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Re: [ProgSoc] Have you registered to vote yet?
John Elliot wrote:
98. Pleasure and social instinct. -- From his relations with other men,
man adds a new species of 'pleasure' to those pleasurable sensations he
derives from himself; whereby he significantly enlarges the domain of
pleasurable sensations in general. Perhaps he has already inherited much
that has its place here from the animals, who plainly feel pleasure when
they play with one another, especially the mothers with the young. Then
consider sexual relations, through which more or less every female
appears interesting to every male with regard to the prospect of
pleasure, and the reverse. To feel sensations of pleasure on the basis
of human relations on the whole makes men better; joy, pleasure, is
enhanced when it is enjoyed together with others, it gives the
individual security, makes him good-natured, banishes distrust and envy:
for one feels a sense of well-being and sees that others are likewise
feeling a sense of well-being. 'Similar expressions of pleasure' awaken
the fantasy of empathy, the feeling of being like something else: the
same effect is produced by common sufferings, by experiencing bad
weather, dangers, enemies in common. It is no doubt upon this that the
oldest form of alliance is based: the sense of which is that to act
together to ward off and dispose of a threatening displeasure is of
utility to each individual. And thus the social instinct grows out of
the feeling of pleasure.
I posted the above, as obviously that's what I think about the function
of smoking. Smoking is 'glue' that binds society together. Smokers cut
across the socio-economic spectrum. They have diverse cultures, genders,
sexual preferences, genes, wealth, professions, status, etc. Smoking is
a ritual wherein participants migrate to common social spaces to cast
off their roles for a few minutes, and take some time to "be" in their
life, as a human, with their own human "weakness", and with others. They
take some time out, they think, and they reflect; they relax and stop
worrying. Smoking spaces are the social equivalent of the office "water
cooler". They are where people, "strangers", from diverse walks of life
come together from time to time to be "equal". That's important, because
if it weren't for smoking these people *wouldn't* come together and
share in a spirit of equality. They talk, they're friendly, and they
spread good will. They share an implicit "bond", and you find the
teachers share it with the students, the boss shares it with the junior
employee, the owner shares it with the customer, the rich people share
it with the poor people, and so on. Smoking is a social equaliser; it
facilitates and sustains an egalitarian culture.
Smoking is almost exclusively about that. In some ways it's a deeply
personal activity, but in other ways it's a deeply social activity. The
fact that it's addictive, or that it *might* (but probably won't) lead
to serious health sufferance later in life is a tiny price to pay, in
consideration of the quality of life that it delivers. Quality in the
intangible ways that can not be measured, and that need to be
experienced to be understood or appreciated.
Running a "social experiment" to destroy this aspect of culture, or to
alienate those people who participate in it, is a Really Bad Idea (TM).
As the themes of this thread have been the "2007 federal election", and
"smoking", let me unify those themes with Yet Another Citation. This
time from Mark Latham, the former leader of the ALP who lost the
election to Howard in 2004 (he was that little "bleep" that happened
there while we were shipping troops off to Iraq).
The excerpt is below, but first I might as well plug the book. The book,
The Latham Diaries, is a collection of Mark Latham's diary entries as
kept during his political life. They chart his decent into
disillusionment with the ALP and the Australian political process. In
the end Latham spat the dummy, and washed his hands of politics all
together, publishing this work as a rather controversial "exit
statement". Australians should read it. Here's what he had to say about
the state of Australian society in May 2005:
The Sick Society
----------------
It would be a mistake, however, to position these issues solely within
the realm of politics. Problems of apathy and disengagement are not
restricted to our democracy; they are a defining feature of modern
society. If families and communities are falling apart, if people feel
alienated and empty in their relationships with others, if the bonds of
social trust and support are weak, it is hardly surprising that our
political parties are dominated by oligarchies.
Without a strong base of social capital, it is relatively easy for a
small group of people to control and manipulate the political system --
they simply fill the gap left by the paucity of public participation and
community activism. History tells us this is how hierarchies of power
are established and sustained. The weakness of our democracy is a
function of the sickness of society.
