What will it take to rekindle our lost faith in the political process?

This is the time of year I devote to reviewing the year’s posts to see what sort of sense they make. Two years ago – on noticing a few common themes I actually structured the collected posts around those issues and wrote introductions to each section which you can see at Peripheral Vision – the 2020 posts. I am inclined to do so again for this year’s collected edition as several things have combined, for example, to get me writing fairly frequently this year about the quality of government – with the pandemic exposing the very different capacities of state and government in different parts of the world 

Of course, it doesn’t take much to get me going on this issue – my dissatisfaction with the combination of politics and bureaucracy goes back fully 50 years to my initial experience as an elected member with a local municipality; subsequent successes in making a large Regional authority more open and democratic; and experience since 1990 as a consultant in “capacity development” in ex-communist countries. 

The tragic failure of the rule of law to take root these past 30 years in this part of the world has slowly become obvious even to the most obtuse. Recent elections in Bulgaria and Romania have demonstrated the extent to which people have, understandably, completely lost trust in both their governments and the state. Adages of good governance and anti-corruption have been tried – and failed.

In a post in May, I posed some questions which needed to be asked about this failure - 

- how do we find out what conciliation efforts have already been attempted - let alone lessons learned - in BG and RO? South Africa had hundreds of such efforts 

- how would effective and "trustworthy" mediators be identified? There’s an Association of Conciliators here in Romania (presumably for commercial and family disputes) but perhaps they have relevant resources?

- who are the key actors who would be involved in any such meeting?

- how do we identify the positive lessons from other efforts throughout the world to bring societies together? Latin America clearly has had many such efforts

- how do we deal with the cynics who dismiss such experience as irrelevant to their country? 

Unfortunately the state has for the past few decades been losing what capacity it had throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The global financial meltdown of 2008 and the austerity policies that produced compounded the process. The political class's dedication to the notion of the minimal state promoted by globalisation and neoliberalism has encouraged many citizens to reward the populists. 

One of the limitations of blogposts is their brevity – although I know that will make some of you laugh. But my posts do tend to take either a positive or negative perspective on an issue – balance is more difficult. A post this year on how to build state capacity makes my point exactly.

An annual collection of posts, however, makes such balance possible. There have been more than 20 posts so far in 2021 dealing with the question of how ordinary citizens might rediscover their lost faith the political process – an issue which the blog has also explored in previous years. I will therefore read them carefully – along with earlier writing on the issue – and pen an introductory summary of the posts which deals with this critical question.

Military Madness

 According to the Doomsday Clock we are only 100 seconds from nuclear catastrophe – the shortest point for which this disaster has been predicted in the 70 years since scientists started the Doomsday Clock.

Last week I viewed for a second time the 2000 remake of the original 1964 Fail Safe film made by Sydney Lumet. The black and white tones of the remake helped its impact as well as its focus on 3 basic locations - the control room where representative of the industrial complex strutted, Harvey Keitel and a Dr Strangelove lookalike initially disputed and the miscommunications drama played out; President Richard Dreyfuss and an interpreter made telephone contact with their Russian counterparts; and the cockpit of George Clooney’s plane as he zeroed in on Moscow. 

An article in today’s Guardian about a journalist’s experience with a nuclear attack simulation is a powerful read  

I could kill up to 45 million if I chose the more comprehensive of the alternatives laid out on three pieces of paper, but it was hard to focus on the details because there were people shouting at me through my earpiece and from the screens in front of me. 

I was experiencing what a US president would have to do in the event of a nuclear crisis: make a decision that would end many millions of lives – and quite possibly life on the planet – with incomplete information and in less than 15 minutes.

In the real world, I was in a meeting room in a Washington hotel, but with virtual reality goggles strapped on. I was sitting behind the president’s desk in the Oval Office. The television news was on and there was a report about Russian troop movements, but the volume was muted and someone was telling me the national security adviser was running late aimed at our meeting.

