Furedi on Fear: Be Very Afraid

Brit sociologist Frank Furedi has written a sharp book on the Politics of Fear. A snippet from an interview/profile at Spiked (one of the best web sites going):

'The main message I wanted to get across is the way that left and right has changed', explains Furedi. The insight that we have moved beyond the politics of left and right is not new - from former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher's famous dictum that 'There Is No Alternative' to the market to New Labour prime minister Tony Blair's centrist 'Third Way' agenda, the idea that politics has changed has been widely accepted. What has not been accepted, argues Furedi, is the magnitude of this change.

Whole thing here.

Comments

[gaius marius]

With both sides of the political spectrum practising the politics of fear, we are left with neither an orientation towards the future nor a defence of society's historic gains. Instead, we have presentism - a conformist sensibility that seeks to manage society in the here and now, against a backdrop of fear about the future and discomfort with the past.

what furedi incisively observes here is the consequence of decadence -- ossification. we in the west are now at that same point in the development of civilization as hadrian was when he erected walls at the frontiers of the roman empire and summarily quit any idea of innovation and growth in deference to the difficult and ultimately futile management of what was already had.

in a society which no longer, in the aftermath of centuries of partisan internecene warfare, has the morality and charisma necessary to induce cooperative cohesion among its peoples -- which in fact consists now instead of alienated proletariats divided in many dimensions -- the task of social management has become the consumer of all the energies of the leadership/managment class and remains a losing battle nonetheless. it's no wonder that the idea of progress has finally succumbed, five centuries and endless conflicts after the initial fracturing of the west in the wars of religion. the drive to individuality -- the abandonment of the social good for the selfish -- has rendered society all but inoperable and unmanagable.

[Ironchef]

So all those "barbarians" that sacked Rome had a greater respect for the "social good"?

I just don't see anyone at the gates, gauis.

[Hakluyt]

gaius marius,

It would be helpful if your knowledge of the Roamn Empire was more up to date.

[gaius marius]

I just don't see anyone at the gates, gauis

unless you count that guy osama what's-his-name, of course. 🙂

civilizations in decline, it seems to me, mr ironchef, fracture within and without. not only does social good within lapse as the primary goal of both management class and common people, but the charisma that once radiated into neighboring cultures (barbaric and otherwise) inducing mimickry among and cooperation with outsiders dies out -- creating a border standoff where a desire for inclusion was once the rule.

i would not even begin to suggest that there's anything noble in savagery -- only that once the external sought to emulate and engage the west, and it now seeks to defend itself from the west. that change is part and parcel to our own internal breakdown and that event's profound effect on what we project to the outside.

[gaius marius]

more up to date.

didn't know events were still occuring, gg. 🙂

[David]

mr. gaius,

I don't see an indictment of proletarian decadence in that article. I read it as an observation that both left and right are essentially the same, except maybe for their choice of prohibitions, and that the masses feel increasing detached from the political process, choosing a "leader" based upon a given set of fears. It was an attack on political elites playing one set of fears against another while undermining the knowledge gained individual experience.

If anything, the article stresses the folly of conformity and promoted, gasp, individuality and humanism.

[gaius marius]

the article did, mr david, but i think furedi doesn't do enough to clearly distinguish between individualism past and present, benevolent and detrimental. just as individuality in periclean athens was very different from that which characterized the late roman republic, our postmodern sense of individual prerogative has perverted radically from the doctrine of free will that was the basis of roman catholic ethics and morals. in the main we subscribe, it seems to me, to nothing so much as total self-absorbtion and unaccountability, whereas a more beneficial kind of individuality sees personhood as an opportunity for and contingent upon moral action.