Traditionally, Left-of-Centre parties have tried to achieve their goals
for social justice by tackling various forms of economic disadvantage.
Today, however, the biggest problems in society, the things that cause
hardship and distress for people, tend to be relationship-based --
social issues, not economic. The paradox is stunning: we live in a
nation with record levels of financial growth and prosperity, yet also
with record levels of discontent and public angst. The evidence is all
around us, in:
- the extraordinary loss of peace of mind in society, evident in
record rates of stress, depression and mental illness
- the breakdown in basic relationships of family and community,
generating new problems of loneliness and isolation in Australia. The
traditional voluntary and mutual associations of community life have all
but disappeared, replaced by home fortresses and gated housing estates
- the appalling incidence of crimes against family and loved ones:
sexual assault, domestic violence and the sickness of child abuse
- the spillover of these problems onto the next generation of young
Australians, in the form of street crime, drug and alcohol abuse and
youth suicide
A striking aspect of this phenomenon has been the way in which it has
affected all parts of society, regardless of their economic standing.
Poor communities, after several generations of long-term unemployment
and financial disadvantage in Australia, now fact the further challenge
of social disintegration, a loss of self-esteem and solidarity. Thirty
years ago, these communities were financially poor but socially rich.
Today they face poverty on both fronts.
While the middle class in Australia has experienced the assets and
wealth of an unprecedented economic boom, its social balance sheet has
moved in the opposite direction. The treadmill of work and the endless
accumulation of material goods have not necessarily made people happier.
In many cases, they have denied them the time and pleasures of family
life, replacing strong and loving social relationships with feelings of
stress and alienation.
This is the savage trade-off of middle-class life: generating financial
wealth but at a significant cost to social capital. Thus social
exclusion needs to be understood as more than just financial poverty; it
also involves the poverty of society, the exclusion of many affluent
Australians from strong and trusting personal relationships.
These changes represent a huge shift in the structure of society. The
market economy has expanded, while community life has been down-sized.
Today, when Australians see a social problem, they are more likely to
pursue a market-based answer than a community solution. This has led to
the commercialisation of public services and the grotesque expansion of
market forces into social relationships.
Community-based sport, for instance, has been replaced by the coldness
of commercial ownership and professionalism. So, too, the institution of
marriage has been subject to the economic discipline of pre-nuptial
agreements. People are contracting out to the private sector the
maintenance and care of their home: their gardening, cooking and pet
care. Matters that were once determined by mutual agreement and
cooperation between people are now treated as routine financial
transactions. The highly visible hand of the market reaches into most
parts of life.
While market forces can achieve certain goals, such as increased
economic incentive and growth, they are not a good way of running
society. They treat people as rule followers, rather than rule makers.
Everything is given a commercial value, and the value of life's
intangibles, such as personal feelings, morality and cooperation, is
downgraded. The importance of civil society is lost, the opportunities
we need as citizens to freely determine our obligations and trust in
each other.
Unlike other forms of capital, social capital is a learned habit. It
exists in the experiences and relationships between people. If people
cannot exercise their trust in each other, they are likely to lose it.
This appears to be the unhappy state of Western society in the first
decade of the twenty-first century. The relationship between
international markets and local communities has become imbalanced. For
too many citizens, global capital has become a substitute for social
capital.
Unfortunately, Australia has been at the forefront of these changes. Two
centuries ago, we started out as a convict society, held together by the
common bonds of mateship. There was, literally, honour among thieves.
Within their social and mateship groups, Australians developed the habit
of treating other people as equals, irrespective of their economic
status. The economic revolution of the 1980s and 1990s, however, has
reshaped these values forever. Consumerism and economic competition have
moved to the centre of our national ethos and identity.
Instead of chopping down tall poppies, our popular culture and media
outlets now direct their angst towards the disadvantaged: a belief that
the unemployed, newly arrived migrants, indigenous Australians and
public housing tenants are undeserving of government support. Envy in
Australia, perversely enough, now travels down the social ladder, not
upwards, a phenomenon I've dubbed 'downward envy'.
