Israel, Europe, and the corrosive effects of nationalism.

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This week’s post is a response to an article in The Spectator published just a few days ago, in which Seth Frantzman argues that the European right increasingly resembles its Israeli counterparts. He writes,

“For Israelis, Europe’s political landscape is looking increasingly familiar. Whereas Israel was once seen as something of a political backwater, nowadays it’s European politicians who seem to be gazing across to Israel for inspiration. Those on the right are leading the way: from Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders to Austria’s Norbert Hofer, this group of populist politicians are tending to see in Israel’s brand of nationalism a model for their own. In January, Le Pen spoke of a ‘patriotic spring‘ of nationalism in Europe; she went on to say that ‘we are experiencing the return of nation-states’. And who better to provide inspiration for that than Israel?.” (https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/04/will-european-politics-look-like-israels-future/ for the full article) 

Frantzman’s analysis of the European right applies with equal relevance to America’s conservatives. Both the European and American right no longer believe in constitutionally limited government, free markets, a high moral upstanding of its leaders, or an aversion to utopian fantasies. Instead, they increasingly share the Israeli right’s preoccupation with security, nationhood, borders, and creating an ideal world regardless of the circumstances, or the size of government. For the European and American right, this involves a plethora of unobtainable ideals. Some want to bring back industries inevitably lost to globalisation, technology and the need to combat climate change. Some believe in preserving ethnic homogeneity, even at the expense of the talent businesses and universities need to compete in a global economy. Like the Israeli right, many have developed an unhealthy obsession with Islam, and believe the West is at war with Islamic civilisation, not just Muslim terrorists- this position is about as absurd as declaring war on Catholicism based on the actions of the provisional IRA; Muslim terrorists are motivated more by political ideology than religious doctrine. They all believe in vastly increased conventional defence spending, even when there’s no evidence that it will make us more secure. They all also portray themselves as representatives of ‘the people’, branding their political opponents as unpatriotic or traitors. In Europe and Israel, the right employs the use of welfare chauvinism, promising to defend the welfare state against both excessively cosmopolitan ‘neoliberals’ and foreigners who they think are undeserving of the state’s generosity. This applies less so in America, where reducing the welfare state is more of a priority because it is seen to enrich racial minorities and immigrants at the expense of ‘real’ (white) Americans. But on the whole, Trump, the European right and the Israeli right don’t have a theory of the proper role of government, only of who it ought to benefit.

Like Frantzman, I’m concerned by this trend. I appreciate the Israeli right faces a series of challenges and circumstances Europe and America’s conservatives are happily unacquainted with. The country is surrounded by largely hostile powers. Israeli society has been hardened by the experience of war, frequent terrorist attacks and a seemingly unresolvable territorial dispute. The country is more religious than most of Europe and America, which can lead to grassroots dogmatism on a variety of social issues. Iran’s funding of Hamas and Hezbollah, and its desire to acquire nuclear weapons remains a concern, though it isn’t the national emergency Netanyahu alleges it to be, nor would ripping up the Iran nuclear deal make peace more likely.

Having said all of that, the ideology and behaviour of the Israeli right is inexcusable. It openly opposes a deal with the Palestinians, disregarding conservative realism in favour of the ludicrous vision of a ‘Greater Israel.’ It espouses an exclusionary form of nationalism that results in discrimination against non-Jews. It is blasé in its attitudes towards the livelihoods of the Palestinians, portraying any form of concern as unpatriotic and a plot to destroy Israel. It is also disingenuous in its employment of the wider Middle East security situation to justify occupation of the West Bank in perpetuity. Now I’m not for a moment suggesting that were the Israeli right to disappear, there would automatically be peace. Nor am I letting the Palestinians off the hook for their crimes. The point is, the actions of Israeli Left, the Palestinians, Iran or anyone else, cannot possibly justify an extreme nationalist ideology based on Torah literalism, the wilful denial of Palestinian self-determination, and conspiratorial paranoia over what constitutes a security threat.

