European Union Referendum

[mnb089mnb]

Hear Hear!

Tired of how blandly the word 'racist' is thrown around in today's society.

Your 4th paragraph sums it up perfectly for me. Our left wing liberal media love to throw around such words that dare go along with the anti brexit trend.

Questioning the age of 'child migrants' who look old enough to be grandparents? Racist.

Vote to leave the EU? Oh, must be racist, no other explanation.

People seem to be so caught up on this so called anti brexit witch hunt that slanderous insults are thrown around without much thought.

I mentioned a German friend of mine who was thinking about leaving the UK due to the Brexit result earlier. I was labelled disingenuous and my friend was labelled a "gimp". And let's be fair, 52% voted leave, so there's more of a pro-Brexit trend. Brexit means Brexit and all that.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

sounds boring as fuck tbh

Right up your alley then, eh, Johnny?

 

[smat]

I mentioned a German friend of mine who was thinking about leaving the UK due to the Brexit result earlier. I was labelled disingenuous and my friend was labelled a "gimp". And let's be fair, 52% voted leave, so there's more of a pro-Brexit trend. Brexit means Brexit and all that.

I was labelled a gimp too.

That's how serious this is.

 

[johnnytodd]

Right up your alley then, eh, Johnny?

Says the man who makes threads on south american rice dishes

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Says the man who makes threads on south american rice dishes

The thread's not mine, and the question stated nothing about rice!

 

[markwwfc1992]

I mentioned a German friend of mine who was thinking about leaving the UK due to the Brexit result earlier. I was labelled disingenuous and my friend was labelled a "gimp". And let's be fair, 52% voted leave, so there's more of a pro-Brexit trend. Brexit means Brexit and all that.

A difference of opinion regarding the brexit trend, I've always found most media outlets to have been pro remain.

My main issue was having the word race even brought into the topic. This word is thrown around in such terms under needless circumstances. Gary Linker labeling people racist the other day because people were sceptical about letting migrants through the border who claimed to be children but looked like grown adults. How on earth is such an observation racist? I sometimes wonder if these people can even define racism, since it seems to be used in a false context so many times.

 

[johnnytodd]

The thread's not mine, and the question stated nothing about rice!

Cheer up grumpy ffs

 

[Bilo]

A difference of opinion regarding the brexit trend, I've always found most media outlets to have been pro remain.

My main issue was having the word race even brought into the topic. This word is thrown around in such terms under needless circumstances. Gary Linker labeling people racist the other day because people were sceptical about letting migrants through the border who claimed to be children but looked like grown adults. How on earth is such an observation racist? I sometimes wonder if these people can even define racism, since it seems to be used in a false context so many times.

You're trivializing a moral issue, staring blindly at one fact while ignoring the context and the point of presenting the fact. Because there is a point of saying that immigrants lie about their age; namely that more people should be skeptical about them entering the country.

See, if you take one case in isolation, say a 19-year old claiming to be 16, you're not a racist for pointing out that he's lying. And that's about as far as your logic goes, which is far off because this is a question of generalization; if he lied about his age, what's stopping others? It's flipping the burden of proof, which is absurd but not the main issue.

The main issue is that these points are raised because immigrants are representing a group of people, whereas western europeans act as individuals in this context. Allow me to assume you're a white male: if you lie, it doesn't make me more likely to lie just because we're both white. Because in this context, we're expected to act as individuals and this is a privilege immigrants aren't blessed with in the age-debate.

Essentially, people lift the age issue on the basis -- sometimes vaguely stated, sometimes completely obvious -- that those from a certain part of the world, or followers of a certain religion, are a collective and you pin negative attributes, such as lying, to this collective. The effect becomes that the truth is the exception, and the lie is the norm, a flipped burden of proof. Not only does it indicate an extremely trivial world view, it's also morally disgusting and intellectually embarrassing. And believe it or not, racist.

