A sad sense of déjà vu.

In July 2013 I wrote a blog in which I voiced my concern about the declining quality of understanding and engagement of significant portions of the electorate with regard to making sensible, considered and valid assessments of political policies and politicians. I further worried that it seemed to me that many voters were apparently less able to ask pertinent questions in order that they understood exactly what was on offer from politicians, the media, and what the implications might be of this or that policy. In April of this year, 2016, with a referendum looming in the UK about membership of the  EU - an issue that would profoundly effect for generations the very essence and soul of our country - and in America the certainty of a new President on the horizon I again voiced the same concerns. In both blogs I raised the spectre of what I suggested was an electorate of Homer Simpsons and the consequences that might have for good government and leadership in both the UK and the USA.

It has been, three years after I first blogged on this subject, with a sad sense of both déjà vu and “I told you so” that I have viewed the political stories of the last few days and weeks. The UK has voted for Brexit – to leave the EU, and Americans have voted for Donald Trump as their next president. Social media and the press have had a field day. In the wake of Trump’s victory we were told that the TV show the Simpson’s, with its usual unerring insight, forecast the rise of Donald Trump sixteen years ago. No one can say we were not warned. When I wrote my blog in 2013 and again in April of this year I received several critical emails telling me that I was absolutely wrong (they were less polite than that!) – and totally out of order to criticise the abilities of the electorate to make wise decisions or to draw the conclusions that I did. All I can say today is”I told you so” . And for those who criticised me, it sounds even more today than previously as if my critics wished to shoot the messenger rather than accept the reality.  

What, only a few months ago, seemed an impossible nightmare has come to be. The Brexit vote and Trump’s election success have caused shock waves through both the political establishment and wider society – and in my view we ain’t seen nothing yet. There will be short term anger and protest but the real fall out will develop over months and years; our respective societies have been fundamentally changed. In the interim, however, every political pundit on the planet and every grumpy old man like me seems to think they know the reason for these political shocks: the inequalities in society, a rebuff to the establishment, the lack of an effective left, the rise of the have nots, fear of globalisation, job security, austerity, the financial crash,    .....and so it goes on. Each and every one of these analyses has undoubted validity but for me there is still one overriding reason: the “Homer Simpson society”. We have managed to create in both the UK and the USA societies where to know little and care even less is seen as a virtue. This same effect is spreading through other societies too – but we are at the forefront.

In his book The Price of Civilization  American economist  Jeffrey Sachs discusses what he calls “the epidemic of ignorance” pervading western societies but especially the USA.  He suggests that “in America the growth of untrammelled commercial TV and its “race to the bottom programming” based upon “lowest common denominator entertainment rather than instructive public education; the growth in internet use and, at the same time, the demise of newspapers and reading as an activity has meant that citizens are increasingly ignorant of basic facts about important issues”. He comments “It would be a profound irony if the new information age coincides with the collapse of the public’s basic knowledge regarding key issues that we confront as individuals or citizens.........The insulated mindset of individuals who know precious little history and civics and never read a book or visit a museum is fast becoming a common, shame free condition”.  Sachs further says that, in America, at least, academic scores are declining. “If this be the case” he argues “then the consequences for individuals and the society will be profound”.   Ignorance, Sachs says can threaten the very soul of society: “....when the country must grapple with complex choices about taxes, spending, military involvement and outlays and all the rest, the lack of basic knowledge becomes dangerous. A poorly informed public is much more easily swayed by propaganda and much less able to resist the dark manoeuvrings of special interest groups that pull the strings in Washington.”   In short, in the highly complex and interlinked world in which we all now live where what happens in one corner can, because of the instantaneous connections that exist, profoundly affect what happens elsewhere. When one country sneezes others, through the power of technology, catch a cold. The consequence of this is that the decisions that we make, the policies that we follow can and do affect others – and the decisions that they make affect us – in ways never before possible because of the instant and global nature of the world. Added into this complex web is the fact that there are simply more factors to consider and more complex factors; life is no longer simple. The people that we elect and the policies that we adopt have, therefore, to be fit for purpose in the world that we now inhabit – and that means that those who elect these people and subscribe to these policies they too must be for purpose otherwise good government collapses. We must, in the modern world choose our leaders and our governments wisely – not to do so endangers us.

In my view Sachs is undeniably correct. People may not wish to hear this message, some, indeed may find it offensive but in the end if individually and collectively large numbers of electors are, through intellect, basic knowledge or attitude, unable or unwilling to bother to discriminate effectively between the virtues, qualities, disadvantages or dangers of different ideas, policies, politicians, or media presentations then society is indeed threatened.