Every democracy needs competing political parties. On one side, there needs to be a party concerned with the welfare of the working class, and those most disadvantaged under a capitalist system. But there also needs to be a party sceptical of government. The reality is, governments are highly flawed and clumsy organisations that can make social security horribly inefficient and wasteful. Historically speaking, the most oppressive institution has been government: having a legal monopoly on violence, governments have carried out terrible atrocities, from the Holocaust to the Gulag. As a result, there needs to be a centre-right scepticism of (though not obstructionism to) government programmes. Ideally, these parties would also hold basic liberal values in common, such as a belief in secular government, freedom of expression and a dedication to the rule of law- both domestic and international.

As Europe and America’s political makeup increasingly resembles Israel’s, we are getting further away from this ideal party system. The right is no longer doing its proper job of holding government to account, preferring to obsess over national identify and a belligerent militarism, justified by portraying foreign countries and people as far more hostile and dangerous than they really are. This new right is perfectly happy to expand the size of government to achieve its goals. In Europe and America’s case, it involves more military spending, the construction and over-enforcement of borders, government regulation of the social issues (tellings Muslim women how to dress or gay people who to marry) and protectionism against the EU’s four freedoms, particularly people. In Israel’s case, it also involves more military spending, as well as a government-subsidised housing programme in the West Bank and dependence on American foreign aid. Regardless of the immorality, not making a deal with the Palestinians will end up costing more money in the long term; the Palestinians’ reluctance for a just deal doesn’t justify a bloated and callous Israeli government.

To end on a more positive note, nationalism, be it European, American, or Israeli, need not necessarily be harmful. In Israel, there is an immense amount of civic pride in the nation- its history, culture, and achievements- be they political, scientific, technological or economic. It’s true that there isn’t enough focus on the country’s past crimes, though the same could be said about almost anywhere else. But humans are an incredibly social species, for whom identity is important. Too often, the liberal left has sneered at patriotism, believing it to be parochial, ‘bourgeois’, or inferior to a European or other supranational identity. This attitude is unsustainable, and will inevitably lead to a backlash. To survive as a credible political force, the left will have to embrace a degree of civic nationalism, while rejecting the xenophobia of the populist right. But if the left can inject some Israeli-style optimism, pride and confidence into the largely beleaguered nations of Europe and North America, the future will be a good one.

For next week’s post, I will be taking some requests, so please comment if you want me to cover any topic (it doesn’t have to be political.)

The die is cast. There is now no going back.

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Rend your clothes, put on sackcloth and pour ashes on your head. Prime Minister May has actually done it. I had hoped that sober minds might, at the last minute, prevail and steer the government away from a long-term disaster that probably means the break-up of the UK as well as weakening Europe. But alas, she has done it, “it” being to formally tell the EU that Britain is leaving.

Now we are faced with the British government’s so-called “Great Reform Bill”, which, as I understand it, writes all applicable EU law into the British statute books in preparation for dismantling it at leisure at a later time (the mind boggles!). I would suggest that another name for it is the “Return England to Obscurity” bill.

Before Julius Caesar, Britain could be viewed through the mist and rain from across the Channel, but no one knew much about it, except it had some tin mines and was populated by Angles. It was otherwise deeply unimportant. Brexit takes us back to England in the days of the Roman Republic, or, alternatively, to the 14th Century, when the whole English GNP was approximately the same as the province of Anjou, and the people running it were totally clueless barons.

Within my own lifetime Britain had an empire (admittedly on life support) stretching around the world. Even before I can think of dying stupid, out-of-touch politicians will have reduced the country to within the borders of England (losing Northern Ireland to the Republic might prove the sole bonus), while lonely businessmen wander the world begging for a chance to sell things – anything – now that our best and closest market will offer no advantages.

Meanwhile, internally, those who voted to Leave will find that they have been shamefully misled. The Poles and other trained Continental workers will still be there (the corporations will see to that), but the rights and safeguards for the people will have been dismantled. The only people to have won will be the corrupt foreign money launderers and dubious multi-millionaires, bribed by the British government to relocate to London in return for derisory tax rates. Outside the South East we can look forward to no investment, fewer jobs, lousy public services, declining health and more poverty. This will happen over the ten years. The current reasonable economy is a temporary mirage.

