The tour, continued

Theory of a Governance Class

I once wondered aloud why my immediate circle spends so much time reading about politics and arguing about it in the pub when few of us are actively involved in politics in any meaningful way beyond voting. The jokey conclusion was that, as high educational achievers and Oxford men, we have been subconsciously conditioned to think that governing is our duty, and that we might at any given time be substituted into the Shadow Cabinet through some unforeseen circumstance, and had better be prepared.

In other words we are members of a governance class. These people can be found drawing up Neighbourhood Plans, sitting on the boards of local charities, chairing the organising committee, voting as a school governor whether to introduce performance-related pay. Or just doing the work of developing and sustaining the mainstream political consensus, the grown-up view on things.

We need to look really carefully about who these people are and what drives them, I think. I suspect they're a bunch of fucking liberals.

Rational argument 

I have concerns about how logical, rational argument (the stock-in-trade of clever people/the governance class) functions in politics. It's not as clever as it thinks it is. Too many edges get knocked off. In particular, it bothers me that there's a sense that once the pros are shown to have outweighed the cons, then the cons must be banished from public discussion and never brought up again. In logical argument two opposing or conflicting ideas cannot be held at the same time, when in fact I think humans do this constantly, and are no worse for it.

coming together to discuss things rationally

Privilege is a thing, sorry

I feel sorry for poor old "check your privilege", the little political meme that could. Obviously 99% of what gets attached to it is garbage. Look at the obstacles it faces though. The idea is to point out to people that their opinions and "rational, disinterested" thought processes may be blinkered by embedded assumptions and blind spots arising from their social position. I think this is a really important point, particularly in relation to deliberative democracy and the governance class. But then the R&D for this idea mostly takes place on Twitter/Tumblr, removing all nuance from discussion and making everyone who expresses an opinion on it vulnerable to being charged with the very thing being discussed. Poor "privilege".

Let me offer a more grown-up, weird, French way of looking at it, taken from Latour's Atmospheres of Democracy. He uses the metaphor of the prosthesis a disabled person uses to mitigate the incompatibility between their disability and the built environment. We all need to use such crutches, such corrective lenses, he suggests, when we assemble around issues. We need to show respect for the existence of mediation in politics and pay attention to techniques of representation.

Champagne Socialism

People think that champagne socialism is the result of middle class guilt. That's the wrong way around. Champagne socialism doesn't arise from a champagne drinker's contact with non-champagne drinkers. It arises from contact between champagne drinkers.

Champagne socialism stems from a moment, or series of moments, in which it dawns on you, the champagne drinker, that most of the other champagne drinkers don't really think an awful lot of non-champagne drinkers. That they are basically unconcerned with inequality, either gruffly shrugging it off as can't-be-helped (conservative) or constructing elaborate intellectual justifications for it with the relish of someone solving a tricky sudoku (liberal). The champagne socialism starts when you begin to suspect that a lot of other people in your social class basically don't care. It's as though there is a war you didn't even know existed and you have to choose sides.

This starts you off on an internal mental process that might lead to middle class guilt - a form of guilt by association, not such a bad thing in itself - and phony identification with the working class, which is pretty embarrassing for all concerned. But the initial instinct is a sense of ethical and moral fracture within your own class. I defend my fellow champagne socialists.

I understand the seductive appeal of liberalism and liberal rationality

It's so neat and elegant. I really do get it. And it really does have a lot of explanatory power in a lot of cases. It debunks superstition and dissolves tradition and cant with a kind of scouring acid. The mind feels clean reading stuff like Freakonomics. And most people who believe in it seem to be doing pretty well, living decent and clean and honourable lives. (Libertarian = uncouth, socially failed liberal?).

Is that elegance a kind of poison though? Does liberalism spring from being in love with your own rational faculties?