The Right Thing

TWENTY. 8th December 2024

A shock although not really a surprise. I’m aware from conversations with various people that this is how many of us experienced the news which arrived from the USA around breakfast time about a month ago, like a letter dropping onto your doormat containing the worst news you could imagine. Quite how we make sense of the idea that something is shocking while not surprising, I’m not sure – it’s certainly interesting, pointing to how frail and dysfunctional we really are, psychologically and mentally; notwithstanding all the clever stuff you’ve read since then about how and why the right won (again) and the left got screwed over. We know it’s probably coming – even if this nasty bastard hadn’t won this time, you can bank on there being another one along soon – but the degree to which we are prepared for it is woeful. Our state of traumatised bewilderment in the face of defeat, our basic disarray, adds further to their power, allowing them to ride roughshod through the holes in our defences and cement their gains while we’re still staggering about in a state of stunned distress. It’s surely a lesson to learn, although we might well not learn it, because learning from experience seems to be something we’re not very good at. Mostly we’re like Peter Pan, endlessly running around after one Captain Hook or another and hoping for a magical solution. There’s more drama than purposeful action. But as it says at the start of the Peter Pan story (at least the version of it that I used to read to my kids) “This has all happened before and it will all happen again”. So, maybe time to grow up and get organised.

For all that it’s devastating, at least it has the advantage of making us feel we’ve hit rock-bottom (which can bring a certain freedom along with the despair) and dispelling some illusions. You know now that it really is true that no-one is coming to save you, and you can probably see clearly enough that even if they had sort of saved you this time by flipping the small percentage majority the other way, it would probably be just a postponement. Part of why the Democrats lost, surely, is that they refused to confront the true nature of what we are up against and invested instead in some supposedly skilful strategies to help the good guys crawl over the line and hang onto control for a while longer. This, it seems to me, is not going to cut it in the long term, neither in the USA nor anywhere else.

A story I mentioned in the last post, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is relevant here. The character in the story who is the lead vampire-hunter, Professor Van Helsing, has to go to great pains to convince his team that they are dealing with an extraordinary kind of enemy – one which has mysterious and seemingly supernatural powers, a ruthless dedication to evil, and the capacity to keep coming back from the dead. To win, Van Helsing’s team needs to be very disciplined and determined and equally as ruthless as their enemy. Dracula has many vampire acolytes, remember, and his mission is to turn everyone into a vampire. Opposing him effectively requires a radical vision, a programme of determined action and a faith in Goodness which is nevertheless uncluttered by false hopes and vain fantasies. It means being very much a team player, letting go of some ideals and preferences in favour of necessities, setting aside secondary differences and working together in a disciplined way with the other people, groups and parties ‘on your side’ so as to be effective. No in-fighting or self-indulgence, rigorous attention to duty and detail. You might think this an over-dramatic depiction of where we are, and perhaps you needn’t rush out to look for a hammer and stake and some garlic just yet, but as a metaphor I think it’s pretty accurate.

A great deal has been written in the last weeks, and you’ve doubtless read some of it, about how this happened, about what long-term cultural forces and socio-economic issues combined together to make people more likely to vote for this vile creature (or less likely to vote for his opponent), about what mistakes of tone or detail were made in the campaign, about the failure in the last four years (and for decades before that) to design and implement policies which would address fundamental and long-neglected concerns (especially the wealth gap) which would get people onside. I’m sure a lot of the theories and arguments presented are valid. But I think they are beside the most important point, which is that the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world just elected as its leader and figurehead a person who preaches and epitomises selfishness; a malignant narcissist who openly craves and demands absolute power and clearly desires to nurture and spread a culture which reflects his own character. The values inherent in this culture are evidently pretty much opposite to those that your parents and teachers told you were the ones to which you should adhere. Lies in place of Truth, Cruelty in place of Kindness, Ignorance in place of Comprehension, Recklessness in place of Care, Hatred in place of Love, and so on. This seems to me to be a pretty serious state of affairs, especially because the evidence suggests that the pattern is developing across the world. Whether or not the rise to power of  Modi, Bolsonaro and others like them are such bad news as Trump’s ascendancy, it’s clear that the rise of the right is a powerful global phenomenon and it’s been knocking loudly on our own national door and on those of some of our close neighbours for quite a while. 