See, none of these people you're defending have an issue with the single, specific case. I doubt even you do. If one person who's 19 comes into the country registered as a 17, it's irrelevant and nobody cares. It's only lifted so that the generalization holds up, so that the liar represents the group and the honest immigrant is the exception. And as with the crystal meth-metaphor I used in #2402, the fact that we're staring at country of origin rather than skin colour is so irrelevant that it pains me that anyone bothers to point out that racism, originally, was about race. While technically correct, the context has always been generalizing minorities and whether it's poles, blacks or muslims you hate, it's equally dangerous and equally disgusting. So forgive us for calling all of these generalizing dumbwits racist, it's lazy on our part. But it's not a problem, not in the slightest, because the "proper" racists aren't any worse from the ones merely pointing out that immigrants sometimes lie, so long their objective is the same.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

Regarding the contemporary discussion about racism, no, it's not that simple. Nobody wants to be a racist, so instead of looking at the race you go for whichever suits, nationality or islam (because it's always islam). It's great because now you can generalize foreigners without being a racist, right? Except the difference is irrelevant. Because whether you hate blacks, poles or muslims the point is the same -- kicking downwards through broad generalizations implying causation through vague correlation.

No idea how it works in Sweden, but this cunning ruse of substituting nationality for race wouldn’t get very far in the UK. If I wrote a litany of negative generalisations about Poles or Pakistanis, I’m pretty sure I’d be called on it. It would still provoke a charge of racism; or, alternatively, xenophobia. And rightly so.

We’re marginally more forgiving of negative generalisations about Islam, which kinda makes sense because it’s a creed, not an identity characteristic (e.g. skin colour, place of birth) the individual has no control over. Still, negative generalising about Islam or Muslims would rarely go without some kind of censure. Again, I’d expect a charge of racism; or, alternatively Islamophobia.

I’m not bemoaning this fact. I’m not upset that I can’t negatively stereotype foreigners or ethnic minority belief systems with impunity. TBH, I wouldn’t want to live in a country in which such behaviour went unchallenged.

My concern is the tendency among some (especially younger folk, it seems) to hastily – almost instinctively – assign some kind of malign, hateful motive to opinions they dislike and/or disagree with, especially when those opinions concern complex subjects that offer tremendous scope for honest and thoughtful debate.

I dislike state multiculturalism for various reasons. It would take too long to explain them fully, so suffice it to say I think it needlessly divisive and a potential threat to a notion I hold to be deeply important, namely equality before the law. It has nowt to do with hating foreigners, but in certain circles merely stating an objection to multiculturalism provokes that charge. For some, apparently, racism is the only conceptual framework in which a dislike of multiculturalism makes sense. Ditto for supporting Brexit. Ditto for dissenting opinions on immigration. And so on.

Now, of course some people with those dissenting opinions actually are bigoted arseholes. Some people do dislike mass immigration because they hate foreigners. And some (most, probably) choose to hide that real objection and prattle on about housing shortages or whatever because, well, it’s easier that way. But to automatically assume people with dissenting opinions are doing that, without subjecting their arguments to any critical scrutiny, is a dangerous sort of prejudice in itself.

One reason why it’s dangerous is that it leads to a lot of harmless people being unfairly accused of hateful bigotry. And one effect of being unfairly accused of racism dozens and dozens and dozens of times is a kind of jaded scepticism about the term sets in. You don’t take the accusation that seriously anymore, because for you it's become synonymous with hair-trigger idiocy and nonsense. And that's a really unhealthy mindset to have.

 

[Bilo]

I dislike state multiculturalism for various reasons. It would take too long to explain them fully, so suffice it to say I think it needlessly divisive and a potential threat to a notion I hold to be deeply important, namely equality before the law. It has nowt to do with hating foreigners, but in certain circles merely stating an objection to multiculturalism provokes that charge. For some, apparently, racism is the only conceptual framework in which a dislike of multiculturalism makes sense. Ditto for supporting Brexit. Ditto for dissenting opinions on immigration. And so on.

Well, obviously you can be against multiculturalism through a intellectual, non-generalizing thought process. I'd disagree but I wouldn't call you a racist for it.

The racism, however, tends to come in without exception, though. Because it's so incredibly rare that a person, be it you on a football forum or a politically outdated granddad at the christmas party, raises the opinion without broad generalizations and a world view quite obviously including us as individuals, and them as a collective. Needless to say, the collective rarely represents many positive attributes. The upside with us being individuals is that we don't uphold any attributes whatsoever, we're just individuals, some are nice and some are not, neither making the other less or more likely to be what the other is proven to be.