[gaius marius]

A footnote to Politics of Fear expresses the author's 'delight' in discovering that a group of swimmers have won a legal battle to bathe outdoors without the presence of lifeguards on London's Hampstead Heath. What such stories demonstrate, he says, is that 'our culture creates this sense of vulnerability, but human experience conflicts with it'. Even if the political elite has given up on people, there is no need for the rest of us to do so.

for example, mr david, i would say furedi does not do enough in his work (which i've read) to examine why the current management class has increasingly taken this approach over the last few centuries -- which is reactionary, not creative -- abandoning the idea of leadership embodied in the west's holy texts (which refer to the "children of israel" and the savior as a shepherd of his flock) for a divisive and autocratic disengagement.

it has much to do, i think, with the repeated fracturing of our society since the sixteenth century. the question arises: can society even exist any longer without such management? or would it simply dissemble into warring parties in the absence of active placation and intimidaton? the history of universal states suggests to me that such managerial condescension is a path taken of a perceived necessity for the perpetuation of order, not malevolence (although there is certainly plenty of that as well).

[David]

in the main we subscribe, it seems to me, to nothing so much as total self-absorbtion and unaccountability,

Here is where we disagree, gaius. I don't think the ideas of self-absorbtion, and unaccountablity are as rampant as you seem to. I agree that there is some, but think of it as phase that most people eventually outgrow. Not the ones who make the most noise, mind you, but I feel the majority eventually put the dictates of family and to lesser degree, community ahead of selfish concerns.

I'm not convinced that people's goals were ever significantly different than they are now, unless you're charting the American decline back to the Plymouth colony.

[Shannon Love]

In some sense, government is a sort of protection racket. In order to acquire power, politicians must convince the electorate that something threatens them and only the state can protect them. So all politicians and political movements sell fear. It is in their interest to convince people to think of themselves as helpless and of need of rescue. As a basic dynamic fear selling has always existed but I think it fair to say that it increased with the rise of mass media and mega-state.

Unlike, Furedi, I think that people are actually becoming less afraid overall. As people become materially more secure, better educated, more mobile and have more contact with people different from them, they lose many of the fears that drive politics. Increasingly, people don't think they need the state either to manage their economic lives or their personal lives.

I think the increasing shrillness from the political class reflects their panic that they can no longer stampede people like they once did. They're trying to sell fear harder and faster than they did in the past. That in turn creates the impression that overall we are a more fear driven society. But the real question is, are people buying into the fear? I think they are doing so less and less.

[MTS]

"A footnote to Politics of Fear expresses the author's 'delight' in discovering that a group of swimmers have won a legal battle to bathe outdoors without the presence of lifeguards on London's Hampstead Heath."

Why was the city of London afraid to allow people to swim without lifeguards? I'd guess it's because if one of the swimmers drowned while engaging in this activity of his own free will, his greedy survivors could seek to "comfort" themselves by suing the city for not stopping or supervising this activity.

I think you could probably trace much of the current climate of "fear" to a similar risk of losing an irrational lawsuit.

[dhex]

gaius, the answer to your question is obvious - because enough people were crushed enough to fit into the right boxes. you simply cannot, cannot, CANNOT discount the role of women pre-20th and post-20th centuries.

well, you can, and if you're pre vatican II catholic enough, you can turn it into a career, but for the rest of us who have to live in the real world, it's more or less inescapable.

[Johannes]

the charisma that once radiated into neighboring cultures (barbaric and otherwise) inducing mimickry among and cooperation with outsiders dies out

Writing from the outside, I'd have to say that mimickry of all things American is going on more than ever.

[David]

for example, mr david, i would say furedi does not do enough in his work (which i've read) to examine why the current management class has increasingly taken this approach over the last few centuries

I would say this answer is simple, mr. gaius. Because it's easy to manufacture fear, and sell a solution. It is certainly much easier than leading by example, or earning respect. History is full of examples of created fears and solutions implemented that place more power in the hands of the powerful.

MTS,

The reverse could also be true, that in a "climate of fear", we expect all problems to be anticipated,and prevented by a higher power, making lawsuits for accidents seem rational.

[mk]

just don't see anyone at the gates, gauis

unless you count that guy osama what's-his-name, of course. 🙂

Correct me if I am wrong Gaius(and I am likely to defer to you on this point), but I am under the impression that the barbarians that trashed the Roman empire weren't so much interested in destroying Rome as they were interested in being incorporated into it.
A better analogy might be that the Visigoths of old are like the latino immigrants of today, with Vicente Fox wanting to come along and become the secretary of state (also minus the pillaging and stuff).

