Handout for Week 4 Class is below.
0207 Handout - Xiaofan and Hannah
THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND THE OLD (1957) - Hannah
Hall says new conservatism is larger in scope, but this growth has come by adding, not editing or replacing. This has resulted in the party housing a body of contradictions, “held together, not by a coherent social philosophy, but by an unquestioning allegiance to the most rootless archetypal images.”
Conservatism pushes people and the nation to act against their best immediate material interests to satisfy their ideological interests.
More people see themselves as middle-class (for dually material and ideological reasons) and this compels them to reject welfare policies, as they see wealth distribution as costing not benefiting them.
Britain starts and intervenes in conflicts beyond its capacity and not in the state’s best immediate material interest, but that serve Britain’s ideological goals to be a Western superpower.
POLITICAL COMMITMENT (1966) - Hannah
Hall describes a political landscape where conservatives play politics as a game of capturing the Overton window or the terms of debate, whereas liberals and the Labour Party do not contest these terms and struggle to enact their ostensible values with the conservative’s framework. It is a losing game.
For example: when liberals try to identify “bias” in the media, it is a poor argument because media is indeed ‘biased’ toward the system, the terms, the framework which conservatives created and benefit from but which liberals consent to working under.
The organizations ostensibly performing welfare or redistribution or charity gain funds and acceptance in part by polishing problems (poverty, domestic violence) as apolitical.
Despite more people identifying with the middle class, it is not that Britian is less class-stratified. It is that the engine of privatization has created false ways of making sense of lived experience. (Meanwhile, again, Labour provides no alternative ideology to counter. Instead, they stay on the defensive.)
Political questions become reduced to questions of technology––how we will get there, rather than where we want to get to––and this allows a maintenance of status quo power.
What Labour lacks is not expertise or technology. It is politics; it is a total strategy of transformation. The task is first to make clear what is there (“political realism”), to unearth the contradictions, for Hall argues that socialism “has been crucially defeated in this decade in the realm of theory and ideology.”
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1982) - Hannah
Economic crisis has not begat revolution because there exists no alternative ideology, since Labour acquiesces to Tory framework. Meanwhile, the ideology that remains is one that valorizes the past, approaches the economy like a family budget, and distorting history.
Populism as the project “to ground neoliberal policies directly in an appeal to ‘the people’; to root them in the essentialist categories of common-sense experience and practical moralism – and thus to construct, not simply awaken, classes, groups and interests into a particular definition of ‘the people” (5).
But going for populism is risky for the right. Populism must be “cut off” at just the right moment so as to prevent identification with a popular movement and instead engender a mass identification with authority.
A valorizing read of British imperial history is embedded into everyone from their youth and then used to legitimate modern imperial pursuits that would otherwise be nonsensical or provoke popular revolt. But the latter does not happen until the left or Labour provides an alternative ideology to grasp onto. The voice of Labour has been “Not so far! Slow down! Not so fast!” rather than providing an alternative and rejecting the right outright.
THE GREAT MOVING RIGHT SHOW (1979) - Xiaofan
Hall discussed the overlooked political-ideological aspects of the "swing to the right" movement as a response to crisis. In discussing the internal contradictions of social democracy, Hall argued that representation is not a stable relationship but an active and formative one between the political representative and the working class. Hall noted that this constantly changing relationship implies fundamentally different concepts before and after coming to power. Before coming to power, the relationship is class-to-party, but after coming to power, it transforms into government-to-people. Thatcherism, through such discourse, shifted the responsibility for threatening the national interest onto the working class.
Thatcherism’s populist common sense: a rich of traditional theme: nation, family, duty, authority… (p.180) vs. collectivism
Success in education - requirements of industry (p.183) Being skilled is not being educated.
THE GREAT MOVING NOWHERE SHOW (1998) - Xiaofan
Hall criticized the "Third Way" proposed by the Blair administration, arguing that although New Labour hoped to control public opinion through hype and vaunting ambition, depicting this new policy as a friendly existence without enemies, appropriately situated between two extremes, and suitable for everyone, the reality was that Blair's new policy was vague in its rhetoric and lacked a clear development plan. Essentially, it was a conservative policy developed within the confines of Thatcherism.
Specifically, Hall criticized the policy for its inaction from three aspects:
1. New Labour’s simplistic understanding of globalization: The New Labour naively and mistakenly regarded globalization as a natural force akin to the weather, uncontrollable and exhibiting the same characteristics everywhere. Due to such assumptions, they abandoned proactive economic management and instead focused on adapting British society to the demands of the global economy, guiding citizens towards self-sufficiency. Hall believed that in the face of globalization, New Labour's policy platform was essentially neoliberal, and this fundamental mistake caused the UK to miss the opportunity to gain an advantage during a period of significant change through radical leadership.
2. Ambiguity and duplicity around welfare reform. Hall believed that the welfare reforms implemented by Blair further deepened social inequality. The so-called reform followed many conventional paths, enabling the wealthy to exclude themselves from the public system. The poor, on the other hand, were promised "social fairness" rather than "social justice." The gap between these two meant that those living on the margins were "freed" by the state and, therefore, had to face risks on their own.
MAINT THEMES ACROSS READINGS
Labour/liberals have provided no alternative to conservative ideology, but instead have merely acquiesced to their terms of debate.
A given economic situation can produce different popular responses, based on the ideological (sense-making) tools the populace has at their disposal.
‘False consciousness’ is not so much acting against one’s best interest as it is acting against one’s material interest to satisfy an opposed ideological interest.
The idea of representation should act as an active and formative relationship, which requires constant scrutinization when it comes to public decision-making.
VOCABULARY WORDS
Psephology
Falklands war
Modernization
Authoritarian populism
Thatcherism
Suez Crisis
MULTIMEDIA EXAMPLE
The COVID-19 pandemic is a prime example of Democrats/Liberals/Left acquiescing to the Right setting the terms of debate. From https://newrepublic.com/article/177849/biden-democrats-covid-pandemic-2024:
“Thanks no doubt in part to Republicans who politicized mask-wearing so much in the early pandemic, Democrats in government have hesitated to mention the dreaded m-word. But they could easily advocate for a harm-reduction approach to face coverings, modeling wearing masks in crowded indoor settings and public transportation, showing that masking in many high-risk settings is possible without disrupting social life.
Of course, with their thin majorities and limits due to filibuster rules, Democrats are hamstrung in some ways on a legislative level to pass critical funding for Covid and long-Covid research, prevention, and trials, Adinig pointed out. “The lack of funding for these policy changes, essential for tackling the pandemic effectively, is a substantial obstacle.” But Democrats could—and should—fight harder instead of cowing to Republicans. Indeed, recent pressure at the local level in many states has resulted in the reinstatement of mask mandates in hospital settings across the country.”
What ideological tools have been used to produce a sociological end to the pandemic, irrespective of public health data to the contrary?
What are other examples of issues where the Right has successfully set the terms of debate? What ideological tools did they use to do so?
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