2024 Election thread
Comments
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I think that is underplaying the degree to which people can be led by a narrative that gives neat answers to complex and chaotic situations. I'm not sure it's 'big' people so much as ambitious people who are good at utilising and directing vague public sentiments and dissatisfaction towards their own specific ends. Brexit is a pretty good example of this.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
You are saying exactly the same as me, but you don't concede that having the wrong mouthpiece is like opening a particular door for people to walk through.
Nazism didn't happen because of the people, it happened because of Hitler. The people didn't decide to exterminate Jews, they just tolerated the policies until it was too late, because it allowed them to socially acceptably vent some modest resentment for a while.
As I say above, our national discourse towards Europeans has changed in the past years from minority grumbling to mainstream xenophobia. If you can't see the danger of having a major UK party even further to the right normalising that sort of thing to an ever great extent, you didn't pay enough attention at school and you aren't watching closely enough now.
So, yes, great to have these feckless pillocks out. But temper the street parties and watch what creeps into the void to the right of British politics. Fascism almost happened in the 1930s here, so we aren't immune.
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Lol you’ve not understood what I’ve tried to say if you think we agree and then go on to say nazisim happened because of Hitler and not because a big chunk of people thought that way anyway.
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Your information processing is lacking if you draw that conclusion from what I have said.
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I fear we are heading towards an I studied this and you don't know what you are talking about phase of discussion here.
People are gullible because we are social being who want to conform (not me personally, obviously, I'm above all that). People are also faced with binary or trinary political choices, and so can be lead as a group down a path much further than any would go themselves by people with more extreme views.
It is a bit insulting to Germans to suggest that the voting population "caused" Nazism. It came into being around them gradually. The didn't vote for it, they just went along with bits of it and stayed in the pan too long while it was being brought to the boil.
RCs thesis also doesn't even stand any modern test, e.g. the Russian public's evolving views on Ukraine, in the face of relentless propaganda.
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I will briefly (and only briefly) dip my toes in this. Times change and people change.
My Dad for example will do precisely what he is told by anyone in a position of authority without question.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
"Lol"
There, I've won.
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I read it as him saying that Hitler gave them someone to form themselves around. The people were there that felt that way, suddenly they had someone in power saying the same and giving their view legitimacy, The more mainstream that opinion becomes the more people are then prepared to voice opinions public pressure has forced them to repress previously.
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Pretty much. People get carried along with movements as well. Or we wouldnt have things like "fashion" or "football fans" or "Christianity".
I have to be honest, flipping it around to some "will of the populous" concept sounds like some trendy uni historian having too much time on their hands, or needing a new take on things to boost their RAE rankings.
Not that different to an opinion piece really.
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I don't think the two ideas are mutually exclusive. Nor do many things have one simple explanation. If anything you need both the underlying public attitudes and the people to utilise it for things to move. Europe has never had to look very hard for a bit of antisemitism.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Indeed.
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I do not think people are that gullible and I think they your reach for my theory being “a bit insulting to Germans” is probably why people don’t like to believe it.
I don’t think it is *because of propaganda* that Russians are ok with the Ukraine invasion. I think the propaganda works because they are already broadly in favour.
You have to look at the structure of power and consent and once you realise we are all have discretion over our decisions, then you realise that politics reflects our society much more than you’d like. What information you choose to take on or discard is a conscious act.
For the same reason you do not care to take what I say seriously, because you don’t agree with it (which is fine by the way) is the same reason people only listen to leaders they agree with.
I think ultimately people don’t like this because it’s too uncomfortable.
and yes, I am pretty comfortable “insulting” collective Germany in the 40s for the holocaust. Duh.
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Nah, people don't like the concept because it doesn't reflect their experience of human nature. There's a fair amount of overlap with what we are all saying, but the emphasis you are giving is not realistic.
And absolutely some people are gullible and malleable, and will, for example, buy wholeheartedly into trendy new takes on history.
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humans are tribal
the 'other' tends to be viewed with suspicion, even after generations if there's any identifying characteristic, they are still not of the tribe - black/white, hindu/muslim/jewish/buddhist/christian, protestant/catholic, sunni/shiia, lgbt etc.
when there're local problems - lack of housing, unemployment, plague, famine, whatever - there's opportunity to exploit this and blame it on the 'other'
once enough people go along with it, acceptance of even nonsensical accusations is normalised, it's a path to power for those exploiting the situation, the mass can become a mob, dissenters are 'enemies of the people'
once people have bought into the lie, it's hard to admit gullibility/error and get off the bandwagon, momentum takes it from there, dehumanisation and persecution follow accusation, we've seen it's a very short journey to 'normal people' willingly participating in mass murder - i.e. rwanda, myanmar, kosovo
immigrants/foreigners are an easy target, firing up the gullible to think brexit would solve that was easy, of course it turned out that it was nothing to do with being in the eu, and entirely to do with the incompetence of the government, but hey ho
the 'west' has failed to address the problems created by mass displacement of large numbers of people, whether by conflict, environmental, or economic factors, plus in some cases the clear idiocy of allowing mass legal immigration from former colonies
the resulting immigration levels give populists an easy target to exploit to gain power, there's no sign of that changing
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0 -
Going back to Germany in the 1940s. What proportion of the population as a whole do you "blame", out of interest?
I mean, I'm assuming not all? Most? Or a minority?
By extension, do you see the minority who voted for Boris to blame for a hard Brexit, or are we all guilty for not doing more to stop it, even those who voted for something else entirely? If the latter, what would that have looked like exactly?
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If you’re interested, you should read the Nuremberg trials. They’re quite revealing.
It’s important to remember people do this stuff. People vote, people murder, people fight, the volunteer, they resist, the do everything.
I chose not to believe everything thing that comes out of Putin’s mouth. Trump does. It’s a choice. Everything is a choice and we are individually and collectively responsible for our choices.
The idea those in charge can compel the masses without some consent from a significant number of people is just nonsense.
And so it is true of this government and of governments. There is a reason “countries get the governments they deserve” is a truism
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Makes me wonder why no Cambodian had a quiet word with Pol Pot.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
Sorry is there a point in there somewhere?
Some people do some things. All people don't do all of those things.
I get the point about complicity, but it doesn't appear to take into account how people with no influence behave, or need to behave to fit in (or, in extremis, not be on the receiving end themselves).
Probably you are summarising something far more nuanced, but either you aren't and it's silly, or the summary is abitshit.
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They deserved him, apparently.
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Ultimately it is a disagreement on where we think power comes from. (eg does the Tories lurching right make the British voting population more right, or are they trying to reflect the type of voter they want to go after).
I think the media and the government are too self important to be accurate around where power does lie, and I think a lot of people believe that there are a handful of people who actually decide everything unilaterally (and so absolve themselves) rather than considering why those people have been given the power in the first place (because they reflect what a significant portion of the population want).
That’s all. I don’t believe it woz the sun that did it and I don’t believe that the Tories getting whacked for not reflecting what people want, either in policy or execution, will somehow make people decide to be more right wing.
The transcripts leaked about Fox News and their entrapment with Trump are so illustrative - they lost viewers in the truck load if they didn’t back Trump.
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That's a pretty elastic definition of consent.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Actually it's more a disagreement about the term "power" I think.
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What’s wrong with that? For every person being made to do something, there is someone making them do it.
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Some of you may be in a similar situation on Friday morning.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
Oh my god that's broken the irony meter.
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Well yes, completely. Political parties are like fishermen. The don't put nets down and persuade fish into them, they put the net where the fish seem most likely to go.
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Well there's a surprise.
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