And in my genuinely not so humble opinion on the subject, generalizing collectives based on correlation without proven causation is racism. Period. And I would disagree with you that some are bigoted arseholes, I'd argue most are and I say that from having followed the debate in England, the United States, Sweden and France. So if you're against multiculturalism without pinpointing any attributes to any group without proven causation, you're an exception and like any exception; politically, sexually, physically or mentally, you suffer from the norm upheld by those who are not exceptions. I must ask though, and this is out of genuine interest with no intent of insinuating anything: whether you like it or not, you share your view of multiculturalism with a shitload of racists, regardless of your reasons for doing so. Does it ever bother you?

 

[Captain Scumbag]

It of course bothers me when people make bad arguments (including racist ones) in favour of ideas or causes I support. I get vilified by association and it's harder to convince people to my way of thinking. This is a daily frustration. The EU referendum was particularly hellish.

Does it occasionally make me think I'm wrong? Sometimes. Not very often because I have the sort of logical mindset – perhaps overly-logical, at times – that isn't greatly troubled by what others, including folk on 'my' side, think as long as I have confidence in my own opinions. But sometimes.

Does it ever give rise to the suspicion that I'm a some kind of racist monster in denial? No. I do think racism is rooted in universal human imperfection. I think we can all fall into the error of racist thought. And I think having that outlook – that awareness of one's fallibility, let's say – means I make the error very seldom and never that egregiously.

But a self-deluding or closet racist would say that, wouldn't he?

 

[mnb089mnb]

A difference of opinion regarding the brexit trend, I've always found most media outlets to have been pro remain.

My main issue was having the word race even brought into the topic. This word is thrown around in such terms under needless circumstances. Gary Linker labeling people racist the other day because people were sceptical about letting migrants through the border who claimed to be children but looked like grown adults. How on earth is such an observation racist? I sometimes wonder if these people can even define racism, since it seems to be used in a false context so many times.

Gary Lineker didn't label everyone who was skeptical as racist. You criticise him for misuse of a word without reading the other words that surround it.

 

[mnb089mnb]

I was labelled a gimp too.

That's how serious this is.

I probably missed that in my blocking spree.

I guess this is the result of Brexit Britain.

And unfair to hard-working gimps.

 

[Bilo]

It of course bothers me when people make bad arguments (including racist ones) in favour of ideas or causes I support. I get vilified by association and it's harder to convince people to my way of thinking. This is a daily frustration. The EU referendum was particularly hellish.

Does it occasionally make me think I'm wrong? Sometimes. Not very often because I have the sort of logical mindset – perhaps overly-logical, at times – that isn't greatly troubled by what others, including folk on 'my' side, think as long as I have confidence in my own opinions. But sometimes.

Does it ever give rise to the suspicion that I'm a some kind of racist monster in denial? No. I do think racism is rooted in universal human imperfection. I think we can all fall into the error of racist thought. And I think having that outlook – that awareness of one's fallibility, let's say – means I make the error very seldom and never that egregiously.

But a self-deluding or closet racist would say that, wouldn't he?

The EU-referendum was hellish for everyone. In Sweden, it's always been the cause of the left wing to be against the EU. Brexit tipped that on its head, because politics today is very much guilt by association -- which is obviously something you suffer from, somewhat. Personally, as a journalist I steer clear from almost every political issue because it's my professional responsibility so I have some distance to it. But it really was absurd watching people whom I've known to be extremely critical, and vocal, about the EU for years all of a sudden narrating the Brexit-result as the end of democracy.

As for occasionally thinking you're wrong, that's just healthy. Those who don't are rarely worth listening to. I personally find myself convinced that everyone's wrong to some extent, because the political narrative is dominated by world views rather than definite opinions, which is also probably why you find yourself accused of what you're not. You essentially happen to hold one isolated opinion that is exclusive to a world view you don't subscribe to. As such, anyone thinking of politics as world views rather than separate opinions will make assumptions. And that's only getting worse I'm afraid, but what does bother me -- regardless of what I think of the EU -- is that for me, the result was a win for a world view from which no good will come.