Much has been and is being written, again, about whether we can most accurately refer to the thing which is rising as fascism, or racism, or nationalism, or authoritarianism, or patriarchy, or just as ‘the far right’. And again much of this is interesting and valid. But I wonder if it might be most helpful, if we can bring ourselves to do it, to refer to it as the rise of Evil, or, if you prefer, Badness, because that is what it really is. Trump is a very bad man and he wants to promote a way of thinking and behaving which is just like his (with the proviso that only he can be in charge). There is no philosophy beyond that. In this respect I would say he is more like Dracula than Hitler. Basically we are dealing with an evil cult which has become dedicated to protecting and defending itself and its crazed leader. You know from everything you have read and heard about cults that trying to persuade the members of the cult that they have made a mistake by investing in this enterprise and its leader, to explain to them that they are being manipulated, to show them the irrationality of their loyalty, is going to have very limited success. You also know that telling them that they themselves are bad people who should reform their ways will have even worse outcomes.   I think that something important to understand here is that a key factor in the success of such ‘populists’ – especially the ‘strong-man-chauvinist’ type which most of them are – is that their ascendancy validates and gives permission for the traits in their followers (especially ignorance, intolerance and the the brutal will to power) which ‘progressives’ abhor. Repeatedly pointing to these fundamental character flaws doesn’t help a bit. Eventually, a lot of the people most actively and prominently supporting Trump will realise their error and come to their senses of their own accord; you could fill Trump Tower with supposedly clever people who deluded themselves and got burned last time around and are now ready to repent and to warn others off. But such processes of enlightenment are very torturous and uncertain, hampered and opposed by the vampires’ dedication to purpose and by the basic impulse of humans towards gaining short-term personal advantage and by their seemingly bottomless capacity for denial, dishonesty, prejudice, and magical thinking. So, what to do…?

I’ve heard from quite a lot of people that in fact, however upset they are about what’s happened, they don’t feel much inclined  to do anything at all about it. There are various ways of seeing this – we’re in shock, afraid, feeling overwhelmed by forces we don’t understand and by insurmountable odds. It feels like Hell, on the gates of which, according to Dante’s Inferno, it says “Abandon all hope, ye who who enter here”. It might be quite easy, tempting even, to buy into that idea: at least you don’t have to waste any more energy trying to improve the conditions, you can just get on with enduring as best you can, using distraction and mood altering experiences to feel a little bit better, maybe even convincing yourself that all this is somehow ‘normal’ or acceptable. According to the ’shock and awe’ theory of The Shock Doctrine, surely as critical a read now as it was when published 17 years ago, this is exactly how you are supposed to feel. Our disorientation, our dazed bewilderment and despair, is what enables those currently ‘in charge’ radically to increase their power and lessen ours, to make things even worse for us and better for them.

So if hitting rock-bottom like this means feeling despair and just giving up then it’s clearly bad news. But there is another way of looking at it. A (presumably) apocryphal tale I heard a few times from people in the 12-step movement is of two old drunks lying in the gutter. “We’re lucky” says one. “How’s that?” says the other. “Well, most people don’t make it down this far.” The implication, clearly, is that getting down this far is potentially transformative, enabling us to break the hold of the addictive mechanisms which got us here – bad faith, co-dependency, dishonesty, delusion, self-centredness, hubris, doing the same thing over and over in the belief that next time it will work. When you’re in the gutter, the only way is up and it’s apparent that the only way you’re getting out is if you change your ways. It’s the opportunity in the crisis. There is some evidence, in fact, that alongside the experience of defeat and demoralisation, the gutter is a place where more people than you would think find a sense of agency and make a decision to act differently. Judging from the significantly increased number of emails I received in the aftermath of the US election result from campaign groups asking me to get on board with them or give them money, it’s evident that some of them are aware of this phenomenon. Another story (this one definitely true): a young woman who happens to be confined to a wheelchair is on a weekend workshop about The Will. Along with other course participants, she goes outside the building to undertake a reflective exercise, which she finds frustrating and confusing. She gets preoccupied with staring hopelessly at the high outer wall of the premises and she runs slightly over time. When she goes to re-enter the building, the outer door, which at the top of some steps, is shut and there is no-one else around to push her up the wheelchair ramp. The bell is at the top of the ramp. After some time alone in the cold, feeling hopeless, abandoned and angry, she surprises herself by finding the energy, strength and determination to manoeuvre the chair up the ramp on her own and to force her way through the door.

