'How dare she be so aloof!': Ersatz outrage - How we got duped by Big Business media

'It's very disappointing, disrespectful, wrong, to snub the media conference in that way. For the money she earns, she could at least pay the honour of giving a few words.' How it became OK to justify huge pay inequalities by seeing celebrities as public property.

We are reacting exactly to the script.

Because they know that oppressing our anger and outrage is too difficult, in order to dominate us, they cleverly channel it off, siphon it away (this irritating pollutant to capitalist order), to a place where it cannot be mobilised by a political opposition to Big Business and their elitist agenda. This inert place is something like a 'facile moral highway'. It is not actually to do with morals at all. It is to do with raw emotions, personal fears, tribalism and disillusionment. It is also a perfectly controlled, artificial civil war (without the revolution), handed to us by those in power. It is designed to keep us fighting ourselves, keep us reinforcing and consuming pulp fiction, and keep us distracted from confronting the real enemy.

So when we feel let down in this way, by, for example, a bad-tempered professional tennis player, it begs the questions, "What is it we ask for, from a sportsperson's public persona?", "How should a sportsperson aim to present her/himself through the media?", "Does he/she in fact have any such obligations to communicate with and present a persona to the public?"

The Williams sisters (tennis players) are notoriously monosyllabic in their post-match press conferences. But do we have any right to feel outraged (on a quasi moralistic level) by this lack of engagement? So often, our argument bases itself on the extortionate salaries these sportsmen/women commission. Cue the usual quip: 'For the pay they get, they could at least have the decency to say a few words to the public!' Really? Doesn't this make a mockery of what it means to earn an income? If a Tesco worker gave a 5 minute interview at the end of every shift, they wouldn't suddenly justify moving from £7/hr to £7000/hr.

Do we want to prop up society's rampant wealth inequality system, or do we seriously want to address it? Rather than pretend to justify it, by being 'outraged' at Venus Williams keeping her mouth shut in the media box, shouldn't we be taking on the power-brokers, the controlling elites, the Big Business culture of proud domination? It might be a very difficult task fraught with conflict, it might mean confronting our own delusions; but at the bottom of all of this, all we ask for is the chance to genuinely promote equal pay for people in all areas of society.

Lovely weather we're having: How small-talk masks social injustice

"It's set to rain the next few days"
"gonna be a good sunny weekend for the cricket"
"let's hope it stays dry for Wimbledon"

Safe Topics of Conversation:

These are all examples of interactions that are socially unproblematic. Any combination of citizens thrown together, can talk about the weather without risking political confrontation. One does not have to worry about insulting anyone. There is no danger of being exposed as a snob, a bourgeois, a toff, a bigot, an elitist, a racist, an ignorant, a fool, a philosopher, a psychoanalyst, a Conservative, a Liberal, a fascist or Marxist.

In short: YOU ARE EXEMPT FROM SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER.

So when you come across a culture which falls into meteorological rhetoric at any given opportunity, you know that you are amongst a society that is inherently classist. 

A society that imposes a taboo on talking politics, does so for one good reason: In order that, in true Orwellian style, the oppressed masses are pacified and not stirred to revolt.

The Fine Art of Democracy

Picasso famously said that 'every act of creation is first an act of destruction'. Because to create something means not settling for what is currently held to be right. Innovation will upset the status quo, in the quest for truth.

There is however a delicate dialectical relationship between tradition and innovation. Picasso respected tradition, but knew that to honour the tradition of fine art, he must continue to show that it can progress and have meaning going forward. As soon as one period of cultural tradition is canonised as the definitive model, then the aesthetic loses its status as art, and becomes a political tool or a sentimental cliché of a bygone Era.

When conservative tradition totally denies innovation, the relationship stops being self-regulating and becomes hijacked for political means. To insist that 'Progress stops here!' is the beginning of the end. It is an issue that postmodernism grapples with, when considering where we are going in the world.

