Is the US going the way of the Soviet Union?

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Slowly, seemingly inexorably, the U.S. is becoming more like the former Soviet Union. Just to begin the list of similarities: too many resources are being devoted to the military and the national security state; too many over-decorated generals are being given too much authority in government; bleeding-ulcer wars continue unstanched in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere; the infrastructure (roads, bridges, pipelines, dams, and so on) continues to crumble; restless “republics” grumble about separating from the union (Calexit!); rampant drug abuse and declining life expectancy are now American facts of life. Meanwhile, the latest U.S. president is, in temperament, authoritarian, even as government “services” take on an increasingly nepotistic flavor at the top.

Given the list of symptoms, here’s one obvious 10-step approach to the de-sovietization of America:
1. Decrease “defense” spending by 10% annually for the next five years. In the Soviet spirit, think of it as a five-year plan to restore our revolution (as in the American Revolution), which was, after all, directed against imperial policies exercised by a “bigly” king.
2. Cut the number of generals and admirals in the military by half, and get rid of all the meaningless ribbons, badges, and medals they wear. In other words, don’t just cut down on the high command but on their tendency to look (and increasingly to act) like Soviet generals of old. And don’t allow them to serve in high governmental positions until they’ve been retired for at least 10 years.
3. Get our military out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and other war-torn countries in the Greater Middle East and Africa. Reduce that imperial footprint overseas by closing costly military bases.
4. Work to eliminate nuclear weapons globally by, as a first step, cutting the vast U.S. arsenal in half and forgetting about that trillion-dollar “modernization” program. Eliminate land-based ICBMs first; they are no longer needed for any meaningful deterrent purposes.
5. Take the money saved on “modernizing” nukes and invest it in updating America’s infrastructure.
6. Curtail state surveillance. Freedom needs privacy to flourish. As a nation, we need to remember that security is not the bedrock of democracy — the U.S. Constitution is.
7. Work to curb drug abuse by cutting back on criminalization. Focus instead on providing better treatment programs for addicts. Set a goal of cutting America’s prison population in half over the next decade.
8. Life expectancy will increase with better health care. Provide health care coverage for all using a single-payer system. Every American should have the same coverage as a member of Congress. People shouldn’t be suffering and dying because they can’t afford to see a doctor or pay for their prescriptions.
9. Nothing is more fundamental to “national security” than clean air and water. It’s folly to risk poisoning the environment in the name of either economic productivity or building up the military. The citizens of the former Soviet Republics still struggle with the fallout from the poisonous environmental policies of Soviet days.
10. Congress needs to assert its constitutional authority over war and the budget, and begin to act like the “check and balance” it’s supposed to be when it comes to executive power.

(William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor, published in TomDispatch regular. His personal blog is Bracing Views)

What can one add to this positively Epicurean set of answers to the American dilemma? Living in the nation’s capital the problems Col. Astore outlines are painfully evident, even if some people will have near-apoplexy reading them.  It sometimes takes an outsider to clear-headedly analyse the problems.

 

 

Lying and cheating

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Lying, says the New Scientist, is a vital, smoothing part of the social fabric. We develop the skill young: most 3-year-olds will lie quite naturally when it suits them. The average UK adult admits to lying 10 times a week – even if these tend to be little white lies, like inventing reasons for not answering a phone call.

Robert Feldman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of “Liar: The truth about lying” says that shifty eyes or showing anxiety – behaviours commonly associated with lying – aren’t consistent indicators. We are hopeless at detecting lies, for a good reason. “Most of the time we assume that people are telling us the truth. It’s really cognitively exhausting to always be assessing whether other people are telling the truth or not,” says Feldman.

The best liars are “natural performers”, says Aldert Vrij, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth, UK. They “exhibit behaviours that observers associate with honesty, such as making eye contact, smiling and smooth speech lacking in ‘ums’ and ‘ers’, even when they are lying”, he says. Many successful liars also mask signs of thinking hard – and it seems good-looking people are more likely to be believed when telling fibs, along with lovable rogues (e.g Clinton). Human beings are also adept at serious deception, such as creating Ponzi schemes and leading double lives, and good at keeping secrets, compartmentalising our lives, and developing different personas at work and at home. ( adapted from part of a New Scientist series  of articles on human behaviour).

I think lying has to be looked at and judged by the motivation of the liar.  What  I would call fibbing  convincingly is an important skill that greases the wheels of friendship and social intercourse.  How many times have you, say, received a present that makes you groan?  Does the normal, civilised person blurt out his or her dismay? Are you really honest if you go to a dinner party where the food is awful and the host performs a two hour monologue?  No, to these and a thousand other social embarrassments or dilemmas, you feign delight and proffer thanks in  order not to offend.  This behaviour is so pervasive and normal as to be common sense. Life would be most unpleasant if we all told the unvarnished truth all the time.

