Variation, differences & Arguments... but long-term family relationships
I remember watching Modern Family in 2011 in Australia, and enjoying it a lot. It's useful to point out that everyone deals with each other daily and finds ways of getting along with each other even at the same time as dealing with how they don't get along, but I think with the ultimate thought that afterall, a family needs to understand that their relationships in whatever shape or combination or quality needs to be managed over the long-term.
With respect to Brexit and the EU and the Referendum, many different narratives have been applied to "shape it" in a way that is universally recognizable by the public and politicians and news-media, for once all tending to agree on what is actually being talked about! An example that won't go away is that of "A Marriage", from Daniel Hannan's "A Doomed Marriage" to David Cameron's "A Marriage Of Convenience" to perhaps Nick Clegg's "A Marriage Made In Heaven" (!). Well... people's gut feeling (CIB) is I think the main far removed now from Nick Clegg's views of "this marriage". Daniel Hannan's I think is stoking the wrongs of the arrangement in a group of people but not very helpful and David Cameron's is maybe sounding practical but does not feel emotionally satisfying... indeed I think again most peoples' gut feeling is that a Remain vote won't resolve these underlying "emotional fissures" even if they feel that this is the most sensible option to remain in the Single Market and enjoy our present "Special Status" in the EUropean Union "Family".
Jared Diamond in traditional garb: The Traditional remains within the Modern.
There's an interesting anecdote recalled by Jared Diamond in context to how people relate to each other and especially so when "differences" arise in a communities In Conversation Jared Diamond: full transcript:-
"That’s true and I discussed examples in my book of the un-moderness of modernity. I point out the distinction between modernity, between modern societies and traditional societies is not an either or. But I go though some examples of what is embedded within modern society is a lot that is still traditional.Now, I'm going to make a very very bold assertion or claim:-
For example: rural areas of modern society, Montana where my wife and kids and I spend our vacations. When Montana ranchers have a dispute they don’t call a lawyer, they don’t call police they deal like New Guineans because they know that that rancher has been there for 20 years. That rancher his or her children could be there for the next 50 years.
Right or wrong what the cow did on that particular day, that’s secondary. You got to deal with the rancher for the next 50 years. And so the focus is on dispute resolution in a traditional way where the goal is to re-establish a relationship and to maintain the ability to interact with each other, rather than right or wrong as the law states in a society."
"The entire Referendum Campaign and indeed much of the prior arguments have been restricted in accordance with "Resolution of Relationships" and the Political Movement to manage "Emotional Digestion" between different actors."What I'm claiming is that so much vastness of so-called "higher forms of decision-making" at the national level and international level are about as traditional and "tribal" even as you care to consider from Papua New Guinea or Rural Montana: Far from being the "Bleeding Edge" of intellectual "rights and wrongs" of Globalization, Barriers To Trade, Multiple Guises of Trade, Unbundling, Harmonization of regulations and standards convergence, or the deeper insights into the nature of the EU from "Engrenage" or The Monnet Method, Beneficial Crisis, Industrialization of Warfare genesis of the EU Supranational design and so much more... there is mainly arguments avoiding these issues in accordance with ensuring the "status" of actors is carefully balanced in their emotional relations to each other at the political "world stage" levels of diplomacy and the like.
All along I've held sympathy with this in particular considering the fragility of the Eurozone. Indeed people prove themselves to be "apparently beyond rational decision-makers and the need to manage populations in an emotionally subtle manner may warrant some of the "delusional decision-making" that seems to occur. However, there are repercussions (to an exacting degree) and they can be claimed with significant confidence:-
The Mysterious Affair at The IEA Brexit Prize Competition... and Vote Leave.
- IEA Brexit prize: a challenge
- IEA Brexit prize: the farce continues
- EU referendum: voting out to stay in
- Brexit: a lack of realism from Bootle
- Brexit: questions to answer
- Brexit: The Winning Entry?
- Brexit: interesting coincidences
- IEA Brexit prize: last post
- Brexit: another nail in the coffin?
The Leave Alliance: Showing how much can be productively done with so little
Worse, is the fact that the competition acted as an "smother" of the intellectual side to Brexit. Now this is an accusation you can read about in the above blog series. I'm far from a rampant "fan" jilted and out for revenge. My point of contention is much more savage: This is the sort of stunt or trick you'd expect in a Soviet Era government on it's people. There's dozens of examples of the trickery invoked to control people in the most manipulative and totalitarian methods. Yes, the stunt pulled here is an exhibition of a lack of democracy in action in the UK in our politics to ensure fair and free competition of ideas outside of those who hold onto power. The mendacity is costly.
