This authoritarian government is out of control
As Western economies, especially Western cities, have felt more and more broadly assimilated in cultural terms, the search for “the alternative” has become a commonplace of our politics. The Corbynite Left viewed, for a while at least, Venezuela as a realistic alternative to Western capitalism, and not only that, a model for a new society to be built in the UK. Such views tell us a lot about those who adhere to them and very little about their objects, in this case Venezuela. The Left’s affection for Venezuela was in fact a perverse reconstruction of Western cultural imperialism – indeed, that the Marxist-Leninist project, a fundamentally Westernizing project, should be universally applicable is one of the great ruling illusions of the 20th century and a view that takes for granted the “specialness” of the West and its peculiar privileging of political ideologies in the general motivations of men and women.
In the case of Coronavirus, the search for a model has been no less intense, no less reductive. Those of a libertarian bent became, quite early on in the pandemic, convinced that Sweden was the right model to follow. But Sweden’s path is rooted in decades of social democracy, a way of life glossed by the public term folkhemmet “the people’s home” – indeed, the sternest critics of the country’s coronavirus policy have been on the political right. Similarly, many of Britain’s political centre have lauded the approach taken by the rising Asian democracies, societies which, beyond their globally networked cities, bear virtually no comparison to our own in terms of their attitudes to freedom and public health.
In the absence of any clear strategic vision, our government in Britain is increasingly ruled by the most authoritarian aspects of our culture, which have no basis in an evidence-based approach to public health.
One significant strand of our society is a radical embrace of individual liberty, in tune with Britain’s historical development as one of the world’s leading commercial societies over several centuries. This is a strand that we share with the Dutch, although, in the Netherlands, and unlike here, it has expression in a very extreme form of secularism and a fundamentalist attitude towards freedom of expression.
However, Britain is also a country uniquely obsessed with social class. It has a density that is not found anywhere else – Germany, for example, with its far broader “middle class” is far more self-conscious of its regional differences, especially between North and South. We constantly invest in judgements over the Ps and Qs of others and make elaborate speculations on the merits or otherwise or someone’s background. The “snooper” culture – tell on your neighbours if they are breaking the rules – now being promoted by the cabinet is in tune with that.
It is also a culture in tune with growing calls for national “curfews”. What possible evidence base is out there that shows curfews work to slow the spread of coronavirus? Peru has had one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks on the planet and a vastly punitive curfew all year. In Belgium, a curfew was instituted, but there is no evidence that it has made much difference to the situation there. Did a curfew stop an extended spread of coronavirus in Melbourne’s care homes, where much of the burden of coronavirus mortality actually takes place?
Britain’s strategy has become even more confused in light of the various perorations in the media of some of our “leading” scientists, who have got carried away mid-pandemic. They have unwittingly embraced a peculiarly parochial form of “scientism,” fashionable in the 19th century. They are the heirs to the positivists, like Saint-Simon, who believed in the reconstruction of society around a planned order. Scientific reason has its limited and useful applications – but it should never be used as a prescription for calibrating human behaviour to the nth degree.
Sadly, these dynamics are now out of control and will wreak serious damage on our society with further lockdowns. Instead, we need a competent executive, with a strong and sensible PM in charge, to make sense of it all. God help us.