Marc-Andre Cotton
wrote (originally posted on regard
conscient.net, and permission granted to repost) :
“S ince a clear majority of British citizens decided to leave the
European Union on June 23, heated comments have been voiced. According to The
Financial Times, their largely Europhile parliament will be forced to
drag the country into “unsplendid isolation” as Britain is heading
for “a quite probable recession” (Philip Stephens, “Britain is
starting to imitate Greece”, Financial Times,
06/30/2016). Not surprisingly, The Spectator—where former Mayor of
London and ‘Vote Leave’ campaigner Boris Johnson once worked as a
journalist—holds a different view. Waving reassuring news as a falling pound
attracts tourists and sucks in investment, the conservative weekly neologized
Brexit “the greatest opportunity ever handed to a government by an electorate”
(“Business
confidence is returning to Brexit Britain”, The Spectator,
07/29/2016).
Indeed, fantasies and misrepresentations surrounding this
controversial issue have polarized opinions to the point that there is no clue
as to what lies ahead. On top of that, shortly after the Brexit referendum,
prominent supporter of the Leave campaign Nigel Farage stepped back and
resigned as leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), giving the impression
that he absolved himself of responsibility for potential damage (Helen Lewis
and Stephen Bush, “The Brexit cowards:
we left Europe, then they left us to it”, New Statesman,
07/07/2016). The main rhetoric of the pro-Leave—“Let’s Take Back Control!”—thus
triggered a backfire and a sense of betrayal. “At the top of British politics, an
insider suggested, a vacuum yawns wide. The phones are ringing, but no one is
picking up.” (Bagehot, “Britain is
sailing into a storm with no one at the wheel”, The
Economist, 06/26/2016)
A “deep-seated hostility”
Admittedly, British recrimination over European affairs is
hardly new. A stronghold of democracy since the French surrender of June 1940,
the country was not prone to self-examination after WWII whereas France and
Germany laid grounds for an economic integration of the continent to prevent
future conflicts. In the 1950s, after Indian Independence, Britain grieved the
loss of her Empire by securing a Commonwealth preference system with former
colonies whilst fighting tooth and nail against the common market
scheme. Treasury officials even issued a ‘Plan G’—namely a free trade agreement
designed to assert British commercial leadership over Europe—perceived by
supporters of European integration as a malicious sabotage effort by
‘perfidious Albion’ (David Gowland et al., Britain and European
Integration Since 1945: On the Sidelines, Routledge, 2009, p. 45).
Subsequently, the French President de Gaulle vetoed
Britain’s application to join the Common Market on two occasions, accusing her
of a “deep-seated hostility” towards the European construction
(“1967: De Gaulle
says ‘non’ to Britain—again”, BBC, 11/27/1967).
When the United Kingdom finally joined the Europe of Six, on January 1973, it
remained “one of the more reluctant countries” according to
negotiator Sir Crispin Tickell and would spend much time arguing about details
(interviewed by Stephen Moss, “How Britain
negotiated its entry to the EEC-then failed to play its part”, The
Guardian, 06/25/2016). To many Britons, the EU still confuses with
over-generous subsidies and a rising tide of desperate people on the verge of
sweeping their homeland.
Thatcher’s privatization program
Illustrative of such frame of mind, Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher’s bargaining with Brussels known as the ‘UK rebate’ has been
much written about. In the 1980, at a time when most Conservatives favored
European integration, she fought over Britain’s participation to the EEC
budget, asking for “[her] own money back” and eventually obtaining a two-third
refund of UK’s annual net contribution. As for today, Britons are the
eight-biggest contributors to the EU on a per-head basis (James Kirkup, “EU Facts: how
much does Britain pay to the EU budget?”, The Telegraph,
02/29/2016). Nevertheless, as encouraged by pro-Leave tabloids, British
taxpayers are inclined to think they pay more than their share to “the growing
pensions of European Union fat cats” (Jake Burman, “Now UK
taxpayers forced to contribute BILLIONS towards Brussels bureaucrats’ PENSIONS”, Daily
Express, 11/09/2015).
