I've been watching the reaction to the various Extinction Rebellion protests with a degree of interest over the last week or so. Not the protests themselves as such, though top marks for variety, more the chorus of voices predictably raised against them. When there are events of this sort, it's always instructive to watch the people criticising, and how they go about doing it. There's also a deal of innocent entertainment to be derived from wondering why. I should point out at this point that I'm talking exclusively of people who are paid to have reactions and opinions, I fully understand the disgruntlement of commuters and cabbies, of which, more later.
That the climate is changing is now undeniable, it has been for a number of years, it's just taken some people a lot longer to catch on than others; and now that the effects are visible with every record hot summer, every biggest typhoon ever, then the people who are going to be left with this world to live in are understandably a bit annoyed. You'll note that I've already fallen into the trap of characterising all the protestors as kids, when in reality they've run the gamut, age-wise, but characterising them all as young is one way to diminish the importance of the protests. See also the assumption that, as a sixteen year old, Greta Thunberg is too young to know what she's talking about (though interestingly, many of the same right-wing talking heads were certain that, at age fifteen, Shamima Begum was definitely old enough to know what she was doing). When it comes to dismissing views with which one doesn't agree (or can't agree for politically expedient purposes), then condescension is one of the most powerful tools in the middle-aged white guy's box, and it's been deployed liberally in response to the protests. It takes many forms:
So when you have Toby Young going "Anticapitalists buying Pret baguettes eh? What's all that about?" you have a prime example of overconfidence in one's own cleverness, the condescending self-own, if you will. Young has form in taking an obvious point that a sixth form debating society would dismiss as being embarrassingly simplistic and presenting it as though he's one of the great thinkers of the age. That he is not is evident. They need to eat. Food doesn't magically appear. We live in a capitalist society. Anti-capitalists still have to buy stuff. You're a moron. See also Piers Morgan going "Ah but you've got a telly so you're a hypocrite". This tired argument presupposes that unless you're the purest of the pure then you don't get to have an opinion about anything, which is of course patent nonsense, it's merely a way of shutting down debate (and it's also a bit rich coming from a bloke who hacked a dead girl's phone, but hey, it's Piers Morgan, so he's not going to let a little detail like that get in the way).
Likewise when you have Douglas Murray burbling on about privilege in the Mail on Sunday. I was going to type "thundering" because that's the tone these angry types always seem to want, but really it's become so tiresome that I'll stick with burbling. Frothing, maybe. But the accusation that XR is exclusively a white, middle-class thing is a powerful, divisive and toxic notion, again designed to marginalise and dismiss. That the accusation is being thrown by someone who is themselves, by any definition of the word, "privileged" does run rather counter to the Young / Morgan "hypocrisy" play, but that's by the by. "Privileged" here is a synonym for "out of touch", as if having a well-paid job causes one to lose the power of independent thought.
And then you have Boris Johnson, never a man to use one word when four will do, calling them "unco-operative crusties" with "hemp smelling bivouacs", thus displaying the classic Johnsonian knack of using slightly more florid language than is strictly necessary at the same time as being about thirty years out of date with his references, whilst simultaneously insulting a member of his own family into the bargain. Wait a second guys, they can't be crusties at the same time as being privileged.
All of these various denunciations (and the various angry hand-picked vox pops from tired and pissed-off commuters) betray one giant fear at their heart, and the fear is this: XR are right. Johnson knows it, Murray knows it, Morgan knows it, Young possibly doesn't, he really is quite dim. Despite all their protestations to the contrary they know, underneath the need to be inflammatory for clicks and likes, the need to be contrary to earn a living or the need to play to an aging constituency (who all know, too) that the planet is heading for catastrophe. But they can't be seen to agree, or can't bring themselves to.
And why can't they?
It's not for me to say whether or not certain members of "the establishment" (whatever that is in these days where everyone runs around accusing everyone else of being it) are in hock to the fossil fuel industry, though donations to Johnson are a matter of public record. What I think is happening, rather, is a form of denial, because the alternative is too much to consider. The reality of the situation calls for radical changes to people's lifestyles, and no politician wants to be the one that says: stop eating meat, stop using the car, stop getting on planes. We're in an uncomfortable space where people are dimly aware of what needs to happen, but haven't come round to accepting it yet. So they mock and dismiss, they ridicule and condescend, because it's far, far easier to make fun of the future than it is to face it.