The 1980s epitomised much of what postmodernism feared about mainstream global politics. Had we not learned the dangers of fascism? Norman Tebbit, it seemed, had not:

"Bad art was as good as good art. Grammar and spelling were no longer important. To be clean was no better than to be filthy. Good manners were no better than bad. Family life was derided as an outdated bourgeois concept. Criminals deserved as much sympathy as their victims. Many homes and classrooms became disorderly - if there was no right nor wrong there could be no bases for punishment or reward. Violence and soft pornography became accepted in the media. Thus was sown the wind; and we are now reaping the whirlwind."

Norman Tebbit. 1985. Lecture.

Mr Tebbit suggests that any art that disagrees with his conservative taste, should be branded bad by all. This kind of state imposed nationalism would lead to a dictatorship. Moreover, Lord Tebbit seems to forget that his government's greedy privatisation of state institutions, and deregulation of corporate capitalism, is what eroded society's sense of identity and sense of dignity in the first place. No wonder people are not 'behaving' themselves in the Victorian sense of the word. If violence and porn are rife, it is because the Conservative government of the '80s neglected to realise that selling off Britain to the highest bidder, would inevitably lead to putting the welfare of the people in the hands of businessmen; who don't care if your kids are exposed to graphic sex and violence, so long as they are paying the premium channel rate.

Britain felt betrayed by the government which was not acting on their behalf. People will only show respect, when they are respected. To ask them to be clean, well-mannered, courteous, well-read intellectuals, when they are fighting for basic survival, shows how far removed Britain's ruling elite had become.

The perverse state that gives welfare only to the rich: Better to have a paternal state than a maternal state

Post Victorian Britain was a time of great social change. The ruling elite could no longer ignore the public's outrage at the double standards in society. To promote a lifestyle of thrift and moderation is all very well, but the rules of the new capitalist game were not fairly set. The working classes knew that those who were advocating restraint, were living lives of decadent luxury. They knew they were being humiliated and insulted, when rich businessmen rejected giving financial aid (welfare) to the poor, saying 'I worked for it, so I deserve it.'

"It is probably a misfortune that... popular writers like Samuel Smiles... have defended free enterprise on the ground that it regularly rewards the deserving. It bodes ill for the future of the market order that this seems to have become the only defence of it which is understood by the general public. That it has largely become the basis of the self-esteem of the businessman often gives him an air of self-righteousness which does not make him more popular."

F. A. Hayek. Law, Legislation & Liberty. Vol. 2: The Mirage of Social Justice (London: Routledge, 1982. p74

We come to the worrying realisation, that without proper state intervention, capitalism left alone, makes the rich more powerful, and the poor more vulnerable. Nineteenth century American sociologist Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913) believed that the paternalism, which irritated businessmen who advocated laissez-faire economics, was a necessary regulation imposed upon a form of capitalism that was leaving the poor vulnerable and the rich irresponsible:

"The charge of paternalism is chiefly made by the class that enjoys the largest share of government protection. Those who denounce it are those who most frequently and successfully invoke it. Nothing is more obvious today than the signal inability of capital and private enterprise to take care of themselves unaided by the state. And while they are incessantly denouncing "paternalism", by which they mean the claim of the defenseless laborer or artisan to a share in this lavish state protection, they are all the while besieging legislatures for relief from their own incompetency, and "pleading the baby act" through a trained body of lawyers and lobbyists. The dispensing of national pap to this class should rather be called "maternalism", to which a square, open and dignified paternalism would be infinitely preferable."

L. F. Ward. The American Mind: An Interpretation. Yale, 1950. p210

Society today is still structured top to bottom. The labels may have been rewritten, but essentially we have those who feel entitled, and those who feel imprisoned, with those who feel torn between the two, sandwiched in the middle. The American Dream, or the 'Self-Help' initiative coined by Samuel Smiles, pretends that the shackles of classism, snobbery and bourgeois culture, have been removed, giving all who work hard enough, the opportunity to achieve a better life. There are many problems with this point of view. It is a naive wish. It is ambiguous and politically elitist. Smiles displays the kind of partisan rhetoric typically used by capitalists wanting to undermine the genuine argument for a social welfare system that protects the oppressed masses working long hours for little rewards:

"Labour is toilsome and its gains are slow. Some people determine to live by the labour of others, and from the moment they arrive at that decision, become the enemies of society. It is not often that distress drives men to crime. In nine cases out of ten, it is a choice not necessity. Moral cowardice is exhibited as much in public as in private life. Snobbism is not confined to toadying of the rich, but is quite as often displayed in the toadying of the poor... Now that the "masses" exercise political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, flatter them, speak nothing but smooth words to them. They are credited with virtues they themselves know they do not possess. To win their favour, sympathy is often pretended for their views, the carrying out of which is known to be hopeless."

S.Smiles. Thrift. London, 1885. p.154

It seems incredible that Smiles feels comfortable to pass off so many of his political opinions as if they were objective, absolute truths that could not be disputed. Where is the evidence for this political power that 'the masses now exercise'? Where does he pluck the '9 out of 10 crimes are committed out of choice not necessity' statement from? As soon as the social order begins to even hint at trying to bring about better equality, those at the top become defensive for fear of having to contemplate reconnecting with the plebs. His contempt palpable in his comment "... there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, flatter them..." Smiles speaks about working people as if they were an unintelligent race, who do not know what is best for them.

The only people urging us to knuckle down and work to get rich, are those who never have to. By definition, to be rich, is to be better off than the masses. To be equally well off is not written into the American Dream, or Smiles' work-ethic mantra. It's a hoax that is designed to keep the working people toiling on, with the false dream, designed to disguise the fact that they are being exploited by a parasitic ruling elite who are living a life of luxury and leisure because of them. As Frank Ward says, "Those who denounce [state paternalism] are those who most frequently and successfully invoke it." What a perverse situation, that a democratic government should implement a welfare scheme that works to look after those who need no protection, only to further exploit those who are already made vulnerable through economic exploitation.

In the final insult of this barrage of abuse aimed at the working classes, Smiles states with profound sincerity: "The capitalist is merely a man who does not spend all that is earned by work." [London. 1885:154] Either he is the most naive man alive, or he is a devious politician. What he says may be true, but he neglects to mention capitalism's social responsibility to its people. If it is possible, in capitalist society, to 'earn' disproportionate incomes, leaving others to toil for scraps, then hoarding this money, literally starves a large percentage of the population. I would suggest that the capitalist is merely a man who understands that he holds power over the lives of others, but feels a sense of superiority over those who cannot fight back, and feels no personal responsibility to address the arbitrary imbalance of fortunes amongst men.

Better to be nannied by the State than the Corporates

As we enter the glorious 2014 summer of sport, with cycling, football, rugby, tennis, cricket and maybe more, TV viewers will, if they haven't already, without doubt notice how prevalent and incessant, gambling advertising has becoming.

So what exactly is worrying about all this? After all, advertising has been around since the industrial revolution, and gambling since the dawn of civilization. The gambling per se, is not the real concern. Neither, in fact, is the advertising. Here is the issue:

Who is manipulating our society? Who is not regulating it? And therefore, who is really in power? When we break it down Iike this, we see that the hope of believing in a strong, democratically elected government is a tragic illusion. If unelected, invisible Corporations, who are impervious to criticism, immune from taking responsibility, and driven by nothing more than the desire to increase their material wealth, are running the country, then how can we ever hope that society will make any effort to act responsibly, or genuinely encourage its citizen to behave ethically?

The result of this is that people go one of two ways; both very damaging to society's social fabric. One: They hold contempt for the Corporate state and the feeble government who has allowed it to happen. Two: Broken spirited, they finally assume the role designed for them, and spend their lives in a fearful frenzy, as debt-riddled, emotionally and materially impoverished, confused, and unfulfilled consumers.

I don't advocate a nanny state. But neither do I advocate a government who sells its democratically elected power to a non-elected businessman. At least a nanny state has its people to answer to. A Corporate state ignores the wellbeing of the people, and works only for its greedy shareholders.