, or it may be against them, as there is no real clear commitment to anything by those who use this label. The same applies to the right.

A 2020 study showed that political partisanship causes "cognitive inflexibility". I am sure it was found that when people are not allowed to see labels, names, logos, and faces, or to know who is talking (is it Biden or Trump?), they accidentally place their political allegiances all over the place and keep changing sides. In contrast, one can actually sort statements and rhetoric (not necessarily individuals or organisations) into the globalist and localist categories quite effortlessly, which makes these terms more meaningful when it comes to actually thinking about ideas and policies. Simply, is the candidate defending the people as they are and the idea that we should let them be, or is the candidate demanding they conform to some global, universal ideology or agenda?

On globalist conspiracies

A term is as useful as people can make it. This one, "globalism", is often applied in an annoying way. It tends to just be used by conspiracy theorists without any accompanying explanation ever being given, other than yet more conspiracy theories usually particular to whoever is rambling and not even common to the next user of the word.

The downside to using the term is simply the sheer volume of nonsensical or conspiracist discourse on the internet using the term "globalist", which could be an argument against using the term. Is it wise to get people into using a word that, when searched online, sends people into a pit of dissonance and gibberish and makes them less likely to understand reality? Perhaps not, but one can write in a clear way that continuously injects real meaning into the terms we use, which helps break the monopoly of those who want to talk rubbish.

When used as I have presented it here, "globalism" has a very simple, distilled meaning. It refers to no conspiracy, and yet it does not necessarily contradict those who have the conspiracy theorist mindset either.

The central part of the UK's identity, the constitutional monarchy, may be more beleaguered and unpopular than ever, and now it is willing to cede ground.

In an earlier post, I expressed doubt about whether removing the monarchy is likely or possible, and concluded that the population would not support this. However, they probably would not do much to stop or reverse such a change if it simply happened, either.

The point about our country being a reactionary power is more a comment on the status quo-supporting mindset of people in the UK than a good basis to judge how the future will go. Eventually, things do change. If things have changed by stealth, regardless of what wishes people expressed, Brits tend to support whatever new status quo we are up to.

Bad signs for the Crown

There are signs that the monarchy really is on a slow path into history's dustbin.

The British people would not vote to get rid of the monarchy. However, they may well do nothing about it diminishing and disappearing out of public view. For most people, there would be apathy about this.

The worst wound to the monarchy is the Prince Andrew sexual abuse scandal. Now that that this has ended in an out of court settlement, paid possibly by the Queen using taxpayer money, many see Andrew as certainly guilty. He will not regain his titles.

Rather than plough through popular objections, reassert the Crown with new images of splendour, and spend ever more lavishly on themselves, the monarchy is beginning to yield to common complaints. We see this in the promise of a "scaled back" coronation of Charles and Camilla. This concession, made for cost, is likely unprecedented, considering that each coronation in the past would have been made with increasing fanfare. It is astonishing that Charles does not see the the danger.

Has the monarchy chosen to fade away?

With monarchs, it is all or nothing, at least in the public eye. A frugal monarch who removed the diamonds from the Crown, out of humble submission to the crowd, is nothing much to respect, and the image of that monarch will be greatly diminished in many minds.

One can compare this to the way the Roman Catholic Church has slowly adjusted its doctrine with time, taking no firm stand, to accommodate modern sensibilities. Perhaps the Papacy too will begin to shed its wealth, overwhelmed at last by changing perceptions toward the privileged. In their case, too, there would come a point at which placation became capitulation and the core identity of the Roman Catholic Church was lost.

For these ancient institutions, reform eventually becomes the exit strategy from their own existence. Ironically, budging for the demands of critics and spending less lavishly actually makes it more likely that there will be calls for such institutions to be eliminated completely, as they will start to look shabbier.

Those who would have held on to these institutions for merely the image of splendour would likely be the last to leave. Were the monarchy to find itself in a position where it inhabited dull offices rather than palaces, it would not take long for these offices to be closed as well. In other words, the monarchy may gradually fade so that it is not in the hearts of the next generation or two, such that it just gets abolished and quietly buried without anyone noticing it was ever there to begin with.

Consequences less severe from slow change

The removal of the Crown should be steady rather than abrupt. Sudden abolition could have a destabilising effect in parts of the Commonwealth, creating a number of new republics that may not not know how to forge ahead. It may mean the end of the Commonwealth entirely. The effects will not be contained in the UK.

We also have the movements for independence in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Were the monarchy to diminish or disappear, these movements would grow increasingly strong and the country could dissolve into republics and federations, while Ireland may unite. In such an event, whatever the UK turns into should maintain the Westminster system of government, as the former colonies did, and maintain the palaces in their splendour as the Russians did.