It is seldom considered that the Brits themselves have
largely contributed to their financial despair. During the Thatcher Years,
inequality surged as a major privatization program meant to reverse “the
corrosive and corrupting effects of socialism” swept the public
sector (Margaret Thatcher, quoted by Alistair Osborne, “Margaret
Thatcher: one policy that led to more than 50 companies being sold or
privatised”, The Telegraph, 04/08/2013). The shares of
these companies were not affordable for most ordinary citizens and became
property of foreign groups and states. Subsequent restructuring measures such
as downsizing and increased cost to consumers have deprived many UK household
of vital services and shifted the tax burden to working people—and the shame to
the powerless. Film director of I, Daniel Blake, a welfare
state drama awarded the 2016 Palme d’Or at Cannes, Ken Loach argues: “We have
to look again at this whole cruel sanctions and benefit system which is out to
tell the poor that their poverty is their own fault.” (Ken Loach, interview by
Sarah Montague, “Ken Loach on
‘despair’ behind benefit system film”, BBC Radio,
05/23/2016).
Concern over immigration
Powerful fantasies are at play on the immigration front
too. In 2015, statistics show that net migration to the UK was over 333,000 and
rising—a surge Brexiteers have used to suggest that “mass immigration is still
hopelessly out of control and set to get worse if we remain inside the EU” (Nigel
Farage, quoted by Alan Travis, “Net immigration
to UK nears peak as fewer Britons emigrate”, The Guardian,
05/26/2016). Ironically, the strength of the UK labor market is thought to be a
key driver of this evolution with the majority of such increase involving
countries of western and southern Europe. Prior to the Brexit referendum, polls
showed that roughly three-quarters of Britons wanted immigration cut, but
disagreed on how to achieve this goal, many voters saw—and were probably misled
into thinking—the Leave vote as a way to rein it in, although campaigners never
got into specifics. Former Justice Secretary and lead Brexiteer Michael Gove
even suggested that a UK withdrawal could see Britain accept more immigrants,
albeit from outside the EU (Asa Bennett, “Did Britain
really vote Brexit to cut immigration?”, The Telegraph,
06/29/2016).
In the last decade, the rise of UKIP—a third party that
gained 27.9% of British electorate in the May 2014 European Election, ahead of
Labour and the Tories—underscored the importance of immigration in the people’s
minds. Concern over integration of minority communities was joined by much
debate about British national identity. Demographics of the Brexit vote show
that the British majority of England and Wales—where opposition to migrants and
concomitant support of UKIP are highest—has tipped the scale in favor of a
withdrawal. Areas with a prominent share of over 65s scored the highest anti-EU
votes, indicating that the Leave option appealed to the older generation
(Ashley Kirk and Daniel Dunford, “EU referendum:
How the results compare to the UK’s educated, old and immigrant populations”, The
Telegraph, 06/27/2016). But Professor of Politics Eric Kaufmann suggests
that is was primarily values that motivated voters, not age or
education. “Invisible attitudes are more powerful than group categories, he
argues. The same is true for a person’s immigration attitudes.” (Eric
Kaufmann, “Its NOT the
economy, stupid: Brexit as a story of personal values”, The
London School of Economics and Political Science, 07/07/2016).
A “values lines” divide
Among those who think European unification has gone too
far, support for the death penalty strongly correlates with Brexit voting
intention. A similar picture results when Eurosceptics express their views on
the importance of disciplining children, whipping sex criminals, or keeping the
nation safe. “This speaks to a deeper personality dimension which social
psychologists like Bob Altemeyer, Kaufmann disputes, dub Right-Wing
Authoritarianism (RWA).” As further shown by Chris Rose of Campaign
Strategy, an NGO consulting firm working with the British Value Survey as a
tool, “there was clear evidence from existing values surveys that pro- and
anti-EU attitudes strongly divided along values lines”. This values based
segmentation of the nation group forms a ‘psycho-demographic’ system, Rose
argues. In this case, sub-groups motivated by fear of perceived threats, safety
and control, or the need for clear-cut rules swung most strongly to vote
‘Leave’, whereas people oriented towards success or prioritizing individualism
and cultural equality—over-represented in younger age classes—voted ‘Remain’ (Chris
Rose, “Brexit, Values
and Age”, Three Worlds Blog, www.campaignstrategy.org, 06/26/2016).