The result was burying Mannsfields "magical numbers" entry in the economics of Brexit instead of which is what FLEXCIT achieves, defining the problem as a political one by decomposition of the problem (iterative withdrawal - the singular brexit plan on this paradigm shift - certainly of the many IEA candidates I read up at the time). Indeed the behaviour of the entire campaign is a masquerade of actual arguments burning off peoples' emotions in all areas of the UK until people feel "the referendum is a neverendum going nowhere ruled by Project Fear or Project Fantasy, equally resulting in "I don't know how to vote"."
IF - FLEXCIT had won the IEA Brexit Prize, and we'll see perhaps why it should have in a moment, the knock on effect of search results on google, on the entire shape of the argument of Brexit and "narrowing down solutions" leading to adult discussion of consequences and how to manage them could have been made possible. Doubly so when we look at The Electoral Commission's eventual designation to Vote Leave above!! With none other than Lord Lawson rearing again. In such circumstances with FLEXCIT as the prestigious title with more airtime by more people arguing about it, the designation might have been very different and Leave.EU might have been emboldened to adopt the idea (instead of backing off from it asper Aaron Banks).
Now to state my problem with the entire way our politics is conducted, my primary interest is raising the quality of arguments and hence educating and increasing understanding of people/electorate and voters during this Direct Vote Process to improve politics and hence national decision-making with a greater and wider competition of ideas and hence opening up to more sources, for selection and eventual refinement and adaptation and development.
And to come back to this assertion concerning FLEXCIT, fortunately it's all been summarized excellently so by The Brexit Door:-
“These route maps by Pro Brexit thinkers”, he said, “go by names such as Flexcit, Europe 2.0, or the Liberal Case for Leave.” (Cook’s Piece starts at about 10 minutes)It seems to me the public has merely been privy to the management of relations and indeed the priming the public for whatever new relationship (it will be new on both sides that is "guaranteed") results. Thus this question really is definitively a "Political Question" and a "Political Question" to answer ONLY!
In reality, Flexcit has been in the hands of the civil service since well before the Referendum was called.
Complexity is unavoidable
However campaigners try to avoid it, the truth is that the world is complex. Looking for simple soundbites might well be the stuff of campaigns in the modern televisual age. It is not the stuff of trade deals and international treaties. This is the real strength of Flexcit, it does the detail, proposes solutions both for short term and long term policy issues, and it is sympathetic to the political and economic issues that arise not just for the UK, but for the negotiators on the other side of the table – the EU 27.
"The Liberal Case for Leave" - Everyone wants a positive relationship post-Referendum
You can determine this by the entire behaviour of our politicians which is only just in the last few days bubbling up visibly to the surface eg above.
To finish this blog: Previously I've criticized politicians delusional behaviour in The Political Glass Bead Game: Delusional Decision-Making and then I've criticized peoples' ignorance and ease of manipulation (voters) in The Dark Heart of Politics: Barriers To People? I think the combination is where the explanation for the behaviour I've described in this blog resides: Between the two. As suggested, a higher form of quality arguments and hence politics is possible and could have been possible as per FLEXCIT gaining earlier traction 2 years ago or winning the IEA prize (now it's apparently in the hands of the Civil Service) but that did not fit the actual conditions of politics: Politicians and People, and instead the trajectory of developments has led us all to this stage.
What next?
Leave Result: At one level positive change and trends, but at another still so many of the old underlying problems may continue to persist unchanged in how we organize large groups of people.
But to quote Dr. RAE North, even though overall the experience "out in the open" has been negative and indicates the same old problems will persist either result underlying the Referendum, namely that great expenditure is involved in the emotional digestion and preparation when people are involved in politics to the detriment of the actual quality of arguments being used; underneath this there's signs of positive progress in how we conduct our politics:-
"We always said it would come to this. As Vote Leave increasingly departs from reality (not that it ever really had any grip), and the "remains" indulge in ever more vacuous rhetoric, what seems to be happening is that people, increasingly disillusioned with the official campaigns, are walking away from them and looking elsewhere for their information. They have come to the same conclusion , our bloggers have, that the legacy campaigners are irrelevant.
This was seen in the Scottish referendum, where vibrant debates were being played out, entirely unrelated to the official campaign and completely under the radar of the media and politicians. The debate went underground.
It is difficult to quantify this phenomenon, as there is not one debate but many. And while the pundits are watching the social media, this is by no means the full extent of the game. The classic forum is still a huge repository of debate and so are e-mail lists, mechanisms by which millions share their views away from what the media like to call the "mainstream"."