 It took me back to the mid 1980s when I sponsored a public showing of a famous documentary The War Game by Peter Watkins which had been banned for 20 years – and when we expected the police to move in at any moment. Google tells me that in Sept 1984 a documentary called Threads was aired on BBC – but I have no recollection of that one. 

The American military is completely out of control – with its political class giving it $25 billion more than it actually asked for. Even Scientific American is arguing that this has to stop.

Tribalism

I devoted a fair number of my collected 2019 posts to the question of what element of British – or rather English - identity had persuaded them to cast themselves adrift from the Continent (the posts have been gathered at pp133-196 of the collection). In my search for culprits I even looked at novelists. But one of the first places I looked was that of the British media whose role was well summarized by this comment 

We are paying the price of our media. British journalism thinks of itself as uniquely excellent. It is more illuminating to think of it as uniquely awful. Few European countries have newspapers that are as partisan, misleading and confrontational as some of the overmighty titles in this country. The possibility of Brexit could only have happened because of the British press 

And more extensively analysed in this article in a French journal. 

But it is perhaps Tabloid Britain – constructing a community through language Martin Conboy (2006) which best conveys the huge pulling power of the popular press in Britain and the role it has played in appealing to the worst in the british voter. 

Journalists are our crucial link with the world of both power and of ideas. Usually they are reporting what others want them to say – but the best of them have their own voice.

Each of us gravitates to a newspaper which tends to reflect our worldview – in that sense we are all deeply tribal. My particular poison is “The Guardian” one of whose editors (Alan Rusbridger) has produced a couple of fascinating books which I parsed in a couple of posts at the beginning of the year. “The Guardian” has a world-wide reputation – indeed its American sales outstrip those of the British market.

At the very end of the second post, I had slipped in the information that a critical appraisal of the paper had just been published with the revealing title Capitalism’s Conscience – 200 years of the Guardian  ed D Freedman (2021) 

I hadn’t realised that this followed another book-long analysis of the even more significant global role another UK journal has played – namely the weekly Economist. Liberalism at Large – the world according to The Economist by Alexander Zevin was produced in 2019 and was reviewed in the New Yorker by the inimitable Pankaj Mishra

There are two bright spots in this tale - or at least one and a half. The half is that the quality journals (certainly The Guardian and The Economist) are bucking the trend and pulling in more customers. The second  bright spot is that what we call the "gutter press" doesn't seem to be exerting the influence and power they once did - as noted in today's Mainlymacro post - losing out to the live images of social media.  

Deepening what is left of Democracy

The so-called "summit of democracies" had passed me by until a friend alerted me a few days ago - although I see that Brankovic is not impressed. I argued earlier this year that the US no longer deserves to be considered a democracy - so it's a bit cheeky of them (to put it mildly) to dare to offer a lead such as this....  But it does take me back to an important post in may which argued that –

- few (if any) societies can any longer claim to be democratic

- we need, very loudly, to be exposing such claims to be the falsehoods they are

- a better vision of democracy needs to be articulated

- pressure groups should coalesce around the demand for citizen juries – initially at a municipal level to demonstrate their benefits

- political parties no longer serve any useful purpose

- we should be insisting that governments start focusing on the big issues - which governments currently seem incapable of even attempting to deal with

- using citizen juries

- governments, in other words, should govern 

That same post went on to argue that, between 1950 and 1980, we had an effective and balanced system in which each type of power – economic (companies/banks etc), political (citizens and workers) and legal/admin/military (the state) – balanced the other. None was dominant.

Deindustrialisation, however, destroyed that balance – more specifically the power which working class people had been able to exercise in that period through votes and unions has been undermined. In its place a thought system developed - justifying corporate greed and the privileging (through tax breaks and favourable legislation) of the large international company. 