Essentially, the flaw lies in generalization here as well. It's a simplification for understanding, essentially, because as politics become more globalized the solution to any given problem becomes more complex. It has to be simplified, and therein lies the issue. So I guess it comes down to which trench you're shooting from, rather than why you do it. And unfortunately for you, your trench has been hijacked by racists. In Sweden, the left is now supportive of the EU. You've chosen another route and I guess it's to your credit. It doesn't make you a closet racist, but I'm posting this to give some insight as to why I believe you tend to get accused of being a racist when quite obviously you're not.

As a journalist, I constantly get accused of anything you can imagine. It depends on whichever story I've published but I've been accused of being in every trench by now. I find it easier to focus my thoughts on understanding why these assumptions are made, rather than try to fight them. Because like I said, this is only going to get worse and I'm quite sure of that. So stick to your guns, I'd say, but you'll have to find a way of thinking so that this bothers you less. Otherwise, you're just becoming another depressed, misunderstood intellectual and we've got enough of those.

Bilo out.

 

[markwwfc1992]

Gary Lineker didn't label everyone who was skeptical as racist. You criticise him for misuse of a word without reading the other words that surround it.

It is you who have misread what I have wrote, I didn't claim he said 'everyone was racist' and am keen to stress that.

The point I'm trying to make, and the only reason I involved myself in this select debate is that the term 'racist' is used so much in modern day Britain. It is usually with completely no substance, and to be honest it saddens me. I will also go out on a limb and say people are afraid to voice their opinions in fear of being targeted, and again be labeled with this 'racist tag'. I think this same silent majority spoke in the recent European referendum, but you won't get many people publically declare they voted to leave for reasons such as the above.

We have become a country that is so scared of potentially offending somebody or something that we seem to have lost our identity in the process.

 

[mnb089mnb]

It is you who have misread what I have wrote, I didn't claim he said 'everyone was racist' and am keen to stress that.

I didn't claim that you did.

 

[.V.]

It is you who have misread what I have wrote, I didn't claim he said 'everyone was racist' and am keen to stress that.

The point I'm trying to make, and the only reason I involved myself in this select debate is that the term 'racist' is used so much in modern day Britain. It is usually with completely no substance, and to be honest it saddens me. I will also go out on a limb and say people are afraid to voice their opinions in fear of being targeted, and again be labeled with this 'racist tag'. I think this same silent majority spoke in the recent European referendum, but you won't get many people publically declare they voted to leave for reasons such as the above.

We have become a country that is so scared of potentially offending somebody or something that we seem to have lost our identity in the process.

With regards to your last paragraph, how so? What was our previous identity to start with?

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

It of course bothers me when people make bad arguments (including racist ones) in favour of ideas or causes I support. I get vilified by association and it's harder to convince people to my way of thinking. This is a daily frustration. The EU referendum was particularly hellish.

Does it occasionally make me think I'm wrong? Sometimes. Not very often because I have the sort of logical mindset – perhaps overly-logical, at times – that isn't greatly troubled by what others, including folk on 'my' side, think as long as I have confidence in my own opinions. But sometimes.

Does it ever give rise to the suspicion that I'm a some kind of racist monster in denial? No. I do think racism is rooted in universal human imperfection. I think we can all fall into the error of racist thought. And I think having that outlook – that awareness of one's fallibility, let's say – means I make the error very seldom and never that egregiously.

But a self-deluding or closet racist would say that, wouldn't he?

Spent a fair bit of time arguing with "left" brexit people during the referendum. The way I saw it was that they were essentially correct in their analysis of the EU - that it exists to prevent meaningful redistribution of wealth and support German capitalists, while at the same time perpetuating a border regime of horrifying cruelty that closed all safe routes into the continent. Could probably go on.

At the same time, I thought they were naive that voting brexit was a blow to the things that they thought it was a blow to. I definitely don't thing they're racist, but they are guilty of sloppy thought that has led them to lending their voice* to a movement that had, as its most important short/medium term impact, empowering racists and making life substantially worse for migrants already in the UK.

My view was that made Brexit fundamentally unsupportable. The referendum was made to be about immigration and much, much less about anything like unaccountable decision-making, or the interests of global capital trumping that of the people who live in Europe.

Obviously it's a balancing act where to draw the line and you can apply similar logic to movements I do support (tonnes of pretty nasty people support Palestinian liberation, for example). But idk, if after weighing all that up, you support a cause that a load of bigots also do, you have at least some responsibility for the actions of said bigots when they win***.

