In a world of lies, we have to fall back on intuition. Boris comes across as a person with the best of intentions, but Corbyn just sounds like a humourless ideologue.
I suspect you’re right that true Brexit will never happen, but not for the reasons you say. Rather, because the powers that be will never let it happen.
Indeed, it is impossible to make rational decisions when all the information you’re basing your reasoning on is a lie.
Intuition however is problematic in that you’re prone to cognitive biases, wishful thinking and being manipulated by people who know how to play on intuitions.
It’s more than nothing at all, sure, and it’s supposed to be better for decision making with too many variables to rationally consider, but with some people’s intuitions favouring one way and other people’s intuitions favouring the other when it comes to politics, it’s as though there’s no objective basis to figure out any correct choice - except perhaps having faith in the “wisdom of the crowd”. But politicians are constantly feeding your own confirmation biases, so it’s less down to your intuition and more down to their ability to manipulate your individual partiality. You might argue that good manipulators are important for political discussions, but however good you might be at winning people over, it matters what you win. Boris is a Tory, and as such even if his charm over a gullible electorate extends to others who are experts in playing the same game, what he is going to win is going to be good for capitalists and bad for wage labourers.
As you say, Corbyn does present himself as rather humourless, but if I want a job doing I’m going to hire the serious candidate instead of the buffoon. Moreso than that, I’d rather vote for the one who represents me and the majority of the population, which in both cases is Corbyn. All politicians are ideologues: they’re supposed to represent a political party and their collective ideology - Boris is no different, no matter how entertaining he might be on your TV. Comedies are not politics, nor vice versa - I find this slow transformation of politics into a reality TV show disturbing. Another reason not to condone the same descent that the US is suffering from and go with the more boring option who’s still actually trying. That’s a fourth reason compared to zero for Boris.
People find it effortless to fall back to trusting their first impressions and personal partialities, but I don’t work that way - I attempt to distrust myself as much as possible to make sure I’m taking as many viewpoints into account as I can think of to see what emerges as independently from my own biases as possible. My own intuition is just another factor amongst many with no more or less weighting than anyone else’s intuitions - or at least I do this all to the best of my ability, and even then I hold my conclusions accountable to new information that might change them, which I’m constantly seeking. Even in the lie-riddled arena of politics there are objective truths on which to base your decision, and that’s all I’m doing in favouring Corbyn. This “honest lies” tack is not compelling.
It’s also an objective fact that the UK media is overwhelmingly right wing in their political endorsements, with only really the Mirror and the Guardian leaning left, and even then only really neo-Labour left. It’s an objective fact that they’ve collectively been running a several year long campaign to misrepresent and ridicule Corbyn and steadily erode the overwhelming support he began with, if you still remember. Facts like these are what the rational voter ought to be paying attention to. It’s also a fact that Boris has a history of failures, some of which are listed here.
I’m not suggesting that Brexit will never happen because it was meant to be political filler, I’m just saying that it’s convenient political filler given that it will never happen. The direction of causation matters here. The referendum was on 23rd June 2016. Have any of the Tories got anywhere in the past 1244 days? How many promises have they made in that time? Or is it good that they broke so many promises and got nowhere because the promises were honest lies?
Admit it lefties, liberals and progressives have their own rendition of this. At least in regard to the stuff Marx suggested here…
“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter Into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”
In other words, the argument goes, in both England and America there are those who acquire the preponderance of political power in sync with their accumulation of vast wealth. Think the Bilderberg Group.
Then the politicians do whatever they can to obscure this. Crony capitalism some call it.
I strongly disagree that Corbyn represents the majority of the population. He actually represents the middle-class, London elite, who look down on the working class so much that they are claiming they were too stupid to know what they were voting for.
You’re probably right that most newspapers are pro-Tory. But most people get their news from the TV, and the BBC and C4, at the very least, are blatantly pro-Labour and anti-Brexit.
Do you not think that most people are too stupid, or at least too ignorant to know what they were voting for?