It seems to me the whole philosophy of the 12-step approach has enormous value in a situation like the one we’re in now, starting with the serenity prayer: “[God] grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference”. What appeals to me about that straight away is that it reminds me of my limitations and the insanity of burning myself out by trying to do everything all at once against impossible odds. Basically, if I’m going to do anything useful at all, I need to get my ego out of the way (which is kind of interesting given that it’s people with very big egos that we’re dealing with here). It also reminds me that just because I can’t do everything doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. The surrender which they bang on about in 12-step addiction treatments is not, I think, just to being weak or flawed or limited but also to having some resources and strengths and qualities – there are things I can do but I need to find the courage to set aside my petty insecurities, my victimhood, my anxiety about discomfort and fear of failure and get on and do them.

I suppose what I’m talking about is a sort of moral imperative. I’ve spoken to a few activist friends recently, before and after November 5th, who have acknowledged that they’ve found themselves being active in a different way; not with the expectation that it’s going to make a great impact but because if feels like the “right” thing to do. I suspect quite a few of us have felt motivated by the desire to be a hero/ine. Then, when it’s become clear that we’re not going to be saviours after all, should we still keep going?  I find it easier to write about what I think I ought to do or how I think it would be helpful to feel than I do to act and feel in the ‘right’ way. I experience despair and the inclination to give up completely at least several times every day and sometimes for most of the day. Two things seem to pull me back. One is the ‘moral imperative’ thing: the question we all ask ourselves in the moments of despair – “What’s the Point?” – always seems to get answered, for me, more or less the same; the Point is to contribute to building something – a world / a community / a sense inside myself – which is characterised by those things referred to earlier above – truth, kindness, comprehension, care, love, all that – because that will be good for me and the other people to whom I feel connected.  

The other thing that pulls me back is more basic, amounting to not much more than a sense of extreme agitation; the same fearful, anxious, angry, reactive bundle of impulse that really set me off on this road six years ago. If you’ve ever pondered much about the thing referred to as ADHD (‘attention deficit hyperactivity disorder”), which I did quite a bit in my professional life, you might have concluded, as I have, that this is really what it’s about: the person with the diagnosis of ADHD (usually a young person) feels that something is very wrong or frightening so that they can’t settle, they can’t feel safe enough to concentrate on the things to which other people (usually adults) want to draw their attention. Beside themselves with agitation, they run around in circles causing trouble (trying to get your attention, in fact). Another story (last one, I promise). A boy (me) had a headteacher who terrorised the children, beating them indiscriminately when he felt like it, and flagrantly embezzling money from the school. He literally took money out of a pot marked “School Fund” and sent children to the shop with it to buy his cigarettes. (In those days they allowed you to buy cigarettes when you were only 9). He was an all-round nasty bastard who should never have been allowed anywhere near young people.  The boy and at least some of his friends told their parents what he was like. It should have been clear enough anyway; like his fictional equivalent Miss Trunchbull in the Matilda stories he was committing outrageous abuse in plain view. Of course, nobody, not parents, nor teacher colleagues, nor school governors, nor education officials, did anything about it. The usual vicious cocktail of inhibitions prevailed: fear of being the one to speak up, disbelief, denial, dependency, complicity. In fact he was imprisoned 12 years later, but it was a bit late for us by then.

Through whatever fortunate mixture of a stable enough family situation, innate personal resources and instincts for self-preservation, I avoided the beatings and any serious psychological disorder. But it was seriously disturbing, as it is now, to realise that a  clearly unsuitable and plain bad person can be elevated to a position of great power and then tolerated and even supported there by the rest of the ‘grown-up’ world. Although I was a troubled and troubling enough young person, I wouldn’t then have attracted a diagnosis of ADHD even if it had existed; but I sometimes think that these days, in my worst moments, the cap could fit, and I suspect that at least as a metaphor it could fit for many of my colleagues in the climate protest movement; beside ourselves with agitation, we run around in circles causing trouble (trying to get your attention).