That said, I've never been that bothered about opposing the EU when the alternative is simply moving the functions of the EU to the British state. Are British borders any less cruel thann European ones? Are British capitalists any gentler?

Maybe I'm a hypocrite for voting for a campaign that trumpeted shared "European Values"** that the EU does not and has never represented. Is valuing my own (and other Europeans') free movement when that's denied to non-Europeans dishonest?

P.S. sorry if I come across as a chore, but you're definitely one of the more interesting/thoughtful posters on here to engage with, which is why I do, even if I think I disagree with nearly all your opinions. Normally hate this West-Wing-liberal "lets be civil to our ideological opponents" stuff, but there we are.

* not sure how much impact the left-brexit types actually had on the referendum. I'm assuming it's probably roughly "fuck all"
** this sentiment - that Europe represents the civilised world which, uniquely and through its benevolence, has gifted the world tolerance and enlightenment is fucking dodgy as hell.
*** not in a "you should personally feel bad cos a Polish guy got beaten up in Harlow" way but in a "being much more vocal/militant in opposing the things that you disagree with that are happening in the name of Brexit" sort of way.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

You're trivializing a moral issue, staring blindly at one fact while ignoring the context and the point of presenting the fact. Because there is a point of saying that immigrants lie about their age; namely that more people should be skeptical about them entering the country.

See, if you take one case in isolation, say a 19-year old claiming to be 16, you're not a racist for pointing out that he's lying. And that's about as far as your logic goes, which is far off because this is a question of generalization; if he lied about his age, what's stopping others? It's flipping the burden of proof, which is absurd but not the main issue.

The main issue is that these points are raised because immigrants are representing a group of people, whereas western europeans act as individuals in this context. Allow me to assume you're a white male: if you lie, it doesn't make me more likely to lie just because we're both white. Because in this context, we're expected to act as individuals and this is a privilege immigrants aren't blessed with in the age-debate.

Essentially, people lift the age issue on the basis -- sometimes vaguely stated, sometimes completely obvious -- that those from a certain part of the world, or followers of a certain religion, are a collective and you pin negative attributes, such as lying, to this collective. The effect becomes that the truth is the exception, and the lie is the norm, a flipped burden of proof. Not only does it indicate an extremely trivial world view, it's also morally disgusting and intellectually embarrassing. And believe it or not, racist.

See, none of these people you're defending have an issue with the single, specific case. I doubt even you do. If one person who's 19 comes into the country registered as a 17, it's irrelevant and nobody cares. It's only lifted so that the generalization holds up, so that the liar represents the group and the honest immigrant is the exception. And as with the crystal meth-metaphor I used in #2402, the fact that we're staring at country of origin rather than skin colour is so irrelevant that it pains me that anyone bothers to point out that racism, originally, was about race. While technically correct, the context has always been generalizing minorities and whether it's poles, blacks or muslims you hate, it's equally dangerous and equally disgusting. So forgive us for calling all of these generalizing dumbwits racist, it's lazy on our part. But it's not a problem, not in the slightest, because the "proper" racists aren't any worse from the ones merely pointing out that immigrants sometimes lie, so long their objective is the same.

But you're basing your conclusions on what you imagine other people to believe, rather than what you've actually observed. I've seen zero evidence to suggest that those concerned with fraudulent asylum claims are dismissive of individual cases and only make noise about the phenomena as a whole. Far from it, if anything as a society we're far more prone to focusing on the former. The statement that there are economic migrants lying about their age to illegally enter the country is a statement of fact, not a generalization. Those that are bearing the brunt of the racism claims are those that are calling for dental tests, a means to actually separate genuine cases from fake ones, which would serve to do anything but tar everyone with the same brush.

 

[markwwfc1992]

With regards to your last paragraph, how so? What was our previous identity to start with?

I feel the country has lost it's national pride. A country that has survived 2 world wars, a country that once had an empire that ruled 1/3 of the world... for a small island off the North Sea we have accomplished so much.

Now we are a country with a generation of 'young adults' who would rather lay in bed all day playing a playstation rather than going out to work because living of the taxpayer is much easier. A country that has become overzealous about political correctness. For example going back to my previous statement about terms such as 'racist' being thrown around for daring to question the age of grown man who claims to be a child.