It sounds harsh - of course, but how many referendum voters were experts on the implications of Brexit and the complications of implementing it? Put it this way: ask a random sample of people about their economic expertise and how much they applied it to their decision on Brexit. Ask them how much they each know about each detail of the process of bringing it about, and the exact details of the political structures they have to go through, and what trade deals we are currently involved in and how they will be affected - and then ask all the same questions about the rest of the EU countries for context on how they will react to our decision.
How many people are smart enough and informed enough to really know the answers to all these questions? It’s hard to even believe that most politicians themselves are qualified to answer these questions, no?
Now considering the above, is it still really wrong of this so-called “London elite” to think the working class really knew what they were voting for?
I’m sure the vast majority were more than clued up on the standard repeated simplistic arguments of politicians and the media, and superficial associations with them about immigration - you’d probably get a remarkable uniformity in “knowledge” of Brexit across not only the working class but reliably across all classes - even this “London elite”. Only a tiny minority can offer much more than their preferred political narrative.
Corbyn represents democracy: not many people seem to have realised this, but Corbyn initally waited to accept the stance of the majority of the population that voted for Brexit - rather than jumping on the binary bandwagon of either “pre-polarised side 1” or “pre-polarised side 2”. His intention was to respect the outcome regardless of what it was and support that, but instead he was demonised for not pre-emptively taking a stance out of respect for the British voters and not playing the political game of making it his primary political position like the other parties were doing. That’s what you get for having integrity and respect, and to top it off, he’s got people such as yourself thinking he doesn’t represent the majority of the population. He’s only very recently been politically forced to take a stance because so many Labour voters got caught up in the intense Tory persistence in promoting Brexit as the primary and only relevant political topic of any import, and in doing the right thing he had to resort to playing the game just to stay in the game. He absolutely represents the British working class in both social and economic respects if you look at his policies and beyond the Brexit narrative, where he tried to represent the working class too, but with so much propaganda against him anyone in his position would practically be destined to flounder.
I am right that most newspapers are pro-Tory, feel free to check it yourself - it’s freely available information.
You’re also right that TV plays a big part in how the British public get most of their political opinions. However there’s no way that the BBC have ever supported Corbyn - like I was saying about the Guardian, the BBC are pro new-Labour and Corbyn is pre-Blairite Labour, which is too left for the BBC. Channel 4 is probably similar, it’s been a long time since I watched C4 for anything but films (or at all - TV is trash).
If people are too stupid to know about Brexit, they are too stupid to know about anything. And so the elite will take away their votes. That is what we must resist at all costs. Money isn’t everything.
Corbyn is a hideous elitist who goes to terrorist funerals, for example. I am repulsed by everything he says. I would literally rather vote Lib Dem than Corbyn.
Funny how when the left don’t have the monopoly on all the newspapers and media channels, they start whining… have you not figured yourself out Silhouette, in that all your posts are one big whine.
You’re welcome 
…and don’t feel that you have to return the analysis in kind, as I knew what and how I was a very long time ago…
Well, I can see there’s no discussion to be had here - you’ve long made up your mind and had it sealed shut.
If you’re going to credulously lap up all the right wing slander that we’ve been talking about, without questioning it or considering alternative explanations to their malevolent interpretations of actual facts, then I guess you’re testament to the ability of the right wing to manipulate intuitions.
Consider the source of all your information on Corbyn, and how much you have checked with a genuinely critical and impartial mind - how much have you sought evidence or interpretation to the contrary to what you’re being told. This is something only you can do for yourself, and it’s an exercise in seeing past the superficial personality contest to actual policies. Have you read manifestos, for example? Do you understand how supporting public services is supporting the working class, and how taking them away makes life much harder for those who are struggling to get by, for example?
If you’re doing no work for yourself other than passively accepting all the TV and newspaper gossip for what you fear to be the worst case scenario - and only for one side and not the other - then you’re only providing supporting evidence for this idea that you rightly profess to be against, that people are too stupid to know about anything - though I doubt stupid is the right word for you. How is your gossip against the Tories, by the way? Seeing as your knowledge of at against Labour is strong, it’s worth asking the question - you don’t really think there’s nothing incriminating out there about the Conservative party, do you? Not that gossip either way ought to be informing your decisions without question - that’s my primary point, I’m just saying it’s a consideration that you should be taking into account if you have any intention to question your intuitions, which are very clearly open to manipulation.