[gaius marius]

I am under the impression that the barbarians that trashed the Roman empire weren't so much interested in destroying Rome as they were interested in being incorporated into it.

that's certainly true in some cases -- but, 400 years before alaric, was vercingetorix, who decidedly had no interest in becoming roman.

and not all the barbarian tribes held rome in esteem; the radiative effect of civilization became notably less powerful in the later empire. the most notable example -- and one which reminds me so much of islamists who were educated in the west and rejected it not in spite of that education but because of it -- is attila.

[gaius marius]

in truth, though we see at two millennia distance a uniform bunch of barbarians, there were barbarians who had long contact with the romans beginning in the era of roman vigor and were to a large extent romanized even as the romans were themselves barbarizing as a result of that contact -- and there were barbarians who came onto the scene later, when hellenic radiation has flickered and dimmed, who held rome only in contempt.

both -- alaric and attila -- eventually played a role in crushing the long-empty shell of roman authority in the 5th c.

[mk]

There is also the line of thinking that holds that economic factors contributed to the fall of ROme as much as the barbarians, Parthians destroying trade routes and whatnot (see, those damned Parthians have always been a problem). It seems to me, since you are so fond of the "decadence" argument, that you tend towards Gibbon's stance on the subject. Is there a place for economic recession in your views on the Fall of Rome?
Also, who was it that made that argument? I'm thinking "Perin", but I am not at all sure about that.

[JMoore]

I remember having to listen to lectures on this stuff from our Latin master when I was at school. Then I got to listen to similar stuff from a mad monk on weekends, only he pronounced some of the Latin differently. It was very confusing. I think they're both dead now. Actually, I know my school teacher is dead; I remember reading about it in the annual alumni solicitation. I'm assuming Brother Patrick is dead because he was about 80-something when I last saw him nearly 20 years ago.

I hope they're both in hell. They'd be happy there.

[Eric the .5b]

the current management class has increasingly taken this approach over the last few centuries -- which is reactionary, not creative -- abandoning the idea of leadership embodied in the west's holy texts (which refer to the "children of israel" and the savior as a shepherd of his flock) for a divisive and autocratic disengagement.

That idea of leadership had vanishingly little to do with the reality. (And for that matter, why are you referencing Christian ethics when you've been arguing all along that western civilization has been falling since well before there were Christians?)

[gaius marius]

(And for that matter, why are you referencing Christian ethics when you've been arguing all along that western civilization has been falling since well before there were Christians?)

to clarify, mr .5b, i would say hellenic civilization finally died with rome in the 5th c. western civilization -- which owes a great cultural debt to the hellenic and the bridge between them, that is the catholic church -- began to grow in the 7th-8th c out of the wreckage. but the two are not continuous.

That idea of leadership had vanishingly little to do with the reality

i disagree profoundly. such notions of leadership are the only virtuous ones. by the time one is forced into a machiavellian ethic of management -- which machiavelli himself derived from his humanist examinations of the roman empire in decadence -- the breakdown is already upon you. and by the time such utopianism takes hold as deludes one into believing, due to the experiences of poor leadership, in the possibility of a leaderless society, you are vastly nearer the end than the beginning.

[gaius marius]

Is there a place for economic recession in your views on the Fall of Rome?

of course -- but i would suggest that, in most cases in the study of civilizations, economic problems are, like social problems, symptomatic of more fundamental underlying problems in the field of social consensus and unity.

[quasibill]

"due to the experiences of poor leadership, in the possibility of a leaderless society"

Here we go again. Austrians and other ACs don't believe in a "leaderless society." Quite to the contrary. However, AC posits that leaders should arise through voluntary consent as opposed to violent coercion.

What's so hard about that?

[Douglas Fletcher]

Easy for you to say, you've already taken your Ritalin.