We thought that we were done with the whole class system – the world wars put working class people with all democratic trappings on the same level as the aristocracy and middle classes. But it seems that the progress that had been made is regressing into a different kind of class war.
The new classes are, amongst many others: militant feminists; Pro-Palestine Action; LGBTQ+ etc. ; religious adherents; influencers; bloggers; fashionistas; ‘Green’ (but not necessarily with particularly consideration for the environment); Anti-Zionist; Pro-Lifers and antisemites.
These groups can be further identified by their exclusive interpretation of leadership – normally centred around one, or very few central figures who act as the High Priest of their tribe, dispensing ideological judgement.
There are also the ideological followers, who often belong to different tribes but claim exclusive fiefdom over the natural inhabitants. You will also notice surprising and contradictory groupings of people pretending to be from backgrounds they are not to acquire some kind of moral legitimacy, who do not hold true to their own gospel and whose circumstances often mean that they are under no pressure to submit to the very commandments they espouse.
The press lead public debate with a curious emphasis on such tribes. To exemplify the nature of asymmetric reporting: there are, according to the 2021 census, around 0.5% of the population who were trans or non-binary. There is a similar number of people in the UK who suffer from blood cancers (like lymphomas); imagine what the impact would have been if combatting the third largest cancer killer in the country had received the equivalent press for as long as trans issues have received – might a cure have been found already?
Likewise, Muslims account for around 6% of the population or around 4 million people, while there are around 4.6 million people who have received a diabetes diagnosis – while the condition is barely mentioned in the public domain.
Any citizen can contract cancer or diabetes, but they appear to be deprioritised in favour of other causes. It should be emphasised that many proponents of these causes often only espouse a cause in their own interests and in fact the groups of citizens that they claim to promote neither seek nor encourage such preferment.
The most peaceable and therefore successful periods in human history have been where people have put their differences to one side and dedicated themselves to work together for the common good, as has been the case generally since World War 2. The generation that lived through that conflict managed to agree for a period that finding differences to pick over, emphasise and fight over is not conducive to a harmonious existence. And the ultimate end to a harmonious existence is open conflict.
Many of the ‘classes’ mentioned actively seek to emphasise divisions in their own interest and to claw their way into the public consciousness and for a greater share of the limelight. Once there, their adversarial narrative makes any debate fundamentally tribal – it is not tolerated that you can be influenced gently by their opinions, you are either part of the solution (an adherent) or part of the problem (a heretic).
If only anything were so simple. The clear contradictions in these ideological arguments are studiously circumvented – this is why accommodating debate is shut down, because the cause would not stand up to usual conversational scrutiny, therefore such attention needs to be cancelled.
As life is demonstrably more nuanced than narrow ideology prescribes, the electorate therefore should take more care in believing the siren voices, however loudly raised, which suggest that they have all of the answers from one narrow perspective. These ideologies are instantly disproven by their lack of nuance, of context, of practicality – if anything was that simple, someone more intelligent would have done it already.
The idea of disparaging the many in favour of the few is distasteful and should be rejected as manipulation. There can be no ‘chosen ones’ in a liberal economy, particularly illiberal liberals who will brook no contradiction.
We have become used to this sense of tribalism. It mainly emanated from the BREXIT conversation, where many observers and citizens developed a habit of retreating into their own views and being unable to see any other person’s perspective. They saw their own views as ‘right’ and everyone not agreeing as ‘wrong’.
This has been replicated in the actions of the establishment, which has since noticeably operated on the basis that the referendum result was incorrect (and the choice should not have been offered to the plebs in the first place) and therefore by hook or by crook, this inherent error (as it is seen) needs to be subverted.
One could previously argue that the old class system had at least some practical reference, a developed version of the feudal system where the upper classes were also land and factory owners, therefore the people were inherently subservient in that system. This has notably changed though, with upward mobility a hallmark of the last century despite, rather than because of the many left-wing adherents with various plans to ‘level the playing field’ (also known as getting their own slice of the financial action).
For government to assume the rank of the former feudal aristocracy defies credibility though, as fewer normal people are prepared to run for office due to entirely unreasonably expectations in some respects (they need to both a social media poster person, charismatic in person, largely infallible by essentially doing nothing inviting any criticism), but also impervious to unprioritised and mainly uninformed or unfiltered criticism. This has the effect of driving many experienced and sensible candidates out of office and attracting those with pseudo-theological ideological conviction, an absence of real-world experience and lofty narcissism. In other words, no principles or practicality. So what does such a ruling class have to offer the ‘greater good’, because their thinking is defined by ‘adherents’ and heretics, in a direct contradiction to how the system is actually supposed to work.
Factionalism is also reflected in the workings of parliamentary parties in recent years, which is even less legitimate than in general discourse. These factions operating within parties are rivals to a centrally held ethos and when arrayed against that ethos, directly contradict the wishes of the electorate who neither identify with nor vote for those unofficial groups. The ensuing chaos is baffling to the voting public, who expect partisanship between parties, but not adversarial behaviour within parties. This only emphasises the divisiveness of the political players at the current time and why the electorate is so jaded with this state of affairs.
As Jacob Ress-Mogg very eloquently argued recently in an interview, it is a fundamental vanity of politicians that they believe that they are voted into their seats for their own faculties. The truth is that the electorate will in general choose a party and elect the person representing that party in the constituency. Individuals can of course do themselves out of the job by being narcissistic, ineffective or unable to function properly in office.
The electorate needs to be careful, though, in this febrile era, when they choose a person to be their MP on the basis of their perceived personality, in reality what they are actually voting for is their party – whether deliberate or otherwise, with all that this entails. There are no accidental choices at general elections, only unforeseen ones. Beware the pied pipers – particularly if they make it sound easy, have no plan and they do not care to work for the greater good.