I really don’t want democracy to be a bad idea, so it breaks my heart to see it failing so hard. If you really believe that money isn’t everything, then you’d support the parties that think it needs to be kept in check and channeled through avenues that are physiologically much more in need of it to a degree befitting of a civilised society as rich as the UK.
Thank you Mags, for brightening my day in your usual manner.
I wouldn’t contend too hard with your assessment that I am discontented with much of the state of modern politics, economics, society and culture.
Personalise your comment about the media for a second, just as an analogy: imagine all the gossip around you was overwhelmingly against you - as though all the right wing media were individual people trying to slander and defame you constantly for years based on loose facts and malevolent interpretation, and all your good intentions and support that you started out with was slowly eroded despite your initially popular approach and ideas never actually changing. Would you not feel somewhat wronged and inclined to question and defend the truth? Not that you should identify by your political preferences, but to anyone with empathy, it’s disheartening to see such things happen to both people and institutions alike - whether you support said person or institution or not.
I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to wonder why the left are discontented by the deluge of misinformation relentlessly shovelled on top of them constantly - especially when it’s no secret that this is objectively the case, and any critical mind could see through it in an instant.
There’s an obvious economic reason why this occurs too: private media is run as a business, and businesses benefit from the left being brought down because the left would have things more equalled out - and as a business you benefit from pulling ahead. The more you pull ahead, the more resources you have to distribute a more effective message, and the fact that this has skewed so far in favour of the right is only testament to policy being so against things being equalled out - by the right - for so long.
Well, for a start off, you seem to assume that I’m a Tory supporter, when in fact I’m not. I feel much more drawn to the Brexit Party, for example, and its desire to change the entire system. In this election, however, I think it’s probably best to vote Tory, at least in my constituency.
As for the rest, I don’t care if Boris had a relationship with some American businesswomen, or whatever she is. I do care that Corbyn has consorted with terrorists. Corbyn is also willing to betray the vote to leave the EU, and that is unforgivable. To do so would destroy British democracy, and they’re all too blind to see it.
you mean, if she is gong to trust her own experience.
that source would be Corbyn himself
You’re such a preposterous elitist, Silhouette, I really marvel at how you are able to deceive yourself about others so efficiently. Perfectly isolated from reality.
Because the left seems to be composed of such pure and perfect elitists, with absolutely no experience in the real world, I am not very optimistic about prospects for reconciliation.
Your condescension alone merits a declaration of war. You’re evil, dude.
I’m flattered that you find me so intimidating but no, a questioning of her sources and application of impartial critical thinking is merely rational on my part - sorry to disappoint.
Unless of course you find “rational” evil?
I’ll grant you that I personally prefer an academic analysis of politics, which some may perceive as “elitist”.
How dare I prefer evidence and impartial reasoning, right?
The fact that the vast majority of people don’t seem to apply this as standard would make me elitist for requesting it, I suppose.
I’ll do it again here, if you’ll forgive such loftiness in my standards which you obviously find so objectionable, and ask you politely about your expertise over my offline life. You are remarkably certain about how isolated I am from reality, and how I have absolutely no experience in the real world. For one, such things would be quite the achievement: to have lived somewhere between a 1/3 and a 1/2 of a normal human lifetime without once interacting with it. But I can’t quite concede that I have succeeded in such a task, given that I’ve been all too thoroughly embedded in the lives of all classes of people across my lifetime, but no - I’ll respectfully defer to you as expert on the details of my life, to tell me all about myself.
Sorry to laugh though - at the contents of your white knight defense of Maia at this point - so valiantly defending her right to trust her own experience and yet not affording me the same gallantry - it’s just a little ironic that your double standards are so faithful to your own obvious biases. I’ll give you a tip though: if you want to escape your isolation from reality and gain experience in the real world, I recommend a transcendence of your current flagrant ideological commitments and to instead stand back a second to consider that those with whom you disagree are equally beholden to both their own experience and the standards of academic inquiry.