Big business reinforces the dumbed down message too

This is not about being “brainy” or having “qualifications” – it is about the degree of interest and importance that one attaches to something and consequently the amount and time and effort one is prepared to put into finding out the important issues, rather than Homer Simpson like just relying upon prejudice or the talk of the barman. Finding out things, doing a bit of sensible reading round and so on, however, takes time and effort which in contemporary England (and I think Sachs would argue the USA too) far too many are prepared to give – it is considered boring, hard work, useless, or a waste of time. We increasingly live in a society of wanting it easy – we watch the TV simplified adaption of the book rather than read the book; we want TV documentaries that explain things in user friendly language because we cannot be bothered to work at the vocabulary; instead of “experts” fronting documentary programmes we now have celebrities giving a dumbed down voiceovers - we live in  a society where the celebrity is more important than the message. In 1972 the BBC produced a magnificent TV retelling of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It was twenty, hour long episodes. Last year they showed a new production – it had been reduced to six episodes – a travesty of Tolstoy’s mighty novel because, it was suggested, viewers are no longer capable of the required attention span of former years. In our own daily life we say of our children and grandchildren “All I want is for him/her to be happy” – really? - what a total lack of ambition or challenge for the child? It seems to me to be the most pathetic and patronising thing one could say about one’s offspring; in reality one is suggesting that being happy is the only thing of which they are capable. Say it to Chinese, Japanese, Indian or any other Asian parents and they would look at you askance – “how can you have such low ambitions for your child?” they would rightly ask. As societies both the UK and the USA are setting the bar ever lower for themselves. Homer Simpson doesn’t want to be bothered by hard questions, he doesn’t do ambition – he wants his beer, his TV and his ball game.  We laugh at him and the scrapes that he gets into – but in reality we are laughing at ourselves.

Our TV is filled with increasing amounts of dross requiring little or nothing of the mind or the viewer. In the UK each night is filled with a diet of cookery programmes which don’t actually tell you how to cook but allow you to watch others entertain you cooking in a competition to see who comes top – and then, as happened  only a week or two ago when the final of the Great British Bake Off was reached, it made headline news on the BBC. People felt that it was so important it made headline news and the front pages of allegedly serious newspapers! Or we have endless programmes of the X Factor talent show type or the mindless Strictly Come Dancing variety where even ex-senior politicians now take part ( such as Ed Balls – former potential Labour Party leader) and to the joy of millions people tune in – it’s only a bit of fun, they say; but Balls freely admits that although he enjoys it, it is also a vehicle to allow him to reconnect with the people. Again, the results of programmes like this are headline news in the media. What on earth is going on! In modern Britain and America the name of the game is entertainment rather than instruction, challenge or widening horizons

Hi, my friend, I'm Nigel, your friendly bar man.

Have a drink, it's on the house and then I have

something to tell you...

And there is another dimension to this. The vast array of channels and programmes available mean that when combined with on demand TV we watch only what we choose, like and know. At first this might seem attractive – indeed it is. But “on demand” means that in allowing us to be selective about what we watch it also means that we can also choose to omit what we don’t like or what doesn't interest us. In other words reinforcing what we like and know but not exposing us to what is new and different! The world of the internet – Google, Wikipedia and the rest – allow us to find specific items in whatever we are interested in – but at the same time be quite ignorant of the bigger picture. In the past people browsed newspapers and books and in doing so picked up on other things that might not have been immediately of importance or interest but quietly became part of their experience. Similarly when we had to watch TV as it was broadcast one could be exposed to other things when the TV was on and maybe we weren't actually watching it. For example, mum and dad watch the news and the children play in the back ground – but all the time just maybe they are “soaking up” bits of information about the world. Similarly, internet enthusiasts might be in contact with like minded people on the other side of the world – indeed via this blog I know this to be the case – but again this is a form of self reinforcement of what we know or like rather than a widening of our horizons. We like what we know and we know what we like – what we don’t know or don’t like is potentially and subconsciously excluded. In an age of information and widening horizons we are potentially limiting our horizons and making ourselves ignorant!

Modern technology and the consequent untrammelled choices that have been brought with it have caused a rush to the bottom for programme producers; programmes are easy, requiring no input or little thought, just low level entertainment. The name of the game is ratings. What is hard or challenging attracts only small numbers of viewers or is not “demanded” so we get entertaining cookery programmes rather than instructional ones. We get hours of cheap talent shows of the X Factor type rather than Young Musician of the Year; we get glitz and banality of Strictly Come Dancing rather than an insight into ballroom dancing; or we watch the Apprentice rather than receive information about how to succeed in business; and we follow Gareth  Malone’s Choir competitions rather than see a production of La Boheme. I am not suggesting that we live on a diet of opera, drab documentary and high brow productions but we are increasingly supplied with only things that the majority will watch and we increasingly approve of and choose to “demand” these low brow programmes. One can imagine that if Homer Simpson thought he might take up ballroom dancing, he might watch Strictly as his guide rather than attend a class; if he wanted to open his own business he might choose to watch the Apprentice and think he was on an MBA course. This is where we are at: whole swathes of the population increasingly cannot discriminate what is worthy and of value – and can’t be bothered to find out. And what is really worrying is, as Sachs suggests, ignorance is becoming a shame free condition; the result is that our society is in serious decline and danger.