For a country that has sacrificed so much for freedom of speech, nowadays you either go along with public opinion, otherwise you'll be branded for it. It's no wonder to me why so many people stay quiet on the matter. Still I'm glad the silent majority stood up when it counted in the referendum vote.

 

[Aber gas]

Maybe they are racist but in denial. Maybe they are racist but too cowardly to admit it. Or maybe, just maybe, to add an ounce of complexity to the discussion, their conception of "racism" differs from yours and, justifiably or not, they consider the charge erroneous.

Your post completely glosses over this third possibility – quite the omission given that "racist" has become such a contentious term, and not least because some habitually throw it around with such frequency, laziness and cynical opportunism that only a certifiable moron wouldn't be sceptical about it.

Your post would be fine within a discussion about something that was blatantly and unambiguously racist – e.g. if Theresa May was calling black people nignogs and proposing the involuntary repatriation of all non-white immigrants. It would indeed be bloody weird if people were supporting that yet balking at the suggestion of racial prejudice.

But contemporary discussion about racism isn't that simple. It's not focused on blatant examples. Nowadays one is more likely to be called racist for writing uncomplimentary things about the EU, or questioning the merits of state multiculturalism, or wondering whether 300,000+ per annum net migration is sustainable, or pointing out that certain 'child refugees' look about 40, or (to give an example from a wonderfully acrimonious dinner party I attended last week) suggesting that 'desperate asylum seekers' might be a misnomer when applied to people who have passed through numerous safe countries but haven’t claimed asylum in any of them.

"Racism" seems a pretty broad church nowadays, at least if one uncritically accepts that every charge of racism has validity. So perhaps we need to be more precise. When you refer to "racists", who do you have in mind?

My post was in reference to Lineker being "called out on his bullshit". A quick delve into the people tweeting him didn't reveal reasoned critiques of immigration policy. It was an absolute shitstorm of angry race hate. Upon challenging (I can't resist) these people out came the "race realism" "concerns about immigration" alongside the usual "leftard " insults( to be expected). The constant hiding behind borrowed intellectual arguments and accusations of projection is boring and seems pointless given the eagerness to express racial prejudice at other times.
So to me at least calling out racists on the basis of their actions isn't diluting or reducing the term. It's cutting through the bullshit.

 

[Bilo]

The statement that there are economic migrants lying about their age to illegally enter the country is a statement of fact, not a generalization.

Sure, it's a statement of fact and here's the problem:

If 5 out of a 100 000 lie about their age, your statement is true. If 20 000 out of a 100 000 lie about their age, your statement is true. And there's no reliable research on the subject because the validation affects the outcome. As such, it's a very unreliable fact to base an opinion on. You have to assume, without proof, that the number is closer to 20 000 than than 5, because if only 5 out of a 100 000 lie about their age, it's not worth spending money, time and resources on, I'm sure you agree.

Then you combine this very odd relation to factual statements with saying economic migrants instead of refugees, mass immigration instead of immigration, and that lots of people look older than they actually are, and you've got yourself a generalization based on prejudice disguised as a fact.

Essentially, the opinion that age controls are needed is exclusively based on assumptions; namely that immigrants lie about their age to a certain extent. And why does this border racism? Well, let me give you a parallell:

When you go to the United States, you apply for an ESTA, at least if you're Swedish. One of the boxes you have to tick is that you've never been convicted in the court of law. Fact: some lie. Another fact: it isn't validated.

Now, you can of course argue that convicted criminals shouldn't enter the country and of course this should be validated. But here the assumption is that the number is closer to 5 out of a 100 000 than 20 000.

So you've got two identical facts (some lie), with identical reasoning behind it, with two different outcomes. It's not a coincidence that Sweden is a western european country and therefore the assumption is much more favorable than that for immigrants. Now for the record, I'm not necessarily against validation on the ESTA or age controls. I'm merely pointing out that the reasoning behind it is based on assumptions combined with vague facts, such as the one you presented.