Lying starts when you deliberately lie to someone over a major matter in order to avoid punishment, legal entanglements, and the desire not to offend becomes a desire not to end up in a police cell.  It is all a matter of context. You certainly cannot have a successful marriage or keep a job for very long if you are consciously deceiving the other person to protect yourself .  Epicurus, who believed in openness and getting on well with everyone around him, would have said that honesty is the basis of friendship, the ability to hold nothing back and  to do so with charm, a smile and an apology where necessary. You shouldn’t have to lie to a real friend, or to a member of your family.

 

 

Is Corbyn really all that different from Blair?

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Sorry for yet another long post on British politics. This will be the last one for a while, I promise. Starting with this Sunday’s Best of the Week, I’m going to be less political for the time being. 

Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters love to differentiate themselves from the legacy of former British prime minister Tony Blair, and to a lesser extent, his successor Gordon Brown. For the so-called ‘Corbynites,’ Blair represents neoliberal economics, an aggressive and even neo-imperial foreign policy agenda, as well as social policies which were excessively tough on crime and invasive of privacy.

Now by no means are Blair and Corbyn exactly the same. There are plenty of differences between the two, the greatest of which is that Blair places far greater faith in the international world order, and its capacity to bring peace and prosperity to the world. For Blair, supranational institutions like the IMF, the EU and NATO are crucial to ensuring a stable balance of power amidst the rise of new superpowers such as China, India and Brazil. For Corbyn, these institutions represent Western overreach. The West should not be trying to impose its values on the rest of the world, as to do so would be a form of post-colonial oppression. Corbyn also sees supranational institutions as products of global capitalism, which try to impose neoliberal economics on individual nations, particularly in the developing world.

But in many ways, Corbyn and Blair are actually quite similar, particularly relative to the general population. The obvious area of similarity is immigration: they are both vehemently pro immigration. Perhaps for slightly different reasons- Corbyn’s defence of immigration is essentially humanitarian and rights-based, whereas Blair would place a greater emphasis on the economic case for immigration. But both are very comfortable with Britain’s increasing multiculturalism, they both see a more multicultural society as an inherent good.

Immigration is just one example of both men’s social liberalism. Both support rights for homosexuals and the transgendered. Both are pro-choice on the abortion issue, though Blair’s Catholicism may affect his personal views on the matter. Both seem to support constitutional reform, and aren’t as wedded to the monarchy, the House of Lords or other aspects of the British constitution that could be seen as anachronistic. Corbyn has gone as far as to say he would consider legalising marijuana.

On economic issues, Corbyn is seen as being to the left of Blair, and this is largely true. But the two are far closer than either would like to admit. Far from being a Soviet-style communist, Corbyn is essentially a passionate social democrat. Labour’s manifesto didn’t promise to abolish the rights of inheritance, nationalise the means of production, or anything else genuinely Marxist. The vast majority of Labour’s policies- renationalising the railways, raising levels of corporation tax and healthcare spending to the OECD average, making universities free- would be seen as centrist or even Christian Democrat in most of the EU. Equally, Blair is much further to the left on the economy than Corbynites perceive him. He rapidly increased government spending in almost every area during his tenure. Particularly on the NHS and education, Blair increased spending at a far faster rate than what Corbyn proposed in 2017. In fact, the only discernible difference between Corbyn and Blair on economic views is that the former sees public ownership of key utilities as vital, the latter views the issue of ownership as secondary to having appropriate regulations and ensuring fair competition.

What unites Corbyn and Blair above all, is that they both see themselves as being on the right side of history. They believe that they are on the side of social justice, along with the likes of civil rights activists in America, the pro democracy advocates in the Middle East, and the anti-apartheid fighters in South Africa. For both, a sense of moral duty comes before loyalty to one’s country. It is why both have talked to the IRA and Hamas despite them being terrorist organisations that hate Britain and its alliance with the United States. This is a profoundly unconservative disposition. Its why I’m very uncomfortable with Blair being labelled a ‘Red Tory,’ I believe his outlook on life is fundamentally different. Corbyn and Blair believe history is a progressive teleology towards greater freedom and social justice. They may perceive the means by which justice should be attained; Blair believes the West ought to spread the Western notion of freedom around the world, by force if necessary, whereas Corbyn would rather a desire for justice emerge organically in the polities of the extra-European world. But the progressive ideology is at its heart the same.

The common outlook of Corbyn and Blair has as many weaknesses as it does merits. One the one hand, it’s perfectly reasonable to place ideas and values above nationalism, which both men see as a bourgeois tribalism. Both men are acutely aware of the need to prioritise human rights and basic human needs in politics, even if it means violating national sovereignty- which neither man rightly sees as absolute. Their view of history is comforting in its optimism, even if the recent rise of authoritarian populism and illiberal democracy around the world would lead one to believe that such optimism is misplaced. Similarly, both men may be too positive in their view of human nature, which is far more self-centered and parochial than anyone in Labour would like to admit.