·       All political parties and most media have been captured by that thought system which now rules the world

·       People have, as a result, become cynical and apathetic

·       Privatisation is a disaster – inflicting costs on the public and transferring wealth to the few

·       Two elements of the “balanced system” (Political and legal power) are now supine before the third (corporate and media power). The balance is broken and the dominant power ruthless in its exploitation of its new freedom

·       It is very difficult to see a “countervailing power” which would make these corporate elites pull back from the disasters they are inflicting on us

·       Social protest is marginalized - not least by the combination of the media and an Orwellian “security state” ready to act against “dissidence”

·       But the beliefs which lie at the dark heart of the neo-liberal project need more detailed exposure

·       as well as its continued efforts to undermine what little is left of state power

·       We need to be willing to express more vehemently the arguments against privatisation - existing and proposed

·       to feel less ashamed about arguing for “the commons” and for things like cooperatives and social enterprise (inasmuch as such endeavours are allowed)  

But the elite - and the media which services their interests - noticed something was wrong only when Brexit and Trump triumphed – in 2016. But that was simply the point at which the dam broke – the pressure had been building up for much longer.

If we really want to understand what is going on we have to go much further back – not just to the beginning of the new millennium when the first waves of populist anger started - but to the 1970s when the post-war consensus started to crumble – as Anthony Barnett, for one, most recently argued in his extended essay “Out of the Belly of Hell” (2020)

The demos have been giving the Elites a clear warning – “your social model sucks”. We may not like some aspects of what the crowd is saying – for example the need for border restrictions….but we ignore its message at our peril. So far I don’t see a very credible Elite response. Indeed, the response so far reminds me of nothing less than that of the clever Romans who gave the world Bread and Circuses. Governments throughout the world have a common way of dealing with serious problems – it starts with denial, moves on to sacrificial lambs, official inquiries and bringing in the clowns - and finishes with “panem et circenses” 

But the post was too cynical. It failed to offer a way out. And for more than a decade, people in different parts of the world have been working on what is various called “deliberative democracy” or citizen juries to give inspiring examples of that way out. I hinted at this in an April post and indeed gave quite a few examples of other tools determined governments could use - if they actually wanted to develop their capacity. But that’s a bit like asking turkeys to vote for an early Christmas!

Let me therefore make amends with two shortish articles which offer the best introduction to developments in this field - first this and then the second part here

And, if that whets your appetite, I would recommend this short book Democratic innovations – designing institutions for citizen participation; by someone who was the research director of the famous UK Power inquiry of 2004

Update; Milanovic argues in this piece that the summit was a bad idea. I agree.

The acceptable face of national pride?

The Romanian flags are flapping strongly in the Ploiesti breeze today and the national anthem and male choral music are blasting from the Cathedral’s loudspeakers as the country celebrates National Day – going back to 1918 when the Romania we know today was first formed out of the ruins of the Hapsburg Empire.

Pride in one’s country is a noticeable feature these days – although many countries (Britain being a prime example) have very little to be proud of. It was Samuel Johnson who said that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel” although he was not referring to patriotism in general but rather Prime Minister William Pitt’s abuse of it….. 

 A couple of weeks ago, I discussed Climate Change and the Nation State – the realist case” (2020)  by geopolitical strategist Anatol Lieven whose basic argument I summarised as  -     

-       Climate change has become the world’s number one problem

-       It can be tackled only at a national level

-       At the moment only some voices in the military and in insurance companies recognize the seriousness

-       No real strong pressure is being exerted where it matters

-       Consensus needs to be built

-       That possibility is being undermined by identity politics 

And Wolfgang Streeck has penned an explosive article reminding us that the EU’s commitment to the free flow of labour and capital is a defining feature of neoliberalism and that - 

Strange things are happening in Brussels, and getting stranger by the day. The European Union (EU), a potential superstate beholden to a staggering democratic deficit, is preparing to punish two of its member states and their elected governments, along with the citizens who elected them, for what it considers a democratic deficit.