Some lie. No shit sherlock.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Reading this, I can't help being reminded of:

 

[Aber gas]

Reading this, I can't help being reminded of:

Ffs

 

[Captain Scumbag]

The EU-referendum was hellish for everyone. In Sweden, it's always been the cause of the left wing to be against the EU. Brexit tipped that on its head, because politics today is very much guilt by association -- which is obviously something you suffer from, somewhat. Personally, as a journalist I steer clear from almost every political issue because it's my professional responsibility so I have some distance to it. But it really was absurd watching people whom I've known to be extremely critical, and vocal, about the EU for years all of a sudden narrating the Brexit-result as the end of democracy.

The left in Britain used be a lot more EU-sceptic. I think the change occurred in the mid-to-late 1990s. Blairism shifted the focus from economics to more socio-cultural stuff and identity politics; and, with the battle lines redrawn that way, lefty support for the EU understandably grew – support for it denoting an outlook that was internationalist, cosmopolitan, modern, progressive, different to Norman Tebbit’s.

FWIW, there were absurdities abound here too. Think my favourite was Corbyn and McDonnell pitching their tent in Camp Remain despite central planks of their proposed economic programme (state support for ailing industries, renationalisaton, People’s Quantitative Easing) being prohibited by EU law. But I digress…

What is the general mood in Sweden regarding the EU? I vaguely remember reading that support has grown since the UK result. Is that true? Why do some Swedes consider the result is “the end of democracy”? Always interesting to read an outside perspective.

As for occasionally thinking you're wrong, that's just healthy. Those who don't are rarely worth listening to.

Oh, I often entertain the troubling notion that I’m wrong. It’s just, the cause of self-doubt is rarely (if ever) someone pointing out that, by arguing X, I’m on the same side as Nick Griffin or some other despicable arsehole I’d prefer not to be associated with. Because that’s a terrible debating tactic, and one I refuse to be cowed by. Self-doubt in the Socratic sense? There’s a lot of that.

So stick to your guns, I'd say, but you'll have to find a way of thinking so that this bothers you less. Otherwise, you're just becoming another depressed, misunderstood intellectual and we've got enough of those.

Appreciate the concern, but it’s unnecessary. My posts were not intended in a “poor me” sort of way. They weren’t about how hurt and misunderstood I feel. The “waycist” accusations almost invariably occur online (not here, I should add), and TBH I couldn’t give less fucks about strangers on the internet impugning my character.

Piss poor quality political discourse does bother me. It worries me, actually. I find it hard to watch an episode of Question Time or a session of PMQs without wondering whether western civilisation – imperfect in myriad ways but ultimately worth preserving – is just irredeemably fucked. But I dunno. It’s not as though these thoughts plague me on a day-to-day basis. Too busy usually.

 

[Alty]

Piss poor quality political discourse does bother me. It worries me, actually. I find it hard to watch an episode of Question Time or a session of PMQs without wondering whether western civilisation – imperfect in myriad ways but ultimately worth preserving – is just irredeemably fucked.

Agree with this. Two things spring to mind (these are points I've nicked from cleverer people, not things I've thought up on my own):

1. Increasingly people seem to care more about what you think than how you think. There's often a total lack of interest in how you've arrived at your conclusions. People just can't get past the fact you're in the 'wrong' camp.

2. People (from various political camps, by the way) see those with opposing views not just as opponents but as enemies. The level of hatred people harbour for the political adversaries genuinely worries me. The willingness to smear others for the 'greater good' is particularly troubling.

 

[TheMinsterman]

Agree with this. Two things spring to mind (these are points I've nicked from cleverer people, not things I've thought up on my own):

1. Increasingly people seem to care more about what you think than how you think. There's often a total lack of interest in how you've arrived at your conclusions. People just can't get past the fact you're in the 'wrong' camp.

2. People (from various political camps, by the way) see those with opposing views not just as opponents but as enemies. The level of hatred people harbour for the political adversaries genuinely worries me. The willingness to smear others for the 'greater good' is particularly troubling.

Even away from politics, "debates" often boil down to who YOU are as a person, they devolve into "well you are an x" to dismiss arguments, it's as if we've collapsed into rather than defeating ideas with arguments we try to defeat the person spouting ideas and discredit them. Destroying your credibility rather than bothering to tackle the idea itself and how you've come to it is part of the reason why bad idea perpetuate and spread, people become martyrs because their adversary was so focused on destroying them.