The crucial flaw in the mentality of Corbyn and Blair is that they both believe there is such a thing as the public interest. Both men’s policies are aimed at pleasing everyone, which in reality, isn’t possible. Corbyn is slightly better than Blair in this regard. The Labour manifesto in 2017 admitted that the top 5% of earners would have to pay more taxes if the welfare state and public services are to be sufficiently funded. But the manifesto also included middle class giveaways such as free university tuition fees and subsidised social care for everyone, not just the poor, because Corbyn was trying to please everyone. In reality, this can’t be done. University graduates, who will earn more, will benefit from free tuition fees at the expense of those who don’t go to university. Regarding taxes, far more people will have to pay far more in tax than Labour admits if they are to fund everything they want. Most significantly, Corbyn’s deliberate fudging of Labour’s Brexit position will come back to haunt him: Remainers will be angry that Labour wants to leave the Single Market, and Leavers will be angry that Labour doesn’t want to reduce immigration. If Corbyn were truly honest, he would admit that you can’t please everyone and take definitive positions in the class war and on Brexit, rather than pretending there’s a common ground we all share.

Blair was just as bad. He increased public spending rapidly, claiming it was in the public interest. The reality was that the new spending wasn’t evenly distributed. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and to a lesser extent London and the North, got the vast majority of the new funding. The rural South and Midlands were left with relatively little. At the same time, the effects of the Thatcher-era deindustrialisation were allowed to fester, while the expanding financial sector was a boon to the richer parts of London and the commuter belt. This created two economies with very different interests: one half of the country that loved all the new spending and in some cases, devolution, but ultimately lacked private sector growth. And another half, that grew wealthy from financial deregulation, but resented the unnecessarily high deficit and public spending that was being intentionally directed elsewhere. Rather than uniting the country, Blair made it even more divided than when he first came to power.

Finally, it would really help the Labour Party if both men admitted how much they had in common. It would unite the party behind the common cause of promoting the public interest, even if in reality it can’t be done. Freed from the politics of internal division, Labour could operate with frightening effectiveness. Faced with a hopelessly divided and ever-incompetent Conservative Party, achieving power would be relatively straightforward. But as ever, the issue of Europe may prove to be their downfall. Blairites are unlikely to unequivocally support a movement that backs leaving the Single Market, which they see as crucial to the doing business with ease across borders. And however privately, Corbyn views the Single Market as a Thatcherite, neoliberal construct that prevents Britain from being a true socialist nation. Britain’s unique degree of Euroscepticism is not only dividing the country as a whole, it is dividing every major political movement within it. Given that the Article 50 clock is ticking fast, the country’s future is looking as gloomy as ever.

Best of the Week #7

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As a continuation from last week’s post, I thought recommending fewer posts but analysing them in more detail would be a good idea. Today I have selected an interview with David French, a columnist for the American conservative National Review magazine, about Trump and the general state of the Republican Party. https://www.vox.com/2017/7/13/15958230/donald-trump-jr-russia-collusion-republican-party-david-french

French is remarkably honest here. He admits that the rise of Trump is largely due to the failings of the Republican base. The start of the interview mentions how Republican senators have been disproportionately cautious in their views on Trump’s collusion with the Russians; French concedes that were it Hillary Clinton accused of collusion with a foreign power, Republicans would be nowhere near as tepid. French is scathing in his critique of how the Republican Party failed to stand up to Trump- partly by underestimating him during the primaries, but particularly by using him as a means to advance legislation once he was inaugurated. However, French is without hope. He believes young Republicans are especially anti-Trump and anti-authoritarian, so a genuinely conservative candidate will have a chance, if nothing else, due to demographics. But for now, Trump has taken over the Republican Party, which is why and how most Republicans still express confidence in him.

I appreciate French’s critique here. It isn’t easy to go to a liberal website to attack the party you have supported your whole life. French understands that Trump is fundamentally immoral in his  political and personal conduct, and isn’t willing to overlook that for the sake of advancing a few conservative goals. French even goes as far as to believe that the short term victories Republicans will make now will come at the expense of future electability. By associating conservatism with Trump, Republicans will tarnish their brand as the various scandals of the Trump presidency come to light.

Having said that, even as a conservative, French’s condemnation of Trump doesn’t go far enough. He fails to acknowledge the role Evangelical Christianity played in Trump’s rise and continued popularity amongst Republicans. Prominent Evangelicals like Pat Robertson have given their full support to Trump. Moreover, Trump selected Mike Pence to boost his popularity amongst Evangelicals. Nor does French admit Trump’s appeal to the instinctive nationalism of most Republican voters. The ‘America First’ rhetoric of the Trump campaign may have appeared bellicose and protectionist to Republican elites. But to ordinary Republicans, it was music to their ears. Equally, Republican politicians are far more pro immigration than their voters, which is one of the reasons Trump, as the most anti immigration candidate, won the primary. Part of the problem with the Republican Party is that most Republicans don’t adhere to what French would consider conservatism. Instead, they believe in a crude form of nationalism. It doesn’t matter to them how much the government spends, it is who the government looks out for. Most Republicans believe the internationalist outlook of both Democrats like Bill Clinton and Obama, and also Republicans like Bush and McCain, was somehow a betrayal of ordinary Americans. This explains Trump’s anti foreign interventionism, but also his aversion to free trade and mass immigration.

