Those under the age of 35 tend (obviously, with many exceptions [let's not worry about those though] to think differently from those who are older. As digital natives [oh dear] , their instinct is to form networks rather than to colonise institutions; they perceive the world in terms of identity and power structures rather than the categories of classical individualism; and they are more interested in transnational challenges (climate change, the pathologies of inequality, automation) than their elders, who still, for all their claims to the contrary, exist primarily within the silo of the nation state (see Brexit for details).{the link just takes you to general Guardian covergae of Brexit. Itmust all be simply self-evident]...Look all around at a new landscape of activism: not just Momentum, but the surging power of Black Lives Matter, digital feminism, social media campaigns against unethical commercial practices, and calls for citizens’ assemblies on all manner of issues.
Above all, there has been the phenomenon of Extinction Rebellion (XR). The campaign, it is true, was founded by people of my age or thereabouts: Gail Bradbrook and Roger Hallam have studied the science of social protest [pretty flimsy stuff] and developed what they call the “algorithms of rebellion”. But it is the young – and those that care about the future of the young [includes everybody after all?] – who have given these algorithms such dynamic human expression in the past week. The nonviolent, peaceful, carnival spirit of XR has roots in the philosophy of Gandhi, the flower power of the 1960s, [both hardly digital activist] and the determination of the Occupy movement. But the synthesis is arrestingly new....
Few except him can perceive the importance of the new synthesis:
More striking has been the media’s general inability to understand the XR uprising. Yes, it has caused inconvenience, for which the organisers have repeatedly apologised. Yes, some of the celebrities involved travel a lot by air. And yes, many of the protesters are middle class...But so what?...As for the social background of the demonstrators, who cares? Is there a means test now on morality?...this movement is more nuanced. It has grasped that the battle for the future will be, as much as anything, an information war: a struggle against post-truth, evasion and lies. It also insists that the present system of politics is not working.[So do others, of course,and D'Ancona has a twinge of doubt] Even as you celebrate the commitment of young people to the EU and to action on climate change, keep an eye on groups such as Generation Identity and the tech-literate far right: by all means applaud the spiritual descendents [sic] of Gandhi, but beware the children of Steve Bannon.
The triumphant conclusion?
What is certain is that the shift is real. For many of my generation, all this will be a rude awakening. But, like previous generations, we invited it in our failures, omissions and inaction [cringing liberal stuff] . What can I say? A change is gonna come [sorry? Channelling whom? Dylan?]
Elsewhere, C Bennett for the sister paper the Observer speaks up for the real victims in all this -- the middle classes. She is vexed and hurt (and no doubt feels very vulnerable now) after a Sky journalist rebuked a climate change protester:
“You’re like the incompetent middle-class, self-indulgent people and you want to tell us how to live our lives,” he told Boardman. “That’s what you are, aren’t you?”
Provocations and rants like this are common among liberal broadcasters on BBC Newsnight (especially the egregious and now departed E Davies) or C4 News (Ranting Guru-Murthy). They are defended, if at all, by claiming to be the sorts of things 'ordinary people' are thinking. Here, Bennett surfs the zeitgeist to tell us:
Waitrose slurs as signifiers are now as commonplace in episodes of intra-middle-class othering [nice -- I feel a paper or two coming on] as “vegan”, “latte” and the increasingly popular in more snobbish parts of the far left “pearl clutching”. [ And the vulgar are not much better] “middle-class zombie tossers” (as a middle-class Sun columnist depicted protesters) and “delusional middle-class climate warriors” (according to a middle-class Mail writer)'Pearl-clutching' takes us to a piece by L McCluskey in the Staggers defending Corbyn. I had to search quite hard to find the phrase and remain surprised that L McCluskey has somehow managed to speak for (or rather against) the Remainerati in such a powerful and memorable way. that C Bennett was hurt by it. The article also correctly predicted a split led by C Ummuna
We get close to the nub at last.It is the petit-bourgeoisie (journalist faction) she is defending against those above and below as ever. Perhaps she is also bidding for market share on behalf of the Graun/Observer and dissing the Staggers? Probably nothing as rational, but paranoia is catching.
This time it is those above who get most flak.
...What makes “middle class” so obviously offensive to people such as Thomas Adam Babington Boulton?...parts of this vast and heterogeneous social group can be so unlike his own people, at the far, public-school, end of the middle classes.
NB the Google entry on C Bennett has this:
Catherine Dorothea Bennett is a British journalist. Bennett was educated at Lawnswood High School, Leeds, and Hertford College, Oxford. Bennett began her career in journalism at Honey magazine. Wikipedia
Born: 1956 (age 63 years)
Spouse: Robert Sackville-West, 7th Baron Sackville (m. 1985)
No comments:
Post a Comment