A new political narrative
There is much to applaud in George Monbiot’s advocacy of a new narrative (It’s time to tell a new story, 22 September), one that would aid our crippled society out of the multiple crises produced by neoliberalism.
It may well be that the only thing that can displace a story is a story. But, for all the virtues of Monbiot’s proposed new story, something crucial is missing. The Tea Party movement that helped install Trump into the White House, and the Alternative für Deutschland party that just made it into the Bundestag, are both mobilising around the principle that Monbiot gives pride of place: the attempt to revive community life. They do so by way of a story centred on xenophobia, polarising groups that would need to stand together in solidarity against the real powers that be.
Monbiot’s story is too consensual; it overlooks conflict twice over, in the way inequality fuels right-wing populism and in that a narrative that aims to overthrow neoliberalism needs to be confrontational: its enemies will not back down, impressed by idealism and altruism. The danger is that predatory neoliberalism, demonstrably unstoppable for 30 years, has been allowed to destroy the social fabric – not to say the natural world – beyond repair.
Arne Johan Vetlesen
Horten, Norway
• I could not chase away the thought that George Monbiot has conjured up a fairytale rather than – to paraphrase the title of his latest book – a new politics that would get us out of the wreckage. A new story and better organising are certainly necessary but the lessons of history suggest that changing the world invariably involves winners and losers, turmoil and violence. Slavery did not give way to feudalism, nor feudalism to capitalism without massive economic and social disruption and the death of multitudes of people.
The tussle between the social democratic story and the neoliberal story of the past 50 years highlighted by Monbiot was merely two paragraphs in a much bigger and a much more violent struggle and story. It is the continuing struggle between conservatism, liberalism and socialism and their associated stories. Unfortunately, I do not think that the global 1% and their friends will hand over the loot without a fight.
Stewart Sweeney
North Adelaide, South Australia
• Author Robert Claiborne, writer of God or Beast: Evolution and Human Nature, once offered this quote he attributed to Bertolt Brecht: “We crave to be more kindly than we are.” This goes to the heart of George Monbiot’s message – wherein we must reject the “current political narrative” which champions a “vicious ideology of extreme competition and individualism that pits us against each other” and, instead, encourage our innate “capacity for togetherness and belonging” and “rediscover the central facts of our humanity: altruism and mutual aid”. This is not a romantic notion as some might assume, but plainly a strategy for our species’ survival.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• I agree with George Monbiot that we need a new story to re-enliven our political economy. When looking for a new story, Monbiot relies on the findings of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology which, he states, endorse the altruism and cooperativeness of the human.
He looks with favour upon the social sciences but all the ones he mentions plus sociology, social psychology etc are rooted in a belief that the overriding motivational factor in human beings is the struggle for survival. It is a misapplication of Darwin’s principle by nearly all human sciences and until this underlying belief is undone then every new story, however adventurous, will be corrupted.
Neville Symington
Turramurra, NSW, Australia
Europe’s future prospects
Jennifer Rankin’s cover article (The eurozone strikes back, 22 September) paints an encouraging picture. We have all known for some time that the eurozone and the EU as a whole need well-planned structural changes, and I am one who hopes that, after Britain leaves, the whole EU will become more united and more integrated without the drizzly half-heartedness of some people and successive governments in London. For me, this opens the hope that, after five or 10 years, people in Britain will grow tired of loneliness and declining influence and will apply to join a more organised and better-run European Union. That is certainly where I feel I belong.
Robin Minney
Durham, UK
Briefly
• Re your story Evidence of discrimination against EU nationals grows (15 September). If Prince Philip’s immigration papers are not in order, will he be deported?
Arjunada Vitos
Prague, Czech Republic
• The suggestion that evolution may operate at light speed compared with the old suggestion of over aeons (How the guppy changed its spots, Books, 15 September), is borne out by the house painting I have been engaged in recently.
The moths and spiders disturbed during the activity were fittingly whitish or nearly translucent on the white trim, but darker colours on the grey/green boards; natural selection in action.
Anthony Walter
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