French has fallen victim to the American two party system. Under a proportional voting method, French could set up a genuinely conservative movement, and gain a considerable amount of support that would be reflected in the number of seats the party would win. But in a two party system, the likes of French have no choice but to win the Republican Party back from the Trump supporters. Considering that Trump’s ideology is more in touch with ordinary Republicans than the likes of Rubio or Kasich, an anti-authoritarian Republican Party that can appeal to young people is very unlikely to materialise.

The interview itself is quite long, but I would strongly recommend reading the whole thing. Ultimately I lean to the left on most issues of American politics, and so cannot concur with everything French says. But it is good to read views from the other side on occasion, particularly when they are being as frank as David French is here.

Dark humour

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This morning’s post was depressing, so I am reporting something sort-of funny:

Opposite our flat there is a huge building site which is to have too levels of parking space below it.  Because our own building is old and a bit vulnerable we had a detailed survey done of it as a precaution  in case the demolition, digging etc damaged the building.

The final report on the existing condition of our building arrived recently, and I read it through quickly, noting the zillion hairline cracks they had documented.

I said to our surveyor, “All these little cracks are a bit scary, but I guess they are just settement cracks.  We get to be really worried when we can see daylight through them”.  He replied, “Or, as we say, when you can shake hands with your neighbour through the crack !!!”

 

 

 

The ignorance cannot be exaggerated

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In a poll 35% of Americans thought Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act were different policies or didn’t know if they were the same or different. (New York Times)

Few Americans are accurately informed about what is going on politically at home or abroad. They are told Obamacare is “bad” and should be scrapped, but are quite supportive of the Affordable Care act that offers help to people with pre-existing conditions and healthcare to their young sons and daughters. These are people who are not taught about the Constitution, and have little knowledge of American history. We are told that few people read newspapers any more, on line or not;  those who keep up with events increasingly rely on social media, and we know how reliable that is. I don’t think you can have a democracy if the population is ignorant and doesn’t care. But, of course, we don’t have a democracy; we now have rule by oligarchy, and a frightening number of people don’t know what “oligarchy” means, nor do they seem to care.

The America we thought we knew no longer exists.

(Reading this through again I thought  ” for heavens sake find something cheerful to say!  The daily drumbeat of bad news makes one want to tune out completely, and we have a duty not to do that”).

Britain’s failing old people’s homes

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One in three nursing homes has failed its official inspection in results described by the care watchdog as worrying and by the government’s care minister as “completely unacceptable”.
The Care Quality Commission said that of 4,000 nursing homes, which care for the most vulnerable people at the end of their lives, 32% have been rated inadequate or require improvement and 37% have been told they must improve safety.  Of more than 1,800 inspected more than once since 2014, 26% were subsequently relegated to “requires improvement” or even “inadequate” after initially gaining a rating of “good”.

Inspectors making unannounced visits to care homes found medicines being administered unsafely, alarm calls going unanswered and residents not getting help to eat or use the toilet. Some residents were found to have been woken up by night-shift care workers, washed and then put back to bed, apparently to make life easier for staff.  The inspection results suggest that thing have got even worse for people with dementia in recent years.

Andrea Sutcliffe, chief inspector of adult social care at the Care Quality Commission, which carried out the inspections, said such practice showed a fundamental lack of dignity and respect. She admitted disappointment that only one in 50 of all care services had managed to achieve the top rating of “outstanding”.

The picture for nursing homes was the most worrying, Sutcliffe said. “Many of these homes are struggling to recruit and retain well-qualified nursing staff and that means that this is having an impact on delivering good service, she said.  The commission would shut down failing homes that refused to improve and try to improve training and recruitment.

On top of this there is a growing crisis in the national nursing workforce, which is shrinking amid discontent over pay and workloads .  State spending on social care, has been cut by a cumulative £6bn in England since 2010.

By size, small care homes and homecare services emerge far better than large ones – three times as many large care homes, with 50 or more beds, being judged inadequate or requiring improvement than small ones with up to 10. Smaller homes are often better at the personal touch and at retaining experienced staff. Without adequate funding, it was no surprise that care providers are being forced to cut corners.