Look what a regular guy I am

Comedian Alexei Sayle wrote this a few months ago: “...programmes such as X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Strictly have come to dominate prime-time viewing.......Noam Chomsky says the media’s function is to “amuse entertain and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.” Thus the propaganda role of the talent show is to promote the idea of simplicity over complexity, of popularity over talent, of banality over genuine invention because complexity encourages critical thought and critical thought is the enemy of authoritarianism........”

Quite, and when everything is reduced to its simplest, lowest level terms there is no place for shades of grey, everything is black and white. You have won or you have lost. I am right and you are wrong. The message is reduced to its simplest format. If you are not with me you are against me. Thus, Sayle went on: “Tyranny is the removal of nuance.” And over the past months throughout the Brexit campaign and during the American presidential race everything was reduced to its lowest terms by Donald Trump and his English counterparts: Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and the rest of the right wing politicians and media. 

If an electorate is increasingly tuned in only to the simplest messages then Sachs is right. If the world is increasingly populated by Homer Simpson clones unable to ask pertinent questions or use their knowledge and minds to critically consider and make judgements upon what they are presented with by peers, politicians,  and the media; if these Homer Simpsons know what they like and like only what they know and are interested only in lowest common denominator views and entertainment then society is at risk of a scenario where  powerful lobbies and potential extremism and evil will flourish. It is easy to influence the unthinking and, as Edmund Burke reminded everyone almost three centuries ago “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”.

Simple, repetitive reinforcement of a bit of propaganda

And this is where we are at. In April of this year, it seemed the prospect of a British exit from the EU led by political misfits like Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove was an impossible nightmare and that in America a megalomaniacal reality TV show star with no political experience, or personal grace, or wisdom would become the next  president and thus the most powerful man in the world was laughed at. We all mocked and said no electorate could be so utterly foolish to be taken in by these obvious con men. But the electorate, vast swathes of whom were clearly unable to discriminate between good and bad, worthy and unworthy, false and true were taken in or simply too uncaring to question or find  out and it has, indeed, spoken. Democracy has had its say; “Cometh the hour cometh the man”; we are now not only ruled by the mistaken and the unwise but have reached this low point because millions are wilfully unwise and uncaring; Homer Simpson man has won. Dumbed down land has arrived. We are all losers in the race to the bottom. We have got the politicians and the policies that we deserve – and we should be very afraid.

As I sat at breakfast on the morning of Donald Trump’s victory my eye was drawn to a letter in the Guardian which reduced me to a further level of despair and anger at what we have allowed our society to become. The letter related the comments of American journalist Dorothy Thompson who met Hitler in the 1930s as he was rising to power. The letter explained that Dorothy Thompson was a pioneering American journalist who in 1939 was recognized as the second most influential woman in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934.

The sharp end of what these political snake oil salesmen create. Their

simple messages are working with the mindless mob.

Having met Hitler Thompson later commented “No people ever recognise their dictator in advance … When our (American) dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say Heil to him, nor will they call him Führer or Duce. But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of “OK, Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!”  Were Dorothy Thompson alive today she would surely say “I told you so”  as she watched Donald Trump and surveyed the American political scene of November 2016 or maybe even the British experience.  She didn’t use Trump’s mantra of “Make America Great Again” nor did she refer to Nigel Farage’s preferred TV pose for the electorate of standing in a good old English pub, with beaming smile and pint in hand: just, one of the boys, like you and me, “have a beer old chap”, whilst saying to millions of sheep across the UK “We want our country back” – an easy to remember and vacuous slogan for unthinking minds to latch on to. You get the point - dictators and extremist politicians and ideas creep into our politics, our homes and our minds as "good blokes" and "salt of the earth people", they are everything to everyman- they are Mr Ordinary and because of that we should know them and fear them.

Just like your mates in the pub - a good bloke. Except that he

is pursuing a very carefully planned and insidious campaign

to win your mind......and you make it so easy: you don't ask hard

questions, you don't challenge you simply follow and repeat

his words.