For its part, the EU is governed by an unelected technocracy, by a constitution devoid of people and consisting of a series of unintelligible international treaties, by rulings handed down by an international court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), as well as by a parliament that is not allowed to legislate and knows no opposition. Moreover, treaties cannot be reviewed in practice and rulings can only be reviewed by the Court itself. 

The current issue is an old one, but it has long been avoided, in the best tradition of the European Union, so as not to wake sleeping dogs. To what extent does “European” law, made by national governments meeting behind closed doors in the European Council and elaborated in the secret chambers of the ECJU, trump national law passed by the democratic member states of the European Union? The answer seems obvious to simple minds unversed in EU affairs: where, and only where, the member states, in accordance with the terms of the Treaties (written with a capital T in Brussels presumably to indicate their sublime nature), have conferred on the EU the right to legislate in a way that is binding on all of them….. 

In his bid for the French Presidency, Michel Barnier has amazed everyone by suggesting that the free flow of labour needs some limits and qualifications

As a sceptic and as a Scot, I have an ambivalent attitude to nationalism – recognising the powerful force it has been in history but still believing that it has its gentler side. The New Statesman ran a good feature recently which did justice to the complexity of the issue.

Words

I do understand that it is a bit perverse of me to try to communicate the essence of effective writing when the majority of my readers have English as their second language - particularly when I return fairly often to the subject. It was, for example, just 3 years ago when I commended almost 60 writers for the quality of their writing – although at least a dozen of them were bilingual (eg Svetlana Alexievich, Oriana Fallacia, Masha Gessen, Sebastian Haffner, Arthur Koestler and Joseph Roth)

But these efforts simply flagged up my preferences – they didn’t try to identify the features that gave the writing its impact. And that’s what I now want to attempt – building on the comment in the last post that “impact” has something to do with not only the style but also the character of the writer. Generally, of course, we are told to separate the two when we are considering creativity - but I think this is impossible 

Let’s start with character – as I survey the various lists I’ve made, what comes through is the breadth of their curiousity and the independence of their thought – indeed their downright obstinacy. They read voraciously across intellectual (and often national) boundaries – and don’t suffer fools gladly.

On style, they generally use short sentences and are constantly on their guard against the clichés and metaphors which so easily take over our minds. We should be in charge of language – not the other way around. George Orwell is the master of this – as his widow put it in her preface to the 2^nd volume of “Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters”, he was – 

one of the most honest and individual writers of this century -- a man who forged a unique literary manner from the process of thinking aloud, who possessed an unerring gift for going straight to the point, and who elevated political writing to an art. 

The very first essay in that second volume is on “New words” which anticipates the Newspeak his 1984 made famous 

When you are asked "Why do you do, or not do, so and so?" you are invariably aware that your real reason will not go into words, even when you have no wish to conceal it; consequently you rationalize your conduct, more or less dishonestly. I don't know whether everyone would admit this, and it is a fact that some people seem unaware of being influenced by their inner life, or even of having any inner life. 

For anyone who is not a considerable artist (possibly for them too) the lumpishness of words results in constant falsification…. A writer falsifies himself both intentionally and unintentionally. Intentionally, because the accidental qualities of words constantly tempt and frighten him away from his true meaning. He gets an idea, begins trying to express it, and then, in the frightful mess of words that generally results, a pattern begins to form itself more or less accidentally. It is not by any means the pattern he wants, but it is at any rate not vulgar or disagreeable; it is "good art". He takes it, because "good art" is a more or less mysterious gift from heaven, and it seems a pity to waste it when it presents itself. Is not anyone with any degree of mental honesty conscious of telling lies all day long, both in talking and writing, simply because lies will fall into artistic shape when truth will not?

In practice everyone recognizes the inadequacy of language -- consider such expressions as "Words fail", "It wasn't what he said, it was the way he said it", etc.) 