My comment:  For a long time I was responsible, with my wife, for the care of. an elderly second cousin who reached 90 and who had had cerebral palsy all her life. We managed to keep her in her home, and at that time, could ask the local council to send teams of two in every day to get up, give her breakfast, lunch and dinner, and make her comfortable and put her to bed.  Amazing service. That system no longer survives.  Today she would be in a none- too-clean, sparse nursing home, sitting all day with the TV blaring, and with little, or no attention.  These homes are run by untrained people who seem to take the unwelcome job in desperation.  Many are immigrants with no other options. Others are bullies, or at least unsympathetic with the elderly.

If the sign of a civilised country is how it treats its elderly then we are failing.  It doesn’t help to hear the drumbeat of criticism from the younger generation that the elderley are sopping up the government resources at their expense.  It’s a fair criticism, but are they advocating ignoring the old and infirm who are ailing and have no one else to care for them?  In the old days the aged were cared for by the family, all the family, young and middle-aged.  That was unfortunately in the very old days.  Are we too engrossed in social media and don’t, deep down,  have empathy for those who cannot care for themselves?  I just don’t know.

That dreadful arbitration clause

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A U.S Federal consumer watchdog agency has issued a new rule that will prevent credit card companies and banks from requiring customers to agree to settle disputes by arbitration rather than going to court.  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explained:

“Hundreds of millions of contracts for consumer financial products and services have included mandatory arbitration clauses. These clauses typically state that either the company or the consumer can require that disputes between them be resolved by privately appointed individuals (arbitrators) except for individual cases brought in small claims court. While these clauses can block any lawsuit, companies almost exclusively use them to block group lawsuits, which are also known as ‘class action’ lawsuits.”

CFPB Director Richard Cordray said the current rules “make it nearly impossible for people to take companies to court when things go wrong.” He said the new rules would “stop companies from sidestepping the courts.”. The requirement is set to take effect in 60 days.

The Associated Press notes: “Consumer advocates have been pushing for years for stricter federal regulation of these types of clauses. But the move is likely to face pushback from the banking industry and the Republican-controlled Congress.”  (NPR website , July 11, 2017)

The arbitration clause is a little mentioned disgrace, but an important brick in the structure of the American oligarchy (or Rule by Corporation).  How many people read the almost unreadable bit of paper that comes with your new credit or debit card, and which you are deemed to approve?  Deep in the tortured wording you will find that the the financial organisation you are dealing with insists that all claims against the company are dealt with, not in the people’s court of law, but by a three judges, usually appointed by the company itself.  The result?  Well, you can imagine. Statistically most cases are found in favour of the financial company.  Class action suits, which can cost companies large amounts, are barred.  Congress has allowed this burden on the consumer for obvious electoral fundraising reasons.  You can be sure that the Republicans will kill the civilised rule if it can, along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau itself.  Nothing must stand in the way of profit!

Is this really wise?

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Back in the 1990s, people thought Jeff Bezos aspired to run an online bookshop. They badly underestimated the scale of his ambition. Today, Amazon sells everything, and offers an array of other services, from cloud computing to TV streaming. In the US it accounts for 43% of online retail sales and 74% of e-book sales; and it is about to become the biggest clothing retailer. Now it has bought Wholefoods and its 400 stores hoping to dominate the food market too. Its monopoly power is growing more alarming by the day, yet the regulators say they can’t intervene because consumers – who benefit from Amazon’s cutthroat pricing – are not being harmed by its dominance. How shortsighted is that? (adapted from an article by John Naughton, The Observer)

This number of stores doesn’t match the 5000 owned by Walmart, but such is the energy and attention to detail of Jeff Bezos that in ten years who is to say that Whole Foods, under Bezos won’t be the most powerful food retailer in the US, and maybe even the UK?

I am a suporter of Amazon, whose delivery service is second to none. However, every time I order from them I involuntarily think to myself, ” You are helping the establishment of the most all-encompassing monopoly the world has maybe ever known”. And then I click “Order”! ( hypocrisy is not unknown to the writer). I have a feeling that, were he alive today, Epicurus would support (honest ) competition and deplore monopolies that usually end in tears, resentment and lousy service. He would, above all, advocate moderation.

 

Mental health and stress

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The following is a contribution from Sally Perkins of senioradvisor.com.  She contacted me on the subject of stress, which was a  matter of concern to Epicurus, who laid particular emphasis on the importance of peace of mind:

https://www.senioradvisor.com/blog/2016/08/the-many-negative-effects-of-stress-on-health/.

“Mental health is a topic that’s growing in importance around the world. From mental health of young school aged children, to that of the elderly often left alone by family and the authorities, it’s becoming more visible and increasingly enters political discussions.  With increased pressure on children from testing, to the rushing around working adults must do, not to mention the displacement of people that appears to be contributing to terrorism, it’s a surprise it’s taken this long for mental health to be a major issue.

