Rebellion against the Weird
Pankaj Mishra’s excellent analysis Welcome to the age of anger (13 January) prompted me to think of a complementary analysis: the Weird people have come to rule – and now the rest have rebelled.
In The Righteous Mind the sociologist Jonathan Haidt argued that the evidence suggests that the moral perspective of the Weird people (western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) is limited to the two values of liberty and welfare, whereas that of others includes a far wider range of values.
If we see the rebellion in purely economic terms, then it is hard to see why people have not turned to the political left. Mishra argues that left and right share a mistaken view of humanity as Homo economicus, but the difference between the economic left and right – the left want more state intervention and regulation in the interests of welfare; the right want less in the interests of liberty – can also be seen as a difference within the Weird perspective. Both (as Mishra notes) largely overlook other values.
Yet Mishra’s concluding solution – that we need “a radically enlarged understanding of what it means for human beings to pursue the contradictory ideals of freedom, equality and prosperity” – is still largely confined to the Weird perspective. If we are to avoid the problems of the current drift to an angry nationalism, we need find ways of embodying those values that make up a community – such as dignity, loyalty and identity – in a more positive political programme, which still includes fairness, prosperity and freedom as well as tolerance and openness.
Tim Miles
Scarisbrick, UK
• Pankaj Mishra barely investigates the reasons for resentment. It is not new and it may not even be a sign of our age. Much of today’s resentment may be explained by Richard Sennett’s Hidden Injuries of Class. Class may have something to do with capitalism creating an alienating relationship between workers and bosses. In turn, this creates injuries in the form of having to work for most of the day under semi-dictatorial management. It makes us do things we do not want to do under performance management.
Outside work, capitalism has mutated into turbo-capitalism. We run faster and faster to get nowhere, we buy more and more without getting happier, and we work harder and more but there is no social progress.
Traditionally, such resentments against capitalism were directed against those who, at least partly, caused them: the capitalist class. Recently, one of the representatives of this class, Warren Buffett, even admitted openly: “we are winning the class war”.
Today, many institutions that used to direct resentment back to Buffett’s class no longer exist. Trade unions and radical political parties are replaced by neoliberal parties and corporate mass media, post-truth blogs and Twitter accounts. They redirect resentment towards innocent scapegoats such as minorities, migrants and refugees. As a consequence, capitalism’s neoliberalism can cause more resentment while we get Brexit, Trump, May and Le Pen, and many more.
Thomas Klikauer
Sydney, Australia
• More than a century before “Trump’s Twitter account”, mentioned by Pankaj Mishra, Russia’s own Anton Chekhov wrote that “The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.”
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Blaming Russia won’t help
Natalie Nougayrède fears that “the US president-elect will make it easier for Russia to exploit cracks in continental solidarity” (13 January). It seems she knows what Russia’s goals for the future are but doesn’t share them with us.
That Russia has an interest in reviving the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is sidelined at the moment and wants a say in Europe’s security architecture, is legitimate: Russia is still a part of Europe. Furthermore, I lack to see what Obama’s “momentous failures in Syria” are or how Trump could “empower the Russian leader to turn on Ukraine”.
The US revamps its military presence in the eastern Nato states, declares Russia a foe, throws out its diplomats and accuses it of (unproven) interference in the US vote. How are we supposed to build a peaceful world with all this one-sided blame? Without any reflections of our wrongs?
Steffen Müller
Hastings, UK
We need a radical alternative
Gaby Hinsliff sounds suspiciously a like a Blair babe with her “lost party” column (13 January). In the same issue the more perceptive Aditya Chakrabortty gives us what we are up against in his interview with Wolfgang Streeck: the horror that some of us have feared.
What is needed is a radical alternative: the socially responsible control of the major institutions of society, a radical redistribution of wealth and power for genuine democracy to develop and flourish. And a massive public education campaign is crucial to garner political support for such a humane alternative to the failure of capitalism: the power of the word and the pen as well as the paving stone.
John Woolf
Christchurch, New Zealand
• How can Aditya Chakraborrty say “policymakers have pulled every lever ... investment, housing boom ...”? Both investment and house building have been totally inadequate, in England at any rate, for years, which is why house prices are ridiculous and our productivity is low.
Other commentators have been surprised that we have been buying more than economists expected following the Brexit vote, yet we have been warned that prices of imported goods will go up when we leave the EU. Sadly, this continued buying has come at the cost of increasing household debt. What a shambles!
Peter Copestake
Colne, UK
Not good time management
With reference to the four-page article by Oliver Burkeman, on Time management (6 January): did it really add to our knowledge? An in-depth article on failed time management methods, which he freely admits in the article, with almost all the book referenced from near 50 years or more ago. Could not the readership been better served with an article on world affairs? I have the thought that an article was needed and this filled the need.
Stephen Banks
Birmingham, UK
• I did enjoy the article about efficiency. It occurs to me that the crucifixion of Jesus was rather inefficient – the production line of healing, miracles and parables suddenly stopped and surely could have been managed much better. And yet a worldwide movement followed.
Bill Atkin
Wellington, New Zealand
The danger of busy roads
The Discovery dispatch Increased dementia risk found near busy roads (13 January) is a breakthrough in our understanding of the cause of dementia. It raises a few questions. If living near busy roads increases this risk, what effect does driving in stop-and-crawl conditions for three or more hours daily have?
How tragic that we do not even know whether the toxic agent comes from diesel, gasoline or both. How tragic that so few studies have been done. How tragic too that fossil fuels, which we must stop using if life is not to be extinguished by global warming, appear to be the cause of both dementia and cancer and yet no one in high places seems to notice.
Ken Ranney
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Trouble for the NHS
While all the evidence points towards an NHS in crisis (13 January), it is ridiculous for Dr Mark Holland to describe it as having “third-world levels of staffing and third-world levels of beds”. He should try working a few third-world hospitals; then he would see how enormously far behind first-world institutions they are.
Tim Sprod
Taroona, Tasmania, Australia
• Wrong-site surgery (UK news, 6 January) is inexcusable. However, patients can be proactive to help mitigate the chance of error. A friend booked for leg amputation arrived in the operating room with one leg marked “WRONG LEG!”, and the other with dashes on his thigh, inviting the surgeon to “CUT ALONG THE DOTTED LINE”.
Anthony Walter
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
Briefly
• Regarding your piece Chagos islanders demand right to return (30 December): I find it totally shameful that successive governments have continued to marginalise and steal from the Chagos people. For decades, the UK has insisted that the US, which uses the island for military purposes, needs to give permission for the return of the inhabitants, while the US passes the responsibility back to the UK. This is a gross injustice that should have been corrected long ago. To extend the agreement for another 20 years is to continue disgraceful cruelty and inhumanity.
Janet Pringle
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Your article A president without precedent (20 January) appears to be a reprint relating to an event from 30 January 1933.
Philip Stigger
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
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