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The War Against Democracy in the Uk

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The War Against Democracy in the Uk chapter 5 The War against Democracy in the uk Nick Stevenson The ideal of a deeper democracy than that offered by either authoritarian state societies or overtly capitalist societies remains central to any attempt to think critically. Here we perhaps need to remember that the Left in the European setting has a less than spotless record when it comes to questions of democ- racy. However the roots of a more emancipatory project in a period of human rights abuse, growing inequality, privatisation and authoritarian states remains the development of more genuinely democratic forms of the communication. If the wider media system continues to enforce a horizontal flow of informa- tion from centre to periphery then more critical social movements need to be able to offer visions and practices that challenge this logic. Intellectuals and social movements need to be able to offer visions of a more inclusive world where questions of voice, freedom and the right to communicate are meaning- ful. Such a world can-not be fostered by a mostly capitalist run media, a top down public service model or indeed a new communications media focused upon the spectacle. The possibility of a more authentic democracy depends upon a critical spirit sceptical of capital, the state and more ‘official’ forms of journalism. As George Orwell (1968a, 407) argued it is the responsibility of critical intellectuals to ‘keep the spirit of liberalism alive’. While Orwell is sometimes remembered as an ideologue of the cold war this is at best a form of displacement. Orwell warned against the arrival of a world where state’s and accepted political positions closed down different political positions thereby silencing criticism and independent thinking. In this quest criticism needs to move beyond simplistic ideas of good and bad and value different dissenting positions. Orwell adopted a democratic politics that sought to press for the reform of common institutions like the media and education system so that they can become places where citizens experimented with different ideas. Orwell is best understood as being part of a liberal generation of socialists who sought to construct a genuinely democratic state that would seek to manage the economy, reduce inequality and provide an alternative to the indignity of a life of poverty and servitude. In this respect, Orwell was not a utopian, but fear- ing the ideological rigidity of both Left and Right he was committed to a strug- gle for a more humane and less cruel society. Orwell’s (1999) novel Nineteen Eighty-Four describes a world where political and intellectual pluralism had disappeared. This was a society where © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004272934_007 <UN> The War Against Democracy In The Uk 105 technology and state oppression manufactured conformity and blind obedi- ence through fear and intimidation. The totalitarian features of Communism and Fascism had sought to eliminate all forms of dissent and ideological oppo- sition. These were ideologies that could not admit to any idea of the social good beyond collective conformity. While Orwell (1968b) was explicit that his dystopian novel was meant to act as a satirical warning against a society that ‘could’ arrive, his passionate plea to think beyond the ideological rigidities of the time remain with us today. If Orwell warned against the conformism required by state dominated societ- ies it is likely he would have been just as alive to the conformity required by the liberal capitalism of today. If during Orwell’s time it was the state that gov- erned society then today it is the capitalist market. Orwell’s nightmare remains our own the extent to which he offered a dystopian world that manages the consciousness of the many. If by liberal society we mean a world where citi- zens are generally free to become the people they wish to be and where free- dom is as much of an everyday practice as it is a matter of law then current British society falls a long way short of these ideas. Despite the fact that England has a long heritage of sceptical liberalism including Orwell, but also other thinkers like Bertrand Russell, John Stuart Mill and Leonard Hobhouse this tra- dition currently seems to be in decline. The Labour Left is mainly caught up with a discussion of communitarianism that values civic renewal through work, family, faith and flag with its more liberal dissenting wing in decline. The conservativism of the Left is however not surprising given the increasingly marginal position it occupies within English society more generally. In this respect, the project of third way socialism that brought modest forms of redis- tribution while remaining relaxed about the neoliberal domination of culture and the broader society has now come to an end. New Labour’s support for the war on terror, the development of academy schools and failure to democratise public institutions has signalled the end of social liberalism. If the period of social liberalism that built the welfare state, the nhs, com- prehensive schools and the bbc lasted until about 1979 its mark on the culture is now being forgotten. In the wake of totalitarian Europe social liberalism sought to reconcile ideas of liberty with more collective values. Social liberal- ism (or democracy) sought to articulate three different kinds of freedom. Firstly there was the idea that if culture was completely ruled by the market it could end up squeezing out important artistic works that would not necessar- ily appeal to a majority. The paradox about freedom was that it required a bal- ance between the market and the state or between individualism and collectivism. Secondly social liberalism recognised that freedom required security from market failure. That unless citizens had a sense of security should <UN>.
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