“But, with so much importance placed on saving money, cutting staff and coming in on budget, it’s no real wonder that elderly people are beginning to really feel the pain of that combination. After all, too much time alone and not enough support, is a sure-fire way to make people begin questioning themselves and feel stressed and ill as a result.

“Stress can be induced by many things and leads on to serious physical or psychological illness. Check out this guide which further discusses the impact of stress on mental health “

The pitfalls of social media.

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As I mentioned on last week’s Best of the Week, life in the modern world is a constant bombardment of information. Part of this is intellectual information like news stories, books, or if you’re still in education, lessons- things which are good for you but can be nonetheless hard to remember. But another aspect of information bombardment is social information, constantly and efficiently delivered to us via a myriad of electronic devices.

As a society, we convince ourselves that we need to be constantly informed of our friends’ various activities. If an associate has been on holiday, entered into a new relationship or passed their driving test, we must know as soon as possible. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with mild curiosity. The problem arises when we spend inordinate amounts of time being concerned about the lives of others, when we really ought to be principally concerned with those immediately around us, not the hundreds of people we see online.

One of the problems of social media is that is misrepresents what people’s lives are really like. You generally only see the good aspects of life: weddings, parties, the birth of a new child, graduation ceremonies. The other parts of life- funerals, divorces, the ending of friendships- are seldom prominently displayed online. This gives the impression that your friends are all having wonderful lives, which may make you feel more inadequate about your own. It’s no surprise that social media has contributed to people feeling increasingly depressed and insecure. In some extreme cases, girls will have a radical makeover in order to make their online pictures prettier. More common is the feeling that if your posts did not get as many positive reactions as the posts of your friends, you are unpopular or a social outcast.

Social media can thus often regress into a crude popularity contest. Although there is no explicit competition, people feel the need to increase their online presence. At school, some people would try to add as many friends onto their Facebook profile as possible, even if they barely knew the people they were adding. As with all competitions, there are winners and losers. The winners will get a temporary happiness, believing that their relatively high online status means they are a better person. But such happiness is fleeting. Partly because the desire for a greater following is largely insatiable. All of a sudden, having 200 followers on Instagram isn’t enough, you have to have 300. For the most part, there is no end point where people are satisfied with the degree to which their online activity is felt.

However, for the losers from the social media competition, the whole affair  often makes them miserable. Like the winners, they may also spend large amounts of time on social media. The difference is that there is no reward for them. Their social media activities feel more like chores than a form of entertainment. A classic example is journalists, who nowadays are more or less required to be on Twitter. They may post links to the fantastic journalism they write on Twitter, only to be disheartened when their following pales in comparison to a superfluous celebrity or model.

That is my biggest problem with social media. It largely rewards those who ought not to be rewarded, and ignores those whose work ought to be given greater recognition. Celebrity gossip and the private lives of the rich and famous get a vast amount of attention. Meanwhile, the plight of the world’s most vulnerable goes largely ignored, except for perhaps some left wing activist saying how much they care. Meaningful, insightful and unique analysis of the world we live in is scarce. There is hardly any attention paid to science, even as science has done so much to improve our lives. Academic figures, researchers and analysts are cast aside, perhaps because their work is seen as stuffy, dull, or incomprehensible. Instead, talentless musicians, pointless famous figures and idiotic politicians (Trump, Boris Johnson) steal the limelight. Bellicose nonsense fills the social media news feeds, while the real issues remain unknown.

Perhaps this isn’t the fault of social media, which after all, is only a tool with no agency of its own. At the end of the day, social media is only a reflection of how broken our society has become. It reflects our obsession with image, particularly the image of women- one of the biggest manifestations of misogyny of our age. It shows how wilfully ignorant we all are, preferring idle gossip to truly relevant information. Often the anonymity of social media shows the brutal side of human nature, with cyber-bullying, ‘trolling’ and violently prejudice views presenting themselves all too often. It is far easier to make a racist remark behind the safety of a computer screen, than to be racist to a person’s face.

I think the only solution to all this is to decrease the prominence social media enjoys in the modern world.  The stigma against the non-use of social media must end. Especially for young people, no one should be described as ‘weird’ or even ‘different’ for not being on a particular platform. Those who choose to use social media should use it less often, and not as a substitute for proper sources of information. Part of the reason for the decline of journalism is that social media is gaining popularity as a source of news at the expense of professional news sites. Not only does this decrease the quality of information, it also makes it less balanced. Instead of people reading a variety of viewpoints, people increasingly only read viewpoints that concur with their own. Newspapers must regain the significance they once had, even if it means us all paying more money.

Having said that, I’m a strong believer in personal responsibility, including how you conduct yourself online. If you choose to waste your time arguing with strangers on Twitter, that may be very unfortunate. But at the end of the day it is your decision, and you will suffer the consequences. We cannot blame social media companies for our misuse of their products. Instead, a fundamental culture shift is required. Social media’s users should value talent, intelligence and moderation, and shun the frivolous, the attention-seeking and the belligerent. Epicurus was no loner. But he valued meaningful and intimate conversation. He would have viewed the vile cacophony of modern social media with total disapproval.

