A cursory glance at social media makes it clear that there is huge concern – across political and cultural divides – about the degeneration of public life, behaviour and language. It is not hard to see why.
Against the explosion of sexual harassment claims (which exposes decades of ‘normal’ behaviour that went unchallenged because of its normality), we also see an eruption of trial by media. I have little sympathy for those who find themselves caught out, but do worry about those who are innocent, but now find themselves tried and sentenced by allegation. There must surely be implications for what I am calling the integrity of the public discourse.
But, we now have a US President who is a proven liar, misogynist and sexual predator (by his own taped evidence), and he continues in power. The lying and misrepresentation does not appear to disturb those who would have strung up previous presidents for just one faux pas. Lying and misrepresenting have become normalised. And there is no penalty.
Yesterday the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, told a House of Commons committee that the 57 Brexit impact assessment papers do not exist. In October these not only existed, but went into what he described as “excruciating detail”. When Parliament demanded sight of them, a highly secretive bunch of papers was eventually submitted to a limited audience – deemed by readers on all sides to be statements of the obvious. This turn of events should, at the very least, be deeply concerning.
The question here is not about the apparent (or should that be ‘alleged’) incompetence of the government in driving the negotiations for the UK’s departure from the EU, but the fact that someone up there is misleading not only Parliament, but the British public. This is not about whether or not we should be leaving the EU; this is not about whether the government is going about its work in the right way or competently; this is not about democracy, parliamentary sovereignty or the legitimate confidentiality demanded by sensitive process; this is about the normalisation of corruption (which, in terms of language, is no less serious than in other ethical matters), the easy acceptance of lying and misrepresentation by a bewildered public, and the implications for civil society (as well as what we teach our children by word and example) of allowing language to be debased, facts to be dismissed in the face of ‘alternative truths’, and for this to be done with such casual impunity.
I have lots of conversations with concerned politicians and journalists about the corruption of the political discourse. I am less sure what to do about it other than to challenge it and try to demonstrate a different way. This goes deeper than “speaking out”.
Any ideas?
December 7, 2017 at 2:00 pm
Nick
The time has come for Civil Disobedience, I fear, as trust has broken down.
I’m up for it; are you and ++ Justin ?
December 7, 2017 at 2:09 pm
I like you don’t have any answers. Off course, the British Public can give an answer via the Ballot Box, but recent events have proven that the ballot box can be influenced by lies and misinformation as both the Brexit referendum and the recent general election demonstrated.
The grandiose statements on public expenditure from Jeremy Corbyn and his party, were equally by the Tories and others, I believe that trust in the Political class is waning,unless you are swayed by the rhetoric of momentum and UKIP. Even the Green Party is not as straight forward as I like, and I support them at elections.
What I find difficult to understand is the populist parties appeal to the electorate, that find them more to their taste than the main stream parties – but
there appears to be no accounting for taste.
As for Mr Trump…….words don’t describe what I think of him/
December 7, 2017 at 4:54 pm
The political system is broken. We are disenfranchised because neither party is trustworthy, nor do they listen to proper debate, they just shout. We can’t vote them out becasue there is nobody else. This isn’t just true in the UK, it seems to be around the world.
Solutions? I think the situation is serious enough to pray. We need a movement that will work not in a partisan party way, but to pray for a renewal of political and public life by the working of the Holy Spirit. Anything less than that and I am terribly affraid for my grandchildren’s future.
December 7, 2017 at 5:20 pm
Use your position in The House of Lords to speak out against the issues you outline whenever possible and do the same in private conversation with politicians and other powerful persons. Keep up the blogs and encourage us all to pray!
December 7, 2017 at 6:11 pm
Reblogged this on hungarywolf.
December 7, 2017 at 7:52 pm
I sat in on a hugely interesting and topical lecture yesterday, at the University of Leeds, School of Earth and Environment. “Renegade” economist Kate Raworth explained Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist. The lecture hall was packed, people are hungry for a new narrative, they know things have gone badly wrong, gross inequality, climate breakdown, and much else. The concepts Kate shared spoke to me in many ways, including those that focus on Kingdom building. What are needed are politics and economics in service to life, all life, as if people and the environments they live in, and share with all living things, actually matter. EF Schumacher set out in considerable detail, and accuracy, in the early 1970s, in his book “Small Is Beautiful: a study of economics as if people mattered” what would result from the neoliberalism that was beginning to take hold, and took its fullest forms in Reaganomics and Thatcherism. The two countries where it bit the deepest are undergoing much political trauma now, and I think it is no coincidence. From the reading I have done about America’s neoliberalism manifest in Central America, I can better understand the anger behind “If I Had A Rocketlauncher” by Bruce Cockburn, not someone known for angry songs particularly. There are a number of people who are helping to develop the new narrative that is needed. It would be better at this point to share their names, and suggest that if anyone is interested, simply look up their recent books, YouTube, papers, there is a lot happening in fact, and some politicians are listening. There are many things we can do individually and collectively to bring about the world we wish to see and pass on. But we need to understand how it is we got to where we are to understand how to respond. I may add some more later, but I just want to reinforce something Bishop Nick often says, that we need to be drawn by hope, not driven by fear. The authors I mention here have similar, overlapping messages, and all of them write with hope, on ways to nudge the affairs of humanity to a better trajectory before it is too late, with runaway climate breakdown from over stressed Earth systems.
