These characteristics are not just about ideology. After all, not many people are familiar with John Stuart Mill or John Locke. They are about political stability. In a stable society, people are not coerced into holding particular opinions or using particular language. This lack of coercion is a critical factor in maintaining social stability.
Often underestimated, is the importance of achieving balance between tradition and modernity. Revolutions are invariably counter-productive. They are succeeded by counter-revolutions which are often more bloody and violent than the revolution itself.
Me Too, BLM have gone too far
In liberal democracies, policies evolved. We hang on to what we are familiar with and gradually change when need arises. Technological change, social evolution and economic necessity can all be drivers of change. But as that change takes place, it is important that tolerance and patience is exercised by the promoters of change for those more comfortable with the old ways.
We need to hang on to our tradition of moderate governments of the centre right or the centre left.
One of the reasons a majority of Britons voted for Brexit was they didn’t like the way their traditional way of life and their customs which had evolved over centuries were being cast aside by integration with the European Union. They had pride in their customs and traditions and wanted to hold on to them for as long as they were workable.
These time-worn traditions of liberal democracy are now being challenged, particularly in the English-speaking world. Perfectly reasonable campaigns for social and political equality have overreached and are causing deep social tensions.
The #MeToo Campaign started with a perfectly reasonable proposition. Women should not be subject to sexual harassment and abuse. Where this was happening those practices should be brought to a halt. But this campaign has started to go too far. The accused are found guilty before the evidence is considered in a court. At the very heart of the liberal democratic legal system is the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty. Just declaring in the media someone is guilty is not only morally unacceptable but is likely to generate over time an ugly backlash.
It’s the same with the Black Lives Matter campaign. Of course black lives matter just as much as any other lives matter. Of course people should not be abused on the basis of their race and they should not be subject to discrimination.
But this movement is starting to go further. It is starting to attack people who are not black and call them privileged and supremacists. That in and of itself is also racist. As is pushing for affirmative-action programs.
Indeed the whole concept of identity politics is deeply damaging. Where once we did all we could to bind the country together around common values, the proponents of identity politics are dividing us up on only one basis: race.
People have many characteristics, not just the colour of their skin. Some are clever, some diligent, some good at sport, some like to read, some have technological skills, some have creative instincts. These matter much more than their race.
These days people like to quote Martin Luther King. They are quite right to do so. He was the man who said that people should be judged by the content of their character not the colour of their skin.
Identity politics is racist
The proponents of identity politics do not judge people by the content of the character: they judge them by the colour of their skin.
Advocates for newspeak are trying to coerce the general public into using approved language. Anyone who does not accept this coercion is ridiculed and metaphorically tarred and feathered.
The agents of coercion are now going further. They are saying we should not be allowed to watch classic films such as Gone with the Wind or enjoy the Fawlty Towers episode known as “Don’t mention the war". And it is particularly sad to see that in London authorities have found it necessary to board up a statue of Winston Churchill, the man who almost single-handedly engineered the defeat of fascism and racism in Europe. And it is deeply offensive that the Cenotaph, which remembers the lives of all those who died fighting for liberal democracy in two world wars, should be boarded up to protect it from extremist demonstrators
I have been very struck in recent weeks by the anecdotal evidence that a quiet reaction is brewing to this assault on liberal democratic norms. In Australia, the initial reaction is “we’d better not say anything, because we will be attacked for being politically incorrect”. In a sense, people are frightened by the heavy hand of coercion.
And here’s the danger. The extremes of the left who are finding a louder and louder voice will come up against the mainstream. The mainstream will reject them but in doing so themselves turn to populist politicians.
This is what has happened in America and explains how President Trump was elected in the first place over a number of more moderate and intellectually gifted Republican primary candidates.
And once the left force the mainstream into this kind of reaction they themselves will become more intense and more extreme. This is the danger for liberal democracy.
In Australia, we have a centre-right government which in all manner of things is moderate. We need to hang on to our tradition of moderate governments of the centre right or the centre left and turn our backs on the extremist politics of racial profiling and identity and language policing. The media have a very important role to play in that.
"danger" - Google News
June 14, 2020 at 09:00PM
https://ift.tt/2BZu5MK
Liberal democracy is in danger from the coercive left - The Australian Financial Review
"danger" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3bVUlF0
https://ift.tt/3f9EULr
No comments:
Post a Comment