Best of the Week #6

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First of all, I must apologise for posting this late. I’ve had a very busy weekend, so tiring in fact that I fell asleep that 9pm Sunday evening, just as I was about to start writing this. I’ll post my usual commentary later today as well.

I wanted to use this week’s Best of the Week to outline my views on the university tuition fees debate. As I outline in my summary on the views of young people in Britain (http://hanrott.com/blog/the-mood-of-young-people-in-britain/), most young people are left wing, particularly when it’s in their economic interests to be so. Thus, it should come as no surprise that most of them want tuition fees abolished and government spending on higher education increased.

The classic conservative objection to the abolition of fees is succinctly argued by Katy Balls (https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/jeremy-corbyn-talking-uneducated-nonsense-tuition-fees/). She points out that contrary to the predictions of tuition fee opponents, working class students are applying to university in ever-higher numbers. But because most students who go to university are still middle class, abolishing tuition fees would essentially be a middle class subsidy, not a redistribution of wealth the way socialists often claim it to be. Moreover, Scotland has abolished tuition fees, and working class Scots are actually less likely to attend university than their English counterparts.

For Jonn Elledge, the class dimension of tuition fee policy is beside the point. (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2017/07/maybe-scrapping-tuition-fees-would-be-regressive-perhaps-we-should-do-it). What matters is that public policy over the last two decades, but particularly since 2010, has overwhelmingly favoured the elderly. The generosity of pensions and other benefits for the retired has increased. Meanwhile, young people have borne the brunt of austerity, the tripling of tuition fees being one of many such examples. It doesn’t help that young people are naturally disadvantaged economically anyway, because they don’t own as many assets, don’t have as much in savings, earn less and are more likely to be unemployed. So abolishing tuition fees wouldn’t reduce the inequality between the classes, but we should do it anyway because it would reduce the inequality between the generations. It’s worth nothing that generational inequality manifested itself in the 2017 general election, where age was a far more reliable predictor of voting intention than class: middle class young people voted Labour, working class elderly people voted Conservative.

I find myself largely agreeing with Balls  here. I accept the conservative argument that abolishing tuition fees would be a middle class subsidy. I also accept that British universities may be more expensive than their European competitors- which often don’t charge tuition fees at all- but they are also a lot better. I don’t want to fall into the trap of demanding as much government funding as possible for my own interests. If we all did that, the country would be bankrupt. So I accept that given the reality of limited resources, it makes sense to use public expenditure as progressively as possible, not shower more money to those that don’t need it.

Having said that, the logical conclusion of the conservative argument would be not to subsidise universities at all. If spending money on students amounts to a middle class subsidy, then why not cut higher education spending even further? After all, shouldn’t those that benefit from a service pay for it? Of course, we can all see that this argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Virtually everyone accepts a compromise between making education affordable enough for both individual students and wider society. So if we are going to spend money on higher education, the money should be targeted at lower income students. The Educational Maintenance Allowance, a grant to help poor students with their living costs, should be reintroduced. There should also be more scholarships for talented young people from working class backgrounds. I also accept that the poorest students should be exempt from paying tuition fees.

On a visceral level, Elledge’s point about the need to rectify generational inequality resonates. As young person myself, I understand the levels of disillusionment and hopelessness amongst my generation. But where I disagree with him is that I don’t think young people would be happier if only the government gave them more money. What young people really resent are the lack of opportunities available. Making university a viable option for the poorest students is certainly a crucial aspect of expanding opportunity, but it is not the whole answer. Instead of increasing spending on middle class students, the government should invest more in other forms of tertiary education- apprenticeships, vocational qualifications, training programmes. Under all of these proposals, anyone good enough to go to university will be able to, regardless of their income. Middle class students would be paying for something that would result in higher earnings later in life, addressing conservative concerns of excessive government spending. At the same time, working class students would have more opportunities than ever before. If they decided to go to university, it would be more affordable than it currently is. If they decided against it, there would be more investment in alternative career paths.

The American police – and guns – are out of control

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From Peter Gardner, Blawith, Cumbria, UK

“Carrie Arnold describes the scale of gun-related deaths in the US (6 May, p 22). Not only is it horrific, it is ridiculous and unnecessary.  The finger of blame usually points at the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which, according to gun defenders, enshrines the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. But this is at best a misunderstanding, at worst a deliberate misrepresentation that ignores the full wording of that amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
That right is clearly not absolute; it is conditional. Indeed, John Paul Stevens, an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1975 to 2010, suggested the addition of five words to the amendment: “when serving in the militia”. Until a sufficient body of concerned US citizens and politicians come to accept this conditional interpretation, the senseless slaughter will continue.”

