Morality is what we do when we think no one’s watching
YOU’LL struggle to find many on the left who are willing to talk about the role self-interest plays in shaping our politics.
Self-interest is a Tory thing, you see. As lefties, we are inherently virtuous and rarely (if at all) think of ourselves, our careers, our public profiles, our earnings, or reputations.
Those things are for the dirty capitalists.
But if you were paying attention to the reactions of a particular branch of self-appointed grandees attempting to cover their own backsides after Labour’s loss to the worst iteration of the Conservative Party in British political history, it was abundantly clear that ego was playing more of a role than some were willing to admit.
Unable to shake themselves from the delusion that some radical breakthrough lurked beyond the horizon, these amateurs sought comfort and validation in an increasingly narrow leftist conclave which has become impervious to evidence.
A conclave where not just the poor and vulnerable are on the line but also the reputations and ( for some) blossoming careers of many would-be players – who hadn’t given any consideration to what they would do in the event of defeat.
In a grave moment, where what was really needed was humility, some chose to model the exact opposite of appropriate, responsible behaviour, to the thousands of young activists coming up behind them. Why?
Well, when you’ve constructed an entire identity around breaking a system most people wish to preserve, and made very public for years your single mindedness in pursuing the destruction of said system, then you really do back yourself into a corner the millisecond the communities you claim to represent inevitably reject your hyperventilating proposal.
On the morning after, this lot could have just sat it out. But no, these “radicals” – who I believe hold no real sway in post-industrial Britain – stubbornly held the tired line that the result was a moral victory as well as an unfair defeat. And not because they believed this nonsense but because they had nowhere else to go.
These were acts, not of communitarian concern, but of pure self-preservation. I can’t help but question the usefulness of some activists, who ascend to the apex of social movements so quickly, without ever having tasted real defeat. It was so obvious in the aftermath that too many would-be players were still soaking wet behind the ears, politically.
They may have their uses but connecting with workingclass people, who have real responsibilities in life and little time to glue themselves to trains, is not yet one.
This refusal to become at least willing to challenge their own thinking is juvenile, and self-centred.
When we cling so furiously to old ideas – even when those ideas are ready for the bin – we do nothing but gift a strategic advantage to anyone who manoeuvres the political landscape with even the slightest degree of ideological flexibility.
The stubbornest people are often the least useful. Quite frankly, there are far too many rudderless activists, fresh off campus, who are too inexperienced to carry a message with the sufficient weight and depth required to persuade working class people of anything.
Activists who think merely joining the trendiest political party is, in itself, a profound act of moral foresight. Activists who wait slavishly for their next download, courtesy of the bloviating radical intellectual, or cult-leader, of their choice, before fanning out across the digital wilderness to “educate” people – when the ones needing educated are them.
A significant section of the left is in danger of becoming a circus of performative posturing, when true morality is what we do when we think nobody is watching.