As we know from other research, such as political psychologist
Theodor Adorno’s, a harsh upbringing will most probably result in personal
values like submission to parental authority, a sense of duty and order, as
well as in-group orientation—all the while fostering a strong resentment and
feelings of victimization disguised under mechanisms of displacement (Else
Frenkel-Brunswik, “Parents and childhood as seen through the interviews”, in
Theodor Adorno et al., The Authoritarian Personality, Studies in
Prejudice Series, Vol. 1, Chapter X, Harper & Brothers, 1950, 337-389).
It is not unreasonable to suggest that the Openness vs. Closure divide
characteristic of the Brexit vote overlaps childrearing patterns and beliefs,
with a likely correlation between maltreatment in childhood and Leave support.
Indeed, the immigration issue induces a loss of cultural
benchmarks in the ethnic English majority, triggering a sense of disintegration
stemming from infancy. Debates surrounding the National Health Service (NHS)
funding reflect a growing fear of dispossession that has little to do with
economic reality. Within hours of the Brexit vote for instance, the official
Leave campaign’s call to divert UK’s EU contribution to the NHS proved a
false claim (Kate McCann and Tom Morgan, “Nigel Farage:
£350 million pledge to fund the NHS was ‘a mistake’”, The
Telegraph, 06/24/2016). Such inflammatory rhetoric is often meant to stir
up feelings of victimization—all too common in adults who were abused as
children—only leading to further frustration once the game has been played (Fig.
1).
A nation of “enthusiastic smackers”
The UK bears a painful legacy of child abuse dating back
to the Victorian era when ‘the rod’ was commonly used to subjugate children.
Corporal punishment in British state-run schools was only banned by parliament
in 1987, and as late as 1998 in other private schools of England and Wales
(Colin Farrell, “United Kingdom
School CP”, www.corpun.com).
Significantly, traditional English-education is commonly linked with childhood
violence, pain and stoicism in the eyes of mainland Europeans, with (in)famous
Eton College standing as a hallmark of discipline for the British aristocracy.
In a 2006 survey, 80% of respondents still believed in beating children, while
73% said a ban would result in an increase of juvenile delinquency—reflecting
an image of Britain as “a nation of enthusiastic smackers” (Rosemary
Bennett, “Majority of
parents admit to smacking children”, The Times,
09/20/2006). More recently, a 2012 Angus Reid Public Opinion poll found that
63% opposed a ban on spanking in the UK (Fig. 2). Under existing laws,
parents in England and Wales are allowed to “reasonably chastise” their
children—that is as long as the blows leave no mark—but near half of Britons
think even these rules go too far (Mario Canseco, “Britons Opposed
to Banning Parents from Smacking Their Children”, Angus Reid
Institute, 02/29/2012).