Somebody, you may think, has to. The good thing about people with ADHD, or people with Oppositional Defiance Disorder or whatever other fancy name you might want to give to someone who presents basically as the ‘problem child’ screaming at you to notice the dysfunction in the ‘family’ – is that they tend to continue being a nuisance until somebody finally pays proper attention to them and/or to the underlying problems to which their behaviour is pointing. They are very very driven, neither moderating their behaviour in line with social expectations nor reforming it in response to the punitive reactions of the ‘adult’ world. They are persistent, tenacious, resilient and self-sacrificing, often heedless of how their behaviour and the reactions to it of others has harmful consequences for them. And there’s the rub; because the other side of the coin is a failure of self-care. The behaviour is exhausting for all concerned and may end up spiralling down into repetitive gestures which start to lose force and apparent meaning. Meanwhile, the person doing this starts to lose a hold on the things which keep them together and drifts, perhaps, into depression, mood-changing addictive behaviours or other sorts of self-harm. Burnout.

It seems to me that we need the ‘moral imperative’ thing here. Because it tells us that if we are to keep going with our defiant opposition then we need to stay well enough ourselves. Yes we have a duty to do ‘the right thing’ but it can’t be ‘at all costs’ . If we are going to sustain some effective resistance to the evil being perpetuated around us, then we need to resist any temptation to blow up – whatever form that might take – and to check out from the struggle in a blaze of glory. Again, I would say, a question of ego.

Finding any sort of reliable balance here can be extraordinarily difficult, but we need to look for it. How does anybody keep their eyes and ears and hearts open to the daily atrocities of life and keep themselves well? Do you give everything you have to feed suffering, starving children? Do you approach all the homeless people you see and offer to take them home with you? Do you put down your shopping bags and go to sit in the middle of the road and wait to be arrested in protest at the insanity that everyone around you is busy preparing for another Christmas of over-consumption while the delicate natural structure that keeps your habitat sound and liveable crumbles and a psychopath assumes control of the most powerful nation in the world?

I think it’s partly because these dilemmas are so difficult that many voters take refuge in the certainties offered by the right-wing populists, however absurdly false they are. Without also lying or making up stuff like they do, we can’t offer competing certainties, an alternative ‘cult’,  and that’s another difficulty. (I do think we could offer a bit more of a positive ‘vision’ of the possibilities, but maybe that’s for another time). So we have to lay out our stall, with all its gaps and conditions and unknowns and variables and mysteries, as best we can, and stand with it. I’ve stood on the street beside quite a number of actual stalls in recent years, seeking to persuade punters that they should join up to something – the climate protest movement, campaigns for proportional representation or tactical voting or, in what now seems like a distant past, against  Brexit. Responses in all cases have been more positive generally than you might imagine, but unfortunately these outreach attempts don’t result in enough people becoming active, and that is, in the end, what’s required. What constitutes being ‘active’ or ‘an activist’ has to vary according to context and personal circumstances, and with reference to what I’ve been banging on about above: what can you do that is in some way effective and consistent with maintaining your own wellbeing?

In the current situation (especially as it’s changed since November 5th although let’s face it, things weren’t looking that great before) things look very bad, critical in fact, but this does have the potential advantage of focusing minds. Which side are you on? Because it’s clearly time to pick one and then to do what you can, consistent with your wellbeing, to help that side prevail before the tides of madness and evil overwhelm us. A film I like and would recommend (possibly the best film you never saw, because most people I talk to about it don’t seem to have seen it) is Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing”. If the ponderous early pace and the sepia colours put you off, I’d suggest persevering anyway, for the film’s depth, humour and intelligence but most of all for its magnificent denouement. It’s a portrayal, among other things, of precisely the dilemma posed above, the problem of finding the right balance between your own immediate personal interests and doing what you think is right for the collective good; and about the need, ultimately, to make a clear and visible choice about which side you’re on. It’s also a demonstration that, sometimes, it can be the good guy who gains the advantage by doing something which is shocking; even if, in all the circumstances, it shouldn’t be that surprising.