Australia's egalitarian traditions have been supplanted by the bitter
whingeing of talkback radio and commercial television. Far from treating
other people as equals, the mass media have become a mechanism for
prying into their lives and denigrating them. As a nation, questions of
status and self-esteem are not determined by the accumulation of
material goods, not the maintenance of mateship.
As a parliamentarian, I made speeches and wrote books about the decline
of social capital in Australia. As Labor Leader, I tried to put this
issue at the centre of our national agenda, with new policies of
community development and public participation. Ultimately, however,
people voted on economic issues, and many of the social issues I raise,
such as in my attempt to make the quality of our society a mainstream
political concern. Perhaps I was a poor advocate for these issues or the
wrong person to be raising them; there are elements of truth in both
propositions. But I believe that other considerations that extend will
beyond the party politics of 2004 are also important.
In my experience with and study of the new middle class, people have
particular ways of dealing with social capital. While they would like to
find a solution to a range of problems in their community, their faith
in our system of governance is so weak that they have no expectation
that this is possible. It is inconceivable to them that various forms of
political and civic action might make a difference. They become
resigned, therefore, to a weak set of social relationships.
In these circumstances, people tend to withdraw further from civil
society and pursue other forms of personal recognition and self-esteem.
The politics of 'me', the individual, replaces the politics of 'we', the
community. People try to escape relationship-based problems by turning
inwards, pursuing temporary and artificial forms of personal gratification.
In this respect, advanced capitalism has provided two powerful forms of
escapism for the middle class. The first is the emergence of a consumer
society. All the messages in our public culture push people towards
materialism: commercial advertising, the glorification of wealth,
keeping up with the Joneses. The middle-class response to an unhappy
life is further consumption, the temporary escapism of material goods.
Such is the treadmill effect in modern society: long working hours, less
time for social relationships, short-term comfort from consumerism, and
the need to work harder to finance this habit, which results in a
further decline in social capital. Like most treadmills, people don't
know how to get off. They feel the artificial excitement of acquiring
something new, but when the feeling wears off, the problem has not gone
away. In most cases, the sense of alienation from society has worsened.
The so-called sea-change phenomenon is a sign that some people are
trying to put social relation at the forefront of their lives. But
realistically, this is a privilege that applies only to a small
proportion of society. Most Australians remain locked in the gulag of
consumerism. And so the apparent paradox grows: the more middle
Australia consumes and breaks retail records, the more problems people
seem to encounter in other parts of their lives.
The second form of escapism is through the media. As people struggle
with their relationships in society, they often peer into other people's
lives, seeking solace in someone else's reality. This has generated a
cult of celebrity that now dominates much of our public culture, through
commercial television, talkback radio, tabloid newspapers and the
Internet. People's thirst for celebrity seems insatiable: witness the
power and popularity of reality television. Anyone can have his or her
fifteen minutes of fame, while everyone else watches.
The media houses feed this habit because it sustains their profits. They
try to legitimise it through 'the public's right to know'. In practice,
they could not survive financially without fostering society's
voyeurism. This is what gives the media their mass: everyone knowing
what other people are doing, even if it has nothing to do with them.
This obsession has given people a peculiar standard of social worth: to
be important, to have a high level of self-esteem, you need to be on
television, to be recognised in public. When civil society was strong,
there was no such thing as a celebrity. People were recognised for their
contribution to community life, not their face on television screens.
Media escapism of this kind exacerbates the social capital problem. Like
materialism, it is a temporary and artificial process. Past experience
tells us that people are more likely to forge relationships of trust and
cooperation through personal contact and community involvement. Yet a
high proportion of the things we respond to in our daily lives are
impersonal: media images we shall never feel or experience first-hand.
This has weakened the natural bonds and interaction of society. Research
in the United States, for instance, has shown a close correlation
between increased television consumption and the post-war decline in
social capital.
Escapism is the new religion of middle Australia. This is the sorry
state of advanced capitalism: the ruling culture encourages people to
reach for four-wheel drives, double-storey homes, reality television and
gossip magazines to find meaning and satisfaction in their lives. All of
which offer false hope. Marx was wrong in predicting the alienation of
labour from the economy as the catalyst of social discontent. It is the
alienation of the individual from community life that is the cause of so
many social problems.