Discussion about race? Well you're white. Discussion about sexism? Shut up cis male. Discussion about sexuality? You don't understand, you're straight. Want to talk about politics? Fuck you left/right wingers, stupid liberal/bigot.

Debate has nosedived dramatically.

 

[Bilo]

What is the general mood in Sweden regarding the EU? I vaguely remember reading that support has grown since the UK result. Is that true? Why do some Swedes consider the result is “the end of democracy”? Always interesting to read an outside perspective.

For the record, I think a lot of what you say is reasonable and obviously you seem to keep a sound distance to the accusations coming your way from time to time. I think it was the dinner party-example you used in a previous post that made me assume it was a reoccuring problem.

As for your question, the EU was a heated debate back in the late 90s (we joined in 95), but that was a question of principle as Sweden has always been a neutral country avoiding military alliances, and the EU was obviously toeing that line. Since then, the debate has been largely a question of "now that we're here, what can we do with it?". Change from the inside, if you catch my drift. So while the left has been critical of the EU, they have rarely (if ever) argued on a wide front that we should leave it.

The support didn't statistically grow after the referendum, it's still only the far-right arguing that we should leave the EU and even they can't be bothered, generally. It's a question of self image, essentially. We tend to, without saying it outright, assume that we're the best country in the world but we're too small to make any kind of difference in global politics. So we essentially depend on institutions such as the EU and the United Nations to realistically make any difference whatsoever. Most people know this, so it's going to take a lot for us to actually want to leave the EU as it is, at worst, a means to an end. Aside from that, we're generally pro immigration and travel a lot ourselves within the EU. You'd think it's a trivial thing to appreciate, but a significant portion of my generation have lived abroad within the EU and we value that. London is Sweden's fourth biggest city, for example. At least it was a few years ago, unsure nowadays but you get the point.

As for the referendum being the end of democracy, that's an extremely complicated question and I personally disagree with it so to some extent you're asking the wrong person. Anyway, if anything it's been narrated as the beginning of the end. I'll give it a shot in broad terms, but I really do want to stress that it's much more complicated than this:

Representative democracies are built on trust, more than anything else. You got your freedom of speech, right to vote, etc, but they are theoretically secondary to the importance of trusting the democratic institutions, including the press. And this very trust was exactly what the referendum attacked, and it showed that it can work. Through continually discrediting the EU, the trust in the EU as an institution was diminished based on much more than just plain facts. And this resulted in one city in Wales, the name escapes me now, voting out of the EU despite being one of the cities in the EU getting the most benefits. They essentially voted against themselves, because they didn't trust the EU. You can't say they didn't know because they were told, they just couldn't believe it.

So theoretically, this is only the beginning. You've already got your attacks on the BBC, there's a funny comic on the page previous to this one but it's much more serious than that. There's a direct, linear correlation between a strong public service and functioning democracies; but that too will be secondary once the trust in the BBC is gone.

And this doesn't necessarily stop anywhere. Through discrediting democratic institutions you can get people to vote for anything, so long they trust you more than whichever institution they voted against. And trust isn't logical, not exclusively anyway. The end game, of course, is that once enough democratic institutions have been discredited the democracy will fail to function properly. And like the carriage behind the horse, the call comes for a strong leader. From that point all you need is a crisis and the democracy is done.

It sounds like a conspiracy, of course, but it really is the blueprint for acquiring non-democratic power in a democracy. We just don't believe it could happen here and now. We never do.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

Increasingly people seem to care more about what you think than how you think. There's often a total lack of interest in how you've arrived at your conclusions.

I was never taught how to think. Not in secondary school, anyway. Were you?

When I was at school there was no instruction in things like informal logic, critical thinking or rhetoric. Nothing that equipped me with any of the conceptual tools required to pick apart a bad argument; or, conversely, construct a good one. Not even a primer on, say, the most basic logical fallacies. I had to teach myself most of that in my early 20s.

I often wonder whether the same is true for most UK pupils nowadays. I honestly don’t know, so would be interested to hear from any teachers or recent school leavers. Quite possibly the national curriculum covers it much better now, but the general quality of public discourse – especially among young adults – suggests not.

Assuming my suspicions are correct, I think something like a compulsory GCSE in Critical Thinking wouldn’t do any harm. Political discussion would still get heated, but there would be fewer bad arguments.