No wonder TS Eliot (who didn’t like Orwell!) wrote (in “Burnt Norton”) – 

Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

decay with imprecision, will not stay in place

You can read the entire poem here and later (in East Coker) a section I use a lot – 

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years

Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt

Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words

Yanis Varoufakis has clearly read his “Politics and the English language” essay from 1946 and I tried recently to understand why Varoufakis writes so well – 

What makes Varoufakis' various books such excellent reading is the sheer originality of his prose –showing a mind at work which is constantly active…...rejecting dead phrases, clichés and jargon… helping us see thlngs in a different light..... using narrative and stories to keep the readers’ interest alive…He's in total command of the english language - rather than, as so usual, it in control of him.....

You don’t expect to find good prose in the “Further Reading” section of a book, but just see what Varoufakis does with the task…

 Inconclusion

As usual, words (and thoughts) have distracted me from the intention behind this post – namely to try to identify the characteristics of “writing which makes an impact”. To demonstrate the difficulty of such an endeavour, let me share with you 60 Words to describe Writing or Speaking Styles ….. 

articulate – able to express your thoughts, arguments, and ideas clearly and effectively; writing or speech is clear and easy to understand

chatty – a chatty writing style is friendly and informal

circuitous – taking a long time to say what you really mean when you are talking or writing about something

clean – clean language or humour does not offend people, especially because it does not involve sex

conversational – a conversational style of writing or speaking is informal, like a private conversation

crisp – crisp speech or writing is clear and effective

declamatory – expressing feelings or opinions with great force

diffuse – using too many words and not easy to understand

discursive – including information that is not relevant to the main subject

disputatious - an inclination to argue

economical – an economical way of speaking or writing does not use more words than are necessary

elliptical – suggesting what you mean rather than saying or writing it clearly

eloquent – expressing what you mean using clear and effective language

emphatic – making your meaning very clear because you have very strong feelings about a situation or subject

epigrammatic – expressing something such as a feeling or idea in a short and clever or funny way

epistolary – relating to the writing of letters

euphemistic – euphemistic expressions are used for talking about unpleasant or embarrassing subjects without mentioning the things themselves

flowery – flowery language or writing uses many complicated words that are intended to make it more attractive

fluent – expressing yourself in a clear and confident way, without seeming to make an effort

formal – correct or conservative in style, and suitable for official or serious situations or occasions

gossipy – a gossipy letter is lively and full of news about the writer of the letter and about other people

grandiloquent – expressed in extremely formal language in order to impress people, and often sounding silly because of this

idiomatic – expressing things in a way that sounds natural

inarticulate – not able to express clearly what you want to say; not spoken or pronounced clearly

incoherent – unable to express yourself clearly

informal – used about language or behaviour that is suitable for using with friends but not in formal situations

journalistic – similar in style to journalism

learned – a learned piece of writing shows great knowledge about a subject, especially an academic subject

literary – involving books or the activity of writing, reading, or studying books; relating to the kind of words that are used only in stories or poems, and not in normal writing or speech

lyric – using words to express feelings in the way that a song would

lyrical – having the qualities of music

ornate – using unusual words and complicated sentences

orotund – containing extremely formal and complicated language intended to impress people

parenthetical – not directly connected with what you are saying or writing

pejorative – a pejorative word, phrase etc expresses criticism or a bad opinion of someone or something

picturesque – picturesque language is unusual and interesting

pithy – a pithy statement or piece of writing is short and very effective

poetic – expressing ideas in a very sensitive way and with great beauty or imagination

polemical – using or supported by strong arguments

ponderous – ponderous writing or speech is serious and boring

portentous – trying to seem very serious and important, in order to impress people

prolix – using too many words and therefore boring

punchy – a punchy piece of writing such as a speech, report, or slogan is one that has a strong effect because it uses clear simple language and not many words

rambling – a rambling speech or piece of writing is long and confusing

readable – writing that is readable is clear and able to be read

rhetorical – relating to a style of speaking or writing that is effective or intended to influence people; written or spoken in a way that is impressive but is not honest