Are better forms of governance really inevitable, and is progress itself inevitable? Thousands of years from now, will people still look at the ideas most people consider progressive now, and agree that they are so?

In a previous post, I talked about the British constitutional monarchy and how some feel now is the time to put an end to it. Yet some interpretations hold that there is nothing inevitable or even necessarily good about political and social change, and that in fact there is no clock pacing our civilization forward to a better time.

Reactionary science fiction

In Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, adapted to a movie in 1984 by David Lynch and again in 2021 by Denis Villeneuve, we are presented with a world apparently tens of thousands of years in the future. It is some fine escapism because so little resembles our world today. Nothing important, divisive or aggravating in today's society exists in that world. Even the Earth itself is a distant memory, never mentioned in any dialogue or being a passing thought of any character.

The characters in Dune are motivated by values that would be alien to most Western audiences, and affected by conflicts between ancient forces that will not exist for us for many thousands of years. They follow traditions that, to us, don't even exist yet or mean anything to us.

Despite how strange it may seem, the political system in the distant future worlds of Dune is very clearly based on our own past. Rather than advancing forward to increased liberty, inclusiveness and kindness, darker aspects of humanity have won out. Feudalism has made a return, with no mention of democracy. Capital punishment seems to be commonplace, as are torture, duels and assassination.

But is this regression really possible? Can values that protect the flourishing of a sovereign people indeed be forgotten and replaced simply with the base desire to rule as a monarch? What historical precedent exists?

It isn’t unusual for things to get worse

The best example might be the Greek and Roman civilizations. Each of them established a democratic order for a time. Both Athens and Rome, in their heydays, were determined to maintain a constitution that prevented the abuse of power. The Romans loathed the idea of a monarch, and yet the ultimate evolution of their system turned out to be an empire of absolute rule. This later developed into a system of absolute spiritual rule in addition to temporal rule, under the Emperor Constantine, once Rome turned Christian. Can that kind of social change, driven by such fervour, really be considered progress?

When the meaning of change, changes

The defining difference between the left and right in politics - the progressive and conservative - is their attitude towards whatever set of reforms and changes are the order of the day. It has nothing to do with a particular set of ideas, ideologies or values but simply one's response to whatever social changes are held to be new and pertinent at the time, by a majority of people. In revolutionary France, the advocates of harsh nationalism were also the ones advocating increased rights for common people. Nationalists were considered the political left, attempting to redefine the people as sovereign rather than the monarch. Opposing them. the political right were the defenders of the old order of the monarchy and the church.

As the classical liberal reforms and changes that were once considered revolutionary came to pass, they came to be accepted and written into constitutions such as the American constitution. They aged and became associated with a stable order. In becoming old, these once-revolutionary ideas that had been loathed and fought against by conservatives became the new order the conservatives would defend.

Many views of politics are stuck in the Twentieth Century, because of the dramas of the Second World War and the Cold War. They imagine the political left to be a static set of ideas, essentially socialism or Marxism as applied in the Soviet Union, and imagine the political right to consist of permanent defenders of classical liberalism’s old maxim of life, liberty and property. This becomes confused, however, when modern issues like those surrounding LGBT rights come into the picture, because those would fit into the right-wing ideology based on the above definition, yet are staunchly opposed by the American right because they are contrary to tradition. Tradition is really the main defining feature of the right, rather than a prioritisation of individual liberty. A person on the right merely advocates classical liberalism as tradition.

What constitutes tradition changes, depending on who won out in the previous struggle. In countries that adopted Marxist systems of government, youthful rebellion and subversion came to be associated with Western influence and capitalism. On the other side, in countries that maintained Western capitalism, change has been associated for a long time with socialist movements and the youth were drawn to them, even rallying behind Jeremy Corbyn in the UK before his downfall.

We all want to be a character in some special story

Whether or not something is held to be a form of progress is entirely dependent on what thing challenges the established order. If democratic governments were in power for long enough, revolutionary movements would quickly see something new and promising in the idea of monarchy and wish to reimplement it. Social change is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to make sense or be consistent with past change, and it is normal for it to be awful.

Left vs right, liberty vs order, is simply defined by generational difference and possibly even boredom with what came before. You could have a society with no faults, and the energetic next generation would still find ample things to complain about and try to alter that society into something possibly worse or less stable just so they can feel special in the attempt.

Nobody wants to live in the end of history, or to do nothing about their world. They all want their lives to feel like a story where the world was set right at last, even if this means they must advocate regression or simply nonsense to get that sensation.

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