The extend to which British adults had been abused as
children recently came as a surprise after the Office for National Statistics
(ONS) introduced new questions on this topic in the 2016 Crime Survey for
England and Wales. In the first study of its kind, the data show that 9% of
respondents aged 16 to 59 report psychological abuse, 7% physical abuse, 7%
sexual assault and 8% witnessing domestic violence or abuse in the home. The
proportion of adults reporting ill-treatment tends to increase with age and
women are more likely than men to suffer sexual assault by rape or penetration,
with an estimated 567,000 adult women having experienced this type of abuse in
childhood (“Abuse during
childhood: Findings from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, year ending
March 2016”, Office for National Statistics,
08/06/2016). These figures give an indication of the powerful forces at play
when repressed feelings and emotions associated with such outrage surface and
are displaced in a heated political context—particularly within an aging
population. Given this unacknowledged reality, diverting such resentment
towards outside targets such as migrant workers and EU regulation proved an
easy win for Brexit campaigners and fear-mongering demagogues. And as the
saying goes: When you play with fire, you end up getting burned”
- - - - - - - - - -
My (Patrick McEvoy-Halston's) response to his article:
What is the relationship between a harsh background and a
later inability to adapt to a changing society, so strong, it leads to psychic
disintegration? DeMause was influenced a lot by James F. Masterons's works, and
for him what stops people from growing... what stops whole socieites from growing, isn't so much that they came from angry parents, that they suffered the
rod, and that this somehow cowed them into rigid mindsets that feared
change-- that doesn't quite lead us to where, for him, we need to go -- but
from unloved parents who had children
to give them the love they did not receive from their own parents, and who
abandoned their children when they began to individuate and self-actualize.
Children out of families like that may not just be hardened, less flexible,
more naturally rule-focused, but incur the feeling that they are hopelessly bad
when they vicariously participate in a society which expands one's possibility
for self-actualizing... one's ability to become your truest self, which is the
way our society has been of late, as it was, for instance, in Weimar. Inner
alters in their heads, representing their angry mothers, lose all interest in
them, and they panic and do everything they can to regain her favor by stopping
all further growth, and warring against progressives pushing for more of
it.
To speak of psychoclasses, I do think that what had
been happening is that a higher psychoclass was displacing the societal forms
which helped maintain the primitive homeostasis of lower psychoclasses, and
that this lead to feelings of self-disintegration as the nature of the societal
"exoskeleton" no longer facilitated keeping one's private self sane
(your point). But I don't think that immigrants are being demonized simply
because old memories of abuse are coming back and anger at parents has to be
displaced somewhere... so onto, how about?... immigrants. It didn't play into
anybody's hands, as if this need for revenge could have been directed
elsewhere. They feel surrounded by predators, and this is early childhood
memories returned; but I think people are not just reminded of how tormenting
their parents were but of how bad they believe they themselves once were to
have incurred their parents' abuse and rejection, and this "bad" part
of themselves has to be projected out. Immigrants are ideal "poison
containers" in that they are not actually seen mostly as predatory but as
weak and needy... and in our early childhoods we decided that the reason our
parents rejected us was because we were vulnerable -- that's what made us bad:
what else could be conclude when our first experience of abandonment was as at
the age of two during the re-approachment stage? ("Authoritarian
parents" is a dodge to some of us, also because it allows us to avoid
being reminded of when we were most vulnerable, which wasn't when we were 8 or
9 and mommy and daddy were threatening us with a stick, but 1, 2, 3 and 4 and we
were hopelessly vulnerable before parents as gods). They are the bad children
we decided we once were, not just convenient people to kick at when ideally
you'd kick back at your parents. All immigrants as targets by regressing
psychoclasses, then? No. Just those "we" can identify as being
brought into the country after "we'd" ceased to be able to keep up
with societal growth while those out of more loving families -- the higher
psychoclasses -- thrived and took total charge of it. So those given
entrance post mid-1970s, when the working class could no longer keep up with
ongoing societal growth and when a liberal professional class emerged which could.
When we
emphasize the idea of parents as bearing the rod... as authoritarian and mean,
it's difficult to appreciate that what people most want to do right now is bond
back to their parents via their Mother Countries; it's difficult to understand
renewed nationalism, the great joy of it, for the increasing many. Why the hell
would they want to do that? Merge back with such a beast? It's important to
bring up the idea of splitting. So not just a revival of memories of abuse, but of the psychic to having an angry,
abandoning mother in splitting her into two: one that is loving that you can
cling to, be to her the favorite you never were in real life, another on the
outside you can war against. Nationalism isn't us clinging to the one with the medusa
head; that scary lady is outside.
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