Her own experience would appear to consist overwhelmingly of right wing slander.
Perhaps I am wrong, and she has performed far more independent and impartial research into the private life of Corbyn and his reasons for being where he’s been and at what time and for what reasons - this is what I’m attempting to find out at this point. I am merely making suggestions this far, and none of the “elitist” standards I’m looking for appear to have been adhered to in any way over the course of her forming her political opinions. It’s all intuition, wishful thinking as far as I can yet tell, and receptivity to the juggernaut of right wing propaganda forcefully shoved into the minds of the British public by sheer relentless repetition and persistence - with a degree of exposure afforded only to those who have been allowed to so utterly dominate the media.
Are you attempting to speak for her as you are attempting to speak for me, by asserting your own experience over ours, claiming that her own experience is based solely on having heard what Corbyn has to say and nothing else whatsoever besides?
I am sure she lives in the real world just as we all do, and has been subject to information sources from all kinds of angles.
That’s not the issue though, it’s more of a given. The issue is over how credulous you have to be to believe the right wing slander, and how much honest research you’ve done to fact check such persistent claims.
Fact checking… that lost “elitist” art.
The children of Elitist East Coast Liberals.
Too predictable, I had Silhouette pegged through his incessant defenses of Hard-Determinism.
As I’ve pointed out already, the BBC are anti-Tory and anti-Brexit, and are far more influential than any number of right wing newspapers. So I’ve managed to reach my opinions despite the prevailing propaganda and not because of it. Have you?
The BBC are probably anti-Brexit, sure. At this point, it’s not hard to see why. I’ve hardly seen any TV over the past few years, but I keep an ear out to what the masses listen to while I reach my opinions by more objective means.
Do you need my example to follow to do the same?
It’s difficult to say if the BBC are anti-Tory from what I can tell. We’ve had a Tory government for 12 years, and unless you count the previous 13 years of “new-Labour”, the UK hasn’t had a left-wing government since the brutal overhaul that started in 1979 with Thatcher, who called Tony Blair “her greatest achievement”. Yes, that’s 40 years. The incumbent party gets all the TV coverage including BBC, because they’re the ones in the driving seat knee deep in all the current affairs. The opposition just gets to chip in occasionally on how much better they’d be if it were them in power.
If not democracy, then who gets to choose who has political power? And who gets to choose those?
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” - indeed.
This is another reason why I have to remain pro-democracy in spite of the stupidity of the electorate. Nobody can demand that the electorate objectively study all of their decisions like academics, and nobody can protect the electorate from the politicians who thrive from manipulating them.
So what else can we do than educate ourselves and spread what we’ve learned to people who are otherwise convinced by the incessant propaganda peddled by the partial interests of the media?
Well, I’ve listened to clips of last night’s debate, and neither Boris nor Corbyn came across as any good. I’ve also listened to clips of a separate interview with Nigel Farage, and he still comes across as by far the best, and possibly the only honest politician we have.
Only way to see if someones is truly honest is to give them governing powers.
Thats when you know.
Its easier to be honest while carrying no responsibility.
Meanwhile the fact that a Corbyn can thrive in England is a sign that civilization is waning there.
Sadly, you’re right about civilisation waning here.
No, it is not my usual manner… this was reserved especially for you glad you took it well… it wasn’t ill-intended, so for you to figure out what my intention was, or not… that, is up to you…
Sure the UK could be better, but in relation to other scenarios and situations, we’re not doing too badly… on many fronts. What do you think?
The popularity of an ideal in the 70s may not transfer well 40 years later, as keeping-up-with and ahead-of-the-times, is a crucial component of the Social Sciences, no? I will await your reply on this, before I commence further with my thoughts… I’m hoping for a fruitful exchange, you see.
Does both Left and Right not do this, when they are in Government? I do not disagree with your assessment here, but how can this tooing and froing be diminished… for the sake of livelihoods, both of Peoples, Nations, Countries, and the World at large? What is the answer?
It is not about Countries anymore, but about the world in its entirety, and humanity at large.