Kate Raworth: Doughnut Economics: seven ways to think like a 21st century economist
Naomi Klein: Shock Doctrine; This Changes Everything: capitalism versus the climate; No is not enough: defeating the new shock politics
George Monbiot: Out Of The Wreckage
December 7, 2017 at 8:25 pm
It may be that neoliberalism encourages the normalisation of corruption. Humanity’s true nature is altruism, we are spectacularly evolved and wired for cooperation, no other species comes close. Neoliberalism works against this at many levels, and distances us from our intrinsic altruism, and this has consequences, none of them good as far as I can tell. Quite a lot has been written about this by the authors I mentioned previously, and by Noam Chomsky, someone to whom I refer when I want to understand better the geopolitics of current affairs.
December 8, 2017 at 6:41 am
This article from The Conversation, from June 2016, analyses the links between neoliberalism and the normalisation of corruption, and not just in the financial sector:
http://theconversation.com/how-neoliberalisms-moral-order-feeds-fraud-and-corruption-60946
December 8, 2017 at 10:21 am
The architect, inventor and activist said something interesting and useful that links to Nick’s last sentence in this blog:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
The latter part about demonstrating a different way is correct. My sense is that challenging the corruption of the public discourse will not do any harm, but probably will not have much effect, because speaking truth to power is usually a waste of effort. They know the truth already, they have access to the best information and research available. They act on truth in either good or benign ways, or in the wrong way. Either way, power usually knows what it is doing, though maybe the current government here is an exception. And see how Trump is shutting down, and undermining environmental science. He knows exactly what he is doing. So, speaking truth to those with little power, as the slavery abolition movement did, is what yields results, because it focuses collective attention on a major moral issue. Slavery commodified and drew a profit from something that should not have been subjected to those criteria. Neoliberalism is very good at commodifying very many things, a price on things without taking account of its value. Michael Sandel in a Reith lecture talked about commodification, that very many things can be commodified, but some should not be.
December 8, 2017 at 11:21 am
That we all take greater responsibility for democracy and do not merely rely on the ballot box. That we read background information, policy documents, position statements – for national government, local government, the NHS etc, and don’t rely on others to summarise. That we attend meetings, respond to consultations, and do so in a constructive manner rather than simply shouting “That’s rubbish” and resorting to name calling.
We all need to be a little more Vulcan.
December 8, 2017 at 12:04 pm
The answer is a vigilant and independent press. Politicians must be terrified at the prospect of being caught in a lie.
December 8, 2017 at 12:18 pm
That was the architect Buckminster Fuller, by the way, left out the all important quote attribution!
December 9, 2017 at 11:25 am
“Lying and misrepresenting have become normalised”.
I think it’s worse than that. The claim, in a culture steeped in relativism, is that there is no lying or misrepresentation because there is no truth of the matter, there are only ways of seeing. When I accused a (once) close friend of being dishonest about something, I was accused of trying to dictate terms. I had no right to prioritise my point of view over theirs. Basically, if I had a problem with what they had said or done then I had to sort myself out and leave them alone.
At a personal level it is possible to ‘disconnect’ from someone who is constitutionally dishonest (and that can have a profound effect, depending on the relationship) but as one of your ‘commenters’ has said, it’s not possible to do that at a political level. Where could we go?
Just keep on keeping on is the only answer; writing, speaking, singing, shouting, challenging, complaining. A primary school helper once hurt me by calling me a busybody. All I did was point to a lack of soap in the toilets. Now then! Let’s all be busybodies.
December 11, 2017 at 4:34 pm
I too feel disenfranchised and let down by a system that has become entirely self serving. But what to do? We will only hear what God is saying if we are prepared to listen to those excluded from this system. We also have to confess that we have been part of that system if we are comfortable, have never complained, or let others get on with politics gvment, etc. (By we I mean mainstream church as well as anyone who considers themselves Socially acceptable). I am also optimistic that we could unleash the streak of anarchy we have within us, and find a solution to complacency, or even a New Civility based on a new set of values ( I don’t need to point out that the beatitudes would be the obvious place to frame it) but it won’t come from people who we relate to or feel comfortable with. It will come from the prophetic, the artists, those living at our edges, the challengers.
