We know from history that nationalism [read: jingoism] rises in cycles and usually ends in conflict. Once it was an easier model because minorities were just that - in the minority - so creating a common [read: beatable] threat. Throughout history - modern and ancient - there have been crusades, cleansing and genocide all in the name of a god or a cause [read: money].
Quatermass and the Pit was originally a TV series and then made into a movie with Andrew Keir as the eponymous scientist. It told of a strange craft found under a tube station in London, but eventually it veered off into a quite existential idea that half of humanity was gifted genes from Martians, while the other half weren't; so when an extraterrestrial invasion starts, half of the world is crazy and the other reasonable, understanding and non-violent. It's a bit of a SF classic and the author, Nigel Kneale, was responsible for a lot of prescient SF in the 1960s.
Could it be something as simple as genetics. Are some of us predisposed to being gits, while some of us are just pinko liberals and the rest sit somewhere between the two. You know, the people who campaign for cancer, MS, missing dogs and Library closures, but will repost some thinly-disguised racist BS, while not having a moment of cognitive realisation.
I'm most certainly not an angel because I place intolerance, right-wing extremism and hate in a prejudicial category much like some people put blacks, Asians, the disabled, the unemployed and gay people in and I have been known to attack these weak-minded, racists in much the same way they might have insulted someone else who's inside their own personal hate bubbles. The irony is these people can't see it. They cannot see that what is happening to them is what they do all the time to people who already feel they have to work harder than most to stand still. That's when backlashes start.
The cause is quite simple. Over the last 20 years, a good friend of mine (who has been active on line since the invention of the Internet) and I have talked about the changing face of the net. We've been quite prophetic at times in our casual email discussions and regularly, my Kent-based friend, has sworn that he's quitting the net because it has become like an unwelcome addiction (and many other reasons). The success story here is that when I first met this person, he was pretty much a Tory voter with a deep mistrust of Labour. I'm of the opinion that he's now pretty much as left wing as I have ever been and without wishing to insult millions of people, that's because he did more than just read his news feeds and social media. He did things like investigate claims, debunk myths and through his work, he discovered that we really do persecute the disenfranchised. He also discovered that he was a decent and fair man who could easily beat himself up about someone else's misfortune. I wouldn't call him a hand-wringing leftie like I'd probably call myself, at times, but he's one of the more decent human beings I have known.
He was the first person to signpost to me how the Internet is a very dangerous thing. Back in the late 90s when we first met, he was using a pseudonym and had arrived at my Yahoo Group with the intention of 'kicking off' about my then boss's rather lackadaisical way of responding to correspondence. He was, according to him, an angry young man, but within months he'd become one of my generals, policing the group and ensuring that in those pre-Facebook days, things continued to 'happen'. Over the years, he witnessed life through the fish-eye lens of over 500 comic fans, made many real friends and discovered a world that wasn't quite as he thought it was. The early days of the internet allowed people to be honest with each other in environments that didn't need falsifying. Yet, even by the turn of the millennium opportunists, scammers, spammers and infiltrators were on the rise. There wasn't much difference between a 'troll' and his original role of 'agent provocateur'.
Yahoo groups, noticeboards, such as Delphi and Usenet had 'moderators' who kept things clean and then kept things tight and then allowed their small kingdoms to create megalomaniacs who began their own agendas and yet maintained control because it was easier not to challenge what some people either liked or had no desire to argue against. So when Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the rest all appeared there was already a huge number of people who felt they could say and do anything they wanted while sitting behind a monitor or a fake moniker.
I'm a member of a Facebook group created in 2010 with a closed profile. It is a hidden group and cannot be searched through the Facebook database and fizzled out to maybe one post a year by the time I write this. It is innocuous and bothers no one, but because of its nature it could be used for all manner of incitement, subversion and mobilisation - no one else would know; it's secret, but it could have 200,000 members and be plotting the downfall of society. In many ways Facebook is the epitome of Internet freedom done commercially; it's more insidious than the Dark Web, more accessible and sits hidden in full view of the rest of the world. Some of the hate that pours out through Facebook is amplified beyond reason in hidden groups because I know people who have purposefully infiltrated some of these sites (for research). I also know people who are on these sites, through choice. It isn't just Facebook - anywhere with a populated comments section is full to the brim with people trying to be reasonable in the face of blatant ignorance, lies and hate. If you spent an hour on some of the BBC political pages' comments section you'd need to steam clean your brain afterwards.
A simple solution would be to simply turn off the Internet or stop people from being allowed to comment, thus discriminating against everyone, but we'd have more time for other trivial pursuits. Once upon a time when you said to a troll on a noticeboard that I bet he wouldn't be such a c*nt if he was standing in front of you. Now? Not so sure...
The biggest question I have, often asked recently, is what the people who could legislate against things such as this or refuse to comment on it feel, ultimately, the world will gain from the allowance of intolerance, hate and discrimination to become the norm? What does Paul Dacre (E-i-C of the Daily Mail) see in two or three years time as a result of indoctrinating the middle class to believe that all their problems lay at the feet of anyone who isn't like them? Do they want isolationism? Are they that deluded they believe we can return to 1950s booming Britain again, with all the trimmings [read: rationing]? Or do they see war as the ultimate goal? I've said it before, it solves a multitude of problems - in the short term - and some people are guaranteed to walk away from it with loads of cash, even if there's bugger all to spend it on other than surviving.
A lot of my 'disguised' optimism in the last blog is still there, the problem is the world's mood isn't loosening, the polarisation hasn't finished and the divides are becoming too broad to cross or bridge the gap. To some it would appear the world needs to crash and burn to be able to build a new order and that is a price worth paying, for generations.
Is this the pinnacle of Thatcher's 'me-me-me' ideology? The drive to 'self' over 'community' has yielded a world where some people really don't care what happens to others, or even themselves, as long as some misguided idea eventually comes to pass. When network news channels give time to ultra right wing people who make Nazis look subtle and the amount of hateful comments begins to outweigh the comments of reason, we have to start worrying about our safety - really. I realised the other day that I speak more when I'm out, but not solely out of politeness, so I can assure people that I'm not foreign. I've heard so much casual and overt racism in the last year I'd rather not try and alter these idiots perceptions. We've discovered that 'feelings' dictate now and 'facts' are just statistics given by people with a vested interest in what you don't want, so trying to appeal to any shred of humanity some people might have lurking somewhere inside is like trying to find the 10p you drunkenly lost on a pebble beach.
Oddly enough, some of the people I know who voted Leave on June 23 are gobsmacked about Donald Trump. A friend echoed what I've heard, the wishful thinking that Trump will be assassinated before long. I'd opt for indicted, but the fact that more people have said 'he'll be killed' than I would have possibly believed suggests to me that we're not actually becoming more civilised at all. If someone says it to you, just remind them who the new VP is going to be and the fact he thinks you can cure gays by electrocuting them.
If war is what some people [read: The Establishment] want, how exactly do they want it? Civil or nuclear? Wipe a few million out or a few billion? If there was only a billion people left on Earth in 2050 there would be a lot more money for the rich and powerful and just enough slave labour to keep them happy.
There are 6 weeks of 2016 left. That's plenty of time for some more surreal and stranger-than-fiction events. Strap yourself in; we're on the home straight.
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