Would be dictators and extremists like Trump, Farage, Johnson or Gove and the rest of the Republican and Brexit crew come not calling themselves Führer. Nor do they come as conquering heroes with the beating of drums and brass bands. No, the uniforms, jack boots and black shirts come later after the softly, softly groundwork when they have established themselves as essential parts of ordinary life. They come as Mr Ordinary, whispering, what they tell us, are self evident truths and which everybody might relate to. They come telling you what you already subconsciously often want to hear, whispering, what they say everybody would agree with.  Their power is their ease of words and ability to talk to and continually repeat their message to influence the common man. Boris Johnson has one of the most carefully cultivated personas of the day – and because of it he is supremely dangerous. “Look at me”,  his persona suggests “I’m a  cuddly buffoon, quite harmless you know. Everybody’s mate, good for a laugh. I don’t mind people laughing at me. I know it gives me more power over you since you like to be entertained and have a laugh. I know that in Homer Simpson land having a laugh and not thinking too hard about boring things is what it’s all about. Leave it all to me. And while you’re having a laugh at me, my message will creep into your mind, it will be simple and seem so right......because after all, I’m Boris, your mate. One of the boys, such a buffoon, couldn’t possibly do any harm, have a beer pal.....”  Today, I have just read the Johnson has chastised those in Europe who are anxious about the declared policies of Donald Trump; Johnson tells us, in the sort of language and words meant to appeal to Homer Simpson, “It’s time that we snapped out of the general doom and gloom about the result of this election and collective whinge-o-rama that seems to be going on in some places”. As predicted simple words, simple idea, no nuance, easy for Homer Simpson acolytes to remember and repeat. The vocabulary of the bar and the locker room; simple, uncomplicated, not intended to induce critical thought. And the message is, as Alexei Sayle suggested, without nuance, it is little more than the propaganda envisaged by Noam Chomsky: simple, repetitive, easy to understand and repeat. It requires no thought and its simplicity is crucial because, as Chomsky argues, “complexity encourages critical thought and critical thought is the enemy of authoritarianism........” . It is the message of the mob.

Goebbels knew all about manipulating minds - he was

the undoubted king. He could make millions do

exactly what he wanted so very easily.

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief, knew all this and was an expert. He said: “If you tell the same lie enough times, people will believe it; and the bigger the lie, the better... There is no point in seeking to convert the intellectuals for intellectuals will never be converted. Always speak to ‘the man in the street’ and arguments must therefore be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect.....Truth is unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology".

And we have made it easy for these peddlers of untruths, of disharmony and of division to gain the footholds they crave. The mindless sheep who couldn’t be bothered, who listened to the snake oil salesmen while having their beer and mindlessly watched Bake Off and Strictly Come Dancing or laughed at Trump’s locker room misogynistic and xenophobic banter (to use his defence) and were taken in by the easy slogans and half truths. They have danced to their music with wide eyes, open ears but closed brains, never thinking, never questioning; thinking only of themselves and their own prejudices and having that laugh. And we, who should have known better, have done nothing to halt this slide

Doesn't look like a dictator or a misogynist or a xenophobe.

Just a regular guy - even down to his baseball cap - which,

of course, carries his simple subliminal message

In years to come we will look back in both regret and horror at the self harm that we have inflicting upon our two once great and honourable nations. We have become societies in terminal decline. The parallels between the election of Trump and the promotion of Caligula to be Emperor of Rome as that great Empire declined two millennia ago are both stunning and frightening. The nations we are bequeathing to our children and grandchildren, where ignorance and an insulated mindset are prized more than learning, insight, questioning, and high ideals, and where ignorance is a shame free condition, are now savagely poorer places - not in the economic sense but rather in the spiritual, humanitarian, cultural, social and political sense. And in the end these virtues are the things of humanity that matter - not wealth or trade agreements or balance sheets. They are the virtues that people have, over the ages, fought to preserve, defend and attain. They are the virtues that define us as human beings. They are what mankind has striven for throughout time – to be better men and women and to make the world a better place for our children. The lauding of division and hatred and the rise of all the other things that define Brexit and Donald Trump diminish us all. But even more worrying is the thought that our children and grandchildren may grow up not knowing any different.  They may grow up believing that the Trumps, the Farages and the Johnsons of this world are what  constitute good leaders; they may grow up believing that the X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing  or the Great British Bake Off  is high culture and worthy of their minds; they might think that the Sun or Daily Mail newspapers carry truthful unbiased news and comment; they may grow up thinking that misogyny, xenophobia, division and a callous disregard for humanity are normal and acceptable aspects of being English or American. And they would be wrong about all these beliefs – but, sadly, that is where we are at.

Our children and grandchildren will not thank us or forgive us for our actions this year of 2016.