December 13, 2017 at 7:03 am
[…] A cursory glance at social media makes it clear that there is huge concern – across political and … […]
December 13, 2017 at 11:32 am
Evidence from the scientific community that speaking truth to power is a waste of effort if they do not want to hear it. Corrupt power does not want to hear truth or have it spread:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/dec/13/the-us-is-penny-wise-and-pound-foolish-on-the-climate
But the views need challenging and alternatives need sharing to bring about the consensus that engenders lasting change. There is a better world possible, and as the 2017 winner of the UN’s Sean MacBride Peace Prize made clear in his acceptance speech, the four interconnected existential threats are what need to be overcome. “How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, you reap what you sow? How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”, MLK.
December 13, 2017 at 4:32 pm
According to Article 9’s true summary of the Bible we are all born with a nature inclined to evil and facing God’s wrath and condemnation from birth onwards. Repentance and submission to Christ in his atoning death and life-giving resurrection is the only deliverance: for me, for you, for politicians, for everybody.
Phil Almond
December 13, 2017 at 9:25 pm
With respect to post 17, we are also born with a nature inclined to good and altruism. It is the duality of human nature, but I am utterly convinced that the inclination to good, altruism and cooperation is the stronger of the two. No other species comes close with regard to those qualities. We are made in His image. It is when we distance ourselves from our true nature, being God’s children, that the spirit and heart and mind become distorted.
December 14, 2017 at 1:16 pm
Post 18 is contradicted by Article 10’s true summary of the Bible
December 17, 2017 at 6:28 pm
The normalization or accommodation of corruption seems to be an issue which emerges continually. From a Judeo- Christian perspective, and in earlier times people were looking for deliverance from God’s wrath and judgment, with a focus on personal salvation. Today’s commentators look at this from a wider perspective. From a contemporary perspective, the world is created good and humanity given moral responsibility which we are not able always to fulfill and to live ‘ righteously’ because of immaturity, context, ignorance, our own behaviours – such as anger, grudges, greed,envy, injustice. inhumanity. The divine intervention to put things right disturbs those with a part in, or who profit from, creation’s corruption. We can only strive to do good, refrain from evil – as we understand it.
On a slightly different note,it is good to read, Bishop, your focus on human rights, religious freedoms and the Commonwealth, looking ahead to the 2018 meeting. I followed much of the news of the 2013 Commonwealth meeting, as it was held in Sri Lanka, and chaired by President Mahinda Rajapakse. This was of course following nearly 30 years of civil war and internal massacre, which ended formally in 2009. (I worked, licensed to the Diocese of Kurunegala , in Sri Lanka 2009/2010 – and have returned twice since then). In 2013, David Cameron was Prime Minister, and there was much speculation as to whether he should attend or boycott the meeting. He chose to attend, saying that it’s only by entering into a situation, by listening and contributing, that we can be able to take steps forward together. The international community should be able too help not hinder the outcome, in this case reconciliation, which will not be achieved overnight. The dialogue is the journey.
December 17, 2017 at 10:03 pm
What are these articles, please? And what is the contradiction? Please be specific. What does “true summary of the Bible” mean? Whilst I do not know what the content of these articles are, I ought to disclose that I tend to think that literal interpretations of many parts of the bible are a mistake, a category error, one that fundamentalists frequently make. Overly rigid and literal interpretations can lead to the essential points being missed, and incorrect conclusions being drawn. An example is young earth creationism and intelligent design. Another is the strong support by evangelical Christians of President Donald Trump. He says things they like to hear, but they miss the essential point that he is an immoral and disgraceful person. There is convergence of masses of evidence in sciences like neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology, that humanity’s default is to altruism and cooperation. It is not our whole nature, but it is a very large part of it.
December 18, 2017 at 5:44 pm
Actually, the current issues in SL are, I think, more internal to the Christian religion, where mainstream Anglican/Methodist/ other Christian churches are acceptable, but Evangelical Christian churches are causing problems through encouraging conversion more openly. This came up, rather obliquely, at the Kirchentag and the presentation from the Sri Lankan theologians, which I attended: Rethinking Theology in the Context of Pluralism. Building an inter-religious movement for Just Peace, and in the work of Dr.Wesley S. Ariarajah.
There are inter-religious extremists – but the majority work and live together very well, especially in Kurunegala Diocese, central areas of the country. Some of my closest friends from the school exchange programme are of the Buddhist faith.