This is how “great” Brexit will turn out to be, along with its accompanying legislation. As in the US, the population is being subjected to one of the most outstanding con jobs in history.

Epicureans can extract little ataraxia from all this, but we have to try.

Do you consider yourself to be a rational person?

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The vast majority of people are religious, which generally entails belief in a supernatural entity or three. And yet amid the oceans of religiosity are archipelagos of non-belief. Accurate numbers are hard to come by, but even conservative estimates suggest that half a billion people around the world (and counting) are non-religious.

But scientists who study the cognitive foundations of religious belief, think that atheism is only skin-deep, and that we are basically susceptible to superstition and quasi-religion. This is because we “have some core intuitions that make supernatural belief easy for our brains,” says psychologist Ara Norenzayan at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

One core intuition is the ability to think about and intuit other people’s thoughts, which is very useful, but which also tricks us into believing in disembodied minds with mental states of their own. The idea that mind and body are distinct entities also seems to come instinctively to us. Throw in the tendency to seek cause and effect everywhere, and see purpose where there is none – and you can see why the human brain is susceptible, not only to religion but to ghosts, spiritual healing, reincarnation, telepathy, astrology, lucky numbers and Ouija boards. These are almost as common as official religious beliefs; three-quarters of Americans admit to holding at least one of ten common supernatural beliefs. With all this supernatural ability filling our heads, atheism and scientific materialism are hard work. Overriding inbuilt thought patterns requires deliberate and constant effort.

Many experiments have shown that supernatural thoughts are easy to invoke even in people who consider themselves sceptics. Asked if a man who dies instantly in a car crash is aware of his own death, large numbers instinctively answer “yes”. Similarly, people who experience setbacks in their lives routinely invoke fate, and uncanny experiences are widely attributed to paranormal phenomena. The supernatural exerts a pull on us that is hard to resist. If you’re still under the illusion that you are a rational creature, that really is wishful thinking.  (Adapted from an article in New Scientist).

I can’t speak for anyone else. Maybe the author is right. What I can say for myself is that I had a deeply religious period when I was 16 and 17. Then, one day, I realised that I had been very unhappy (at school) during that period. Once on the school’s first rugby team, a school prefect and accepted at the university I wanted, the whole religious sentiment dribbled away. I had used it, unknowingly as a prop. Nothing wrong with that. Useful, actually.

As a follower of Epicurus I try to be polite and don’t think it nice to undermine good, kind, generous beliefs of good, kind, generous christians, jews, moslems etc. Epicureanism is a tolerant belief; it just doesn’t think much of the supernatural.

Management-speak

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These days everyone “talks a bit like a management consultant”: it’s symptomatic of the growing “professionalisation” of ordinary life. Thanks to blurring work-life boundaries and the rise of the “self-help” industry, we increasingly view our lives as “projects in which excellence needs to be achieved” – and can be, with “the right toolsets”. Hence the prevalence of management jargon in “unlikely quarters” such as the nursery: the sphere of “parenting” (itself a “verbification” of the sort so loved by business) has produced “baby-led weaning”, “co-sleeping” and “attachment-parenting”.

Is management jargon necessarily a bad thing? Some words, such as “stakeholder”, are genuinely useful if the only alternative is a lengthy phrase. Moreover, jargon has uses beyond simple functionality. In a work context, it can “convey the impression of legitimacy, boost confidence and gain the attention of others”, argues André Spicer in his new book, Business Bullshit. Perhaps we hope the same is true of our increasingly professionalised social lives. (Rhymer Rigby, The Times).

Personally, I think it arises (“like” as all the students say every ten seconds at the university nearby us) out of lazy-mindedness.  The naive think fancy phrases and gobbledegook make them sound smart and with-it.  Actually, it comes across as displaying a poor vocabulary, maybe a tenuous grasp of grammar, and a desire to obscure the issue with long words.  Somebody who just spouts business jargon opens himself to the charge of being tedious and boring.  He (she as well) needs to understand that with a little bit of effort he can capture the attention of an audience with an original turn of phrase, a harmless joke, a smile, a little charm and a different, arresting approach.