(In a classic case of being overtaken by events, the bulk of this post was written prior to this week's ugly incident at Canning Town tube station, when XR activists were dragged from the roof of a train and given a kicking. Whilst I'm of the view that disrupting public transport, which everyone should be using more, is a pretty dim-witted move, proving that no side has a monopoly on shoddy thinking, the violence it was met with, and the online cheerleading of it, was ugly in the extreme).
That the climate is changing is now undeniable, it has been for a number of years, it's just taken some people a lot longer to catch on than others; and now that the effects are visible with every record hot summer, every biggest typhoon ever, then the people who are going to be left with this world to live in are understandably a bit annoyed. You'll note that I've already fallen into the trap of characterising all the protestors as kids, when in reality they've run the gamut, age-wise, but characterising them all as young is one way to diminish the importance of the protests. See also the assumption that, as a sixteen year old, Greta Thunberg is too young to know what she's talking about (though interestingly, many of the same right-wing talking heads were certain that, at age fifteen, Shamima Begum was definitely old enough to know what she was doing). When it comes to dismissing views with which one doesn't agree (or can't agree for politically expedient purposes), then condescension is one of the most powerful tools in the middle-aged white guy's box, and it's been deployed liberally in response to the protests. It takes many forms:
So when you have Toby Young going "Anticapitalists buying Pret baguettes eh? What's all that about?" you have a prime example of overconfidence in one's own cleverness, the condescending self-own, if you will. Young has form in taking an obvious point that a sixth form debating society would dismiss as being embarrassingly simplistic and presenting it as though he's one of the great thinkers of the age. That he is not is evident. They need to eat. Food doesn't magically appear. We live in a capitalist society. Anti-capitalists still have to buy stuff. You're a moron. See also Piers Morgan going "Ah but you've got a telly so you're a hypocrite". This tired argument presupposes that unless you're the purest of the pure then you don't get to have an opinion about anything, which is of course patent nonsense, it's merely a way of shutting down debate (and it's also a bit rich coming from a bloke who hacked a dead girl's phone, but hey, it's Piers Morgan, so he's not going to let a little detail like that get in the way).
Likewise when you have Douglas Murray burbling on about privilege in the Mail on Sunday. I was going to type "thundering" because that's the tone these angry types always seem to want, but really it's become so tiresome that I'll stick with burbling. Frothing, maybe. But the accusation that XR is exclusively a white, middle-class thing is a powerful, divisive and toxic notion, again designed to marginalise and dismiss. That the accusation is being thrown by someone who is themselves, by any definition of the word, "privileged" does run rather counter to the Young / Morgan "hypocrisy" play, but that's by the by. "Privileged" here is a synonym for "out of touch", as if having a well-paid job causes one to lose the power of independent thought.
And then you have Boris Johnson, never a man to use one word when four will do, calling them "unco-operative crusties" with "hemp smelling bivouacs", thus displaying the classic Johnsonian knack of using slightly more florid language than is strictly necessary at the same time as being about thirty years out of date with his references, whilst simultaneously insulting a member of his own family into the bargain. Wait a second guys, they can't be crusties at the same time as being privileged.
All of these various denunciations (and the various angry hand-picked vox pops from tired and pissed-off commuters) betray one giant fear at their heart, and the fear is this: XR are right. Johnson knows it, Murray knows it, Morgan knows it, Young possibly doesn't, he really is quite dim. Despite all their protestations to the contrary they know, underneath the need to be inflammatory for clicks and likes, the need to be contrary to earn a living or the need to play to an aging constituency (who all know, too) that the planet is heading for catastrophe. But they can't be seen to agree, or can't bring themselves to.
And why can't they?
It's not for me to say whether or not certain members of "the establishment" (whatever that is in these days where everyone runs around accusing everyone else of being it) are in hock to the fossil fuel industry, though donations to Johnson are a matter of public record. What I think is happening, rather, is a form of denial, because the alternative is too much to consider. The reality of the situation calls for radical changes to people's lifestyles, and no politician wants to be the one that says: stop eating meat, stop using the car, stop getting on planes. We're in an uncomfortable space where people are dimly aware of what needs to happen, but haven't come round to accepting it yet. So they mock and dismiss, they ridicule and condescend, because it's far, far easier to make fun of the future than it is to face it.
(In a classic case of being overtaken by events, the bulk of this post was written prior to this week's ugly incident at Canning Town tube station, when XR activists were dragged from the roof of a train and given a kicking. Whilst I'm of the view that disrupting public transport, which everyone should be using more, is a pretty dim-witted move, proving that no side has a monopoly on shoddy thinking, the violence it was met with, and the online cheerleading of it, was ugly in the extreme).
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