Meanwhile, police are frightened and, as a result, are trigger happy. Some are maybe racist, but mostly the shooting is sign of fear and nervousness It takes the slightest suspicion to elicit gunfire from them. One has to admire one thing – their aim. They can sure fire straight – at teenagers, young black men, anyone who looks Hispanic or Moslem, or just isn’t old and white – who knows. If you are in America and encounter a firearms incident, throw yourself on the ground, arms straight down and still by your side, don’t make the slightest move. The fact that you are a free citizen will not make any difference if a police officer sees as much as a sudden movement.

This is what the. twisted reading of the Constitution has wrought – mayhem on the streets, and elderly ladies carrying loaded pistols in their pocket books. I don’t know whether the people who advocate for all these guns, including lawyers and politicians, personally make money out of the sordid trade, but the effect is the same whether they do or not – mostly innocent people gunned down in the street, either by drug lords or police. It is not only stupid to allow people to have military weapons and ammunition, it is, in my opinion, immoral. The death rate is equivalent to a full scale international war, with civilians the only casualties. Epicurus would put us all down as totally bonkers.

 

The other side of the red tape and regulation debate

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To The Guardian
The Right hates regulation and red tape, but this ideological hostility only seems to extend to relieving big business and the private sector. By contrast, the last three decades have seen the public sector crushed under regulatory burdens and tied up in red tape, often in a bizarre attempt at making schools, hospitals, the police, social services and universities more efficient, business-like and accountable. Talk to most doctors, nurses, police officers, probation officers, social workers and university lecturers, and one of their biggest complaints will be the relentless increase in bureaucracy imposed by Conservative (and New Labour) governments since the 1980s.
Instead of focusing on their core activities and providing a good professional service, many front-line public sector workers are compelled to devote much of their time and energy to countless strategies, statutory frameworks, regulations, codes of practice, quality assurance procedures, government targets, action plans, form-filling, box-ticking, monitoring exercises, and preparations for the next external inspection.
A major reason for public sector workers quitting their profession, taking early retirement or suffering from stress-related illnesses is the sheer volume of bureaucracy that Conservatives (and New Labour) have imposed during the last 35 years. This bureaucracy, almost as much as under-funding, is destroying the public sector, impeding efficiency and innovation, and driving front-line staff to despair.
Pete Dorey, Bath, Somerset

Everywhere in the Western world right wing politicians focus on shrivelling public sectors.  A relative of mine, a successful head teacher, chosen to be parachuted into failing schools and put them right, retired early because the red tape was overwhelming the management of schools.  This is a barely concealed effort to make public education so unworkable that variants of private education-for-profit can be substituted.  There is nothing wrong with public education that cannot be corrected by allowing teachers to teach conscientiously and, in doing so, allowing them to  live on liveable salaries.  The turnover of disillusioned teachers cannot be good for children, and nor can the low pay.  Without education our future is grim.

A return to Victorian sweatshops?

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Are robots about to make us all redundant? That’s today’s big scare story, says Sonia Sodha. But it’s a “dangerous distraction”. The real threat to the labour market is that many workplaces, far from becoming too “futuristic”, are reverting to “quasi-Victorian labour exploitation”. The recent revival of our garment industry, for example – tight turnaround times for “fast fashion” means production has to be local – has seen the creation of 20,000 jobs in the East Midlands. But the workers, mostly migrant women with limited English, have to work in “sweatshop-style factories” and are denied basic employment rights. Nor can they afford to take their unscrupulous employers to employment tribunals, since hefty tribunal fees were introduced in 2013. It’s a similar story in more high-tech sectors, such as logistics: here, technology is being used not to replace workers, but effectively to turn warehouse staff into robots: fitting them with tracking devices; delegating all their decisions to computers. It’s not the march of the machines we should fear – it’s the emergence of a “two-tier labour market” in which vulnerable workers are denied their rights and their dignity. (Sonia Sodha
The Observer  The Week, 24 June 2017)

It is to counter such-like cruel and inhuman practices that we have the dreaded “regulations”.  Businessmen snd politicians are forever complaining about rules and regulations, and it is true that some of them are onerous.  In Britain everything is blamed on the EU, but the fact is that health and safety, to name one area of regulation, is an industry employing over 30,000 Brits. Yes, 30,000!  What are they all doing? Well, in my (limited) experience they are dreaming up fresh restrictions on business and blaming the EU ( fact, in one case known to me).

In any case, while there may be regulations that do impair businesses, mostly they are rules that protect the young and the weak,  ensure safety at work and on the roads, enforce rules regarding holiday and pension entitlements, prevent maltreatment of the elderly in care homes, and a host of other things that make the country a civilised place to live in.  Unsupervised, too many unscrupulous businessmen will  take advantage of their workers, car manufacturers cheat on emissions, and trucks will run over old ladies.  Can we shut up the greedy wing of industry and its political shills and keep as much civilisation as is possible?