This morning listening to Radio Four I heard a reporter say,”The political climate has changed. It’s no use bleating to the government any more.” He was referring to the dire effect on employment and levels of poverty that the cuts in government spending would have on the North East of the country. Times have changed he was saying, no good asking for hand outs in the present situation.
And yet is ‘bleating to the government’ not exactly what the entire financial sector has not stopped doing for the last two years? Is it not what they are already starting to do again right now? I couldn’t believe he was not able to see the deep and caustic double standard contained in what he had said.
This man had accepted without thinking and was now passing along uncritically, the message that the right way to think of our present economic and political situation is to think of people who ask for help as ‘bleating to the government’, while banks asking for bail outs, support, insurance for bad debts etc, should be thought of as… what? What, if anything was in the man’s mind? I submit nothing was there. There was no connection in the man’s mind between banks demanding bail-outs and people asking for help.
It is precisely those things we cannot see in our own thinking, the connections we do not make, which make up the mental landscape we inhabit.
And the danger is when other people’s flat-packed phrases and click-together, buy-in-a-set thoughts start to shape the unquestioned landscape of our thinking.
It suits both the banks and the government for us to have the thought – ‘Things have changed. Can’t bleat to the government‘ and have this jump to mind whenever we hear someone saying cuts in government spending are going to hurt them. But at the same time have the quite different thought of ‘we must support the recovery’, or ‘we must avoid a systemic danger’ jump to mind whenever we hear a bank needing support.
The world of thoughts we exist inside, is not our own creation. It is formed by the thoughts we hear and the arguments we accept. That is how the unwary can be so easily led. Once the framework of unquestioned thoughts and assumptions is inside your mind then the arguments you hear later will seem to fit right in and sound convincing. Even if you want to resist them they will just seem so ‘right’. And you will shake your head in sorrow and say to yourself, ‘It’s a shame but that’s just how it is’.
Unless we are vigilant in questioning the easy phrases and uncritical assumptions fed to us by those, let us never forget, who have vested interest in leading us by the nose, then that is exactly what will happen.
Hi Golem – that is extremely sensible and totally inspiring writing. We can be our own worst enemies unfortunately.
Hello Cleo,
Thank you.
Hi Golem, I used to look out for your comments on CIF as you seem to be one of the few people capable of analysing the disparate bits of information and disinformation out there; and create a narrative that is easy to follow, consistent and fits in with what is readily observed.
I read the likes of Zerohedge and the Market Ticker etc and think, "Wow, what does that mean then?". Now I can quickly scuttle onto here and find out.
What's this got to do with 'Bleating to the Government"? Not a lot except that sheep can bleat all they like, no-one takes any notice of what they want; they're rounded up, penned in and fleeced or butchered. Investment bankers on the other hand…
Maybe the metaphor wasn't so inapt – Not that it invalidates the rest of your piece.
May the force be with you.
Hello Unclear,
I am a man with a ready supply of metaphors. Not all of them good. Some of them positively sub prime. But hey! What could go wrong with that?
thanks for commenting