rhetorically – in a way that expects or wants no answer; using or relating to rhetoric

rough – a rough drawing or piece of writing is not completely finished

roundly– in a strong and clear way

sententious – expressing opinions about right and wrong behaviour in a way that is intended to impress people

sesquipedalian – using a lot of long words that most people do not understand

Shakespearean – using words in the way that is typical of Shakespeare’s writing

stylistic – relating to ways of creating effects, especially in language and literature

succinct – expressed in a very short but clear way

turgid – using language in a way that is complicated and difficult to understand

unprintable – used for describing writing or words that you think are offensive

vague – someone who is vague does not clearly or fully explain something

verbose – using more words than necessary, and therefore long and boring

well-turned – a well-turned phrase is one that is expressed well

wordy – using more words than are necessary, especially long or formal words

What makes for good non-fiction writing?

This blog has always been interested in “good writing” – by which I mean writing “which makes an impact”. And I’m not talking about novels - much as I may have enjoyed characterisation in the stuff I would read in my leisure time at an earlier stage in my life.

I’m referring to the non-fiction world which has been my focus this past decade. Reference to “writing which makes an impact”, of course, just begs further questions - such as how widely shared is the impact? And what sort of impact? In aggression? In the extent or source of evidence brought to bear? In challenging prevailing opinions? 

Clearly, what makes an impact on me as a white, Scottish middle-class male retiree is very different from writing which appeals to young, black, unemployed and American women. But there should surely be some measure of agreement about what constitutes good writing amongst at least university-educated retirees?

I’ve been concocting one of my famous tables this last week in an attempt to explore that question. It covers the living and dead, young and old, matters of style and of character. At the moment it has 35 entries in which George Orwell figures as, perhaps, the most important although I have always felt that Arthur Koestler was the more gripping writer. To help me on my task, I’m dipping back into Chris Hitchen’s little book from 2002 – “Why Orwell Matters” (Hitchens is naturally on the list!) and have just downloaded Bernard Crick’s 1980 biography of George Orwell (written with the support of his widow) 

One of the things I’m discovering is how difficult it is to try to convey the distinctive feature of a writer’s “tone of voice”. When I googled this I came across an interesting suggestion that there are four types of writing – expository, descriptive, persuasive and narrative thus – 

EXPOSITORY; Expository writing is one of the most common types of writing. When an author writes in an expository style, all they are trying to do is explain a concept, imparting information from themselves to a wider audience. Expository writing does not include the author’s opinions, but focuses on accepted facts about a topic, including statistics or other evidence.

Examples of Expository Writing

·       Textbooks

·       How-to articles

·       Recipes

·       News stories (not editorials or Op-Eds)

·       Business, technical, or scientific writing 

DESCRIPTIVE; When an author writes in a descriptive style, they are painting a picture in words of a person, place, or thing for their audience. The author might employ metaphor or other literary devices in order to describe the author’s impressions via their five senses (what they hear, see, smell, taste, or touch). But the author is not trying to convince the audience of anything or explain the scene – merely describe things as they are.

Examples of Descriptive Writing

·       Journal/diary writing

·       Descriptions of Nature

·       essays 

PERSUASIVE; When an author writes in a persuasive style, they are trying to convince the audience of a position or belief. Persuasive writing contains the author’s opinions and biases, as well as justifications and reasons given by the author as evidence of the correctness of their position. Any “argumentative” essay you write in school should be in the persuasive style of writing.

Examples of Persuasive Writing

·       Op-Eds and Editorial newspaper articles

·       Advertisements

·       Letters of recommendation 

NARRATIVE; When an author writes in a narrative style, they are not just trying to impart information, they are trying to construct and communicate a story, complete with characters, conflict, and settings.

Examples of Narrative Writing

·       Oral histories

·       Novels/Novellas

·       Short Stories

·       Anecdotes