As a Member of Parliament, one of my mistakes was to promote the
importance of aspirational politics. I wanted working people to enjoy a
better standard of living, but had assumed that as they climbed the
economic ladder, they would still care about the community in which they
lived, and take heed of the interests of others, especially the poor and
disadvantaged. This was my misjudgement of modern society. Instead, as
people have moved into middle-class affluence, they have left their old,
working-class neighbourhoods behind and embraced the new values of
consumerism.
Social capital in Australia is so weak and shallow that it does not
extend across neighbourhood boundaries. I used to talk about the suburb
where I grew up, and people thought I was strange for doing so. We have
become a society obsessed with the places to which the economic caravan
can take us, not the places it has left behind. Economic mobility has
had a damaging impact on the habits of compassion and cooperation. As a
society we are poorly equipped to meet the challenges of globalisation:
building strong communities that are prepared to reach out and trust in
strangers -- people, values and information from across the globe.
The crisis in social capital is also a crisis for social democracy. If
people do not practise mutual trust and cooperation in their lives, they
are not likely to support the redistributive functions of government. If
they have no interest or experience in helping their neighbours, why
would they want the public sector to help people they have never met?
Indeed, the dominant electoral mood is a desire to take resources away
from other people and communities, as evidenced by the rise of downward
envy in Australia.
I have agonised over these issues and tried to find ways of making the
social democratic project sustainable. After a decade of research and
analysis, my conclusions are bleak. The task of social reformers is
extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. Not only must they rebuild
the trust and cohesiveness of civil society, they also need to motivate
people about the value and possibilities of organised politics. If and
when these formidable tasks are completed, they then need to win
majority public support for a sweeping program of social justice.
The pillars of conservatism in our society have a much easier task:
supporting the status quo and scaring people about the uncertainties of
political change. They have no interest in generating public enthusiasm
in politics and the reform process. This is what binds the ruling class
together: the shared interests of the conservative parties, the
commercial media and other parts of the business establishment in
preserving the existing social order and concentration of power in their
hands.
Indeed, if the media were to promote solutions to society's problems,
they would have very few stories left to report. A happy society full of
good news does not sell newspapers or secure ratings. So, too, the media
have a commercial interest in the denigration of politics, presenting it
as just another form of conflict and scandal in society to feed the
public's voyeurism. Like all big businesses, their interests lie in
preserving the status quo and the ruling institutions and culture that
sustain their profitability.
Is today's Labor Party, build around its own hierarchy of conservatism
and machine politics, going to challenge and overcome this system? Not
that I can see. Even if it were hungry to take on the ruling elite
rather than be part of it, I doubt that the Party would embrace the
appropriate reform program of grassroots policies to rebuild social
cooperation and mutuality. Labor politicians come into Parliament to
take control, to pull the levers of public administration. They support
a top-down process of governance, based on an expectation that
politicians and political machines can direct and control social
outcomes. They are not familiar or comfortable with the methodology of
social capital.
Community-building sits outside the conventional methods of party
politics. Whereas public policy relies on a sense of order and
predictability, the work of civil society is spontaneous and disorderly.
Whereas governments try to have a direct and tangible impact on their
citizens, the creation of mutual trust relies on processes that are
diffuse and intangible. There is no point in passing a Social Capital
Bill and expecting it to make people community-minded.
Trust occurs as a by-product of the relationship between people. It is
not like a well-ordered machine, whereby policy-makers can pull the
levers and mandate a particular result. The best they can hope for is to
influence the social environment in which trust is created. They need to
see themselves as facilitators of social capital, rather than
controllers of social outcomes.
This is best achieved by transferring influence and resources to
communities, devolving as many decisions and public services as
possible. Real power comes from giving power away. But this is not how
the parliamentary system works, especially a machine political party.
Powerbrokers try to capture and control the authority of government, not
give it away. They believe in the centralisation of power, not its
dispersal. The square peg of Labor politics does not fit into the round
hole of social capital.
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