I find it phenomenal that people in the U.K. are so caught up in the Johnson narrative - whether you’re for or against him, it seems absolutely everyone is within his thrall - talking about him, thinking about him, to the exclusion of all else.
Now, it’s not about “stick your head in the sand”, so much as it is realising that on both sides of the aisle you’re reading from the same script - the same paradigm, the same dichotomy of stay or go, the same stage and set dressing. Your protests are expected, appreciated, and necessary, as they further the narrative, and deepen his power - because power flows from narrative, from the ideas which you accept as “just is” within the story, as it doesn’t make sense without them - never mind that it’s all a fantastical fabrication.
This is how kings are made. Johnson has been telling a particular story for a while now, in which he becomes king. It gave him vast popularity in the run up to the mayoral election (apt control of narrative is commonly called charisma), and from there, he’s been punting the same can down the road whilst we all chase it like rabid dogs.
This only ends when a better, stronger narrative comes along - and nobody in any position to challenge him has it.
Labour own a narrative in which they stumble onwards, tripping on their scabbard as they scramble up the dusty ramparts of Fort Johnson, and are stuck in it, as they mistake their narrative for their reality.
For instance, they initially approached the antisemitism debacle by treating it as a valid issue - they played whackamole with the press on it, and it kept the story (“Labour are antisemites”) prime in the public mind. The whole thing has been rather quiet lately, because they changed tactics, are are hiding from that narrative and are hoping it will wither away. It might - but it only takes an ember to rekindle a bonfire.
Rather, they should be getting ahead of the story, and should pick on, oh, I don’t know, the greens, kick off a rumour that they’re a Masonic cabal of drag queen drug lords and make them defend it, and drag the Tories into that mess. The crazier and broader the accusations the better - grapeshot gives a lot of holes to patch, and distracts from the one which hit below the waterline. Play it right and you make everyone remember that it was the Tories that started it, as labour smearing the greens makes no sense. Punching up and doing minor damage makes you look weak and petty, punching down and demolishing an innocent makes you look strong. Children understand this - the world is a schoolyard.
I wrote a little while back about narrative control as being the thing which divides the ruling classes from the consumer classes - I went to a similar school to Johnson, and the main thing you’re taught, albeit largely unwittingly (you have to follow the lessons which aren't spoken), is how to dominate narrative.
So, you want Johnson gone, you need either events to run roughshod over his constructed reality, and that would take something very substantial - or you need a greater master of human reality.
Thing is, as long as the techniques of narrative control remain the domain of the elite, passed on to their children through expensive institutions and family neuroses that spread mimetically through the affected population, the leaders will continue to be from the same caste. Occasionally someone from the outside stumbles over the alchemy of mind control, and they do things with it, often involving gas and guillotines, but it’s the exception, not the rule, and from the perspective of the entrenched ruling classes reinforces the need to gatekeep.
So. Johnson will likely one day go, but the disease that allows Johnson will remain until the next revolution.
I really think this is a media bubble perspective. Most people aren’t engaged with politics - certainly not to the extent that they become obsessed with the prime minister. The media constantly talk about him because that’s just what they do.
And I also think the voting population aren’t the sheeple you’re painting them as. They don’t vote Tory because they love Boris. They vote Tory knowing that the personal failings of the leader have very little bearing on getting the policies that they want passed. “Hold your nose and vote conservative” works both sides of the Atlantic.
'narrative' is a fancy word that sounds important. It seems a pretty good rule of thumb that the more someone uses it, the less they have to actually say. You've used it 11 times.
Also it comes with a package of other nebulous abstract words and phrases, as you've exemplified "the domain of the elite", "that spread mimetically", "the alchemy of mind control", "entrenched ruling classes reinforces the need to gatekeep".
This is just bad writing. If you have said anything it's embedded in so much verbal dross I can't be bothered to extract it. I suspect it could have been said in a few sentences.
OP is probably explaining that the UK, like the US and most western democracies/republics are actually oligarchies, and have been for some time. It's hard to state simply since 'oligarchy' conjures images of super-yachts and old men, but that's not what is meant by the term in a classical sense, and no sensible oligarchy would ever speak its name.
No “narrative” is not a fancy word, it’s a word that has a definition and meaning. Maybe you don’t come across it in your day to day, but anyone who makes public statements knows exactly what it means.
It’s basically the story being told. The way to understand it is that politicians and the media have a millions things they could discuss that are relevant to the voters.
What’s interesting is NOT what they talk about. It’s what’s they don’t talk about. And if you actually follow what they say over time it’s starts to become clear pretty quickly.
And it’s not a conspiracy or some secret - I’ve been in the room of a Fortune 50 PR meeting where they discuss the “narrative”.
It’s usually “we only want to talk about X which makes us look good. We don’t want to talk about Y. Y makes us look bad, so if someone mentions Y, use this response to steer it back to X”.
A good narrative example was the Hunter Biden laptop. The narrative was "this is suspected Russian disinformation". Absolutely zero proof it was, but that didn't matter, just keep dropping phrases like "this has all the signs of a Russian operation". Instead of the content in the laptop or hell, even the story about the laptop, the news covers the Russian conspiracy side. That entire narrative was spun out of thin air, the laptop was Hunter Biden's.
There are often good example of narratives being broken, and what you see is suddenly a narrative is dropped entirely and another takes it's place. If you're paying attention you'll suddenly notice some news story has completely disappeared from public discussion almost as if it never happened.
The one big benefit of the internet is how easy it is to follow public statements now. It's much harder to say something at a press conference, have it on Twitter, then deny it the next week. Doesn't stop politicians from trying though.
I get exactly what you're saying but that misses the point which is it was just a load of tosh. If one[1] have something to say but can't say it clearly, one is wasting everyone's time at best and at worst become part of the problem.
[1] It's a shame that 'one' has dropped out of use in this context, it does sound so absurd and archaic, but 'you' can be mistaken for 'specifically you' so I hope one will forgive me here.
I’m a scientist with an increasing interest in how ideas form and which ideas establish dominance over others. The writer of the parent comment generally has rather interesting points to make on this topic, and I don’t recognise your vehement criticisms of either the language used or the points made.
Some of the comment in question very hard to make any sense of, e.g:
>Rather, they should be getting ahead of the story, and should pick on, oh, I don’t know, the greens, kick off a rumour that they’re a Masonic cabal of drag queen drug lords and make them defend it, and drag the Tories into that mess. The crazier and broader the accusations the better - grapeshot gives a lot of holes to patch, and distracts from the one which hit below the waterline. Play it right and you make everyone remember that it was the Tories that started it, as labour smearing the greens makes no sense. Punching up and doing minor damage makes you look weak and petty, punching down and demolishing an innocent makes you look strong. Children understand this - the world is a schoolyard.
Multiple parts of this make no sense, but one thing that stands out is that it doesn't make sense for the Tories to pick on the Greens either.
I recommend Bernays’ “Public Relations”, and “Propaganda” if you’d like to understand what I’m raving about, and why it would be strategically sound.
It isn’t necessarily about what makes sense, in a rational and deterministic fashion, rather what the stochastic outcomes of an action are. When you’re dealing with mass sentiment, the right move is often deeply counterintuitive, and you have to pretty much be a sociopath to execute adroitly. Demagoguery is a case in point of the veracity of this.
Are you then writing only for people who've read those books? If so, HN seems like a poor choice of forum.
I think, however, that you are redirecting because you aren't in fact able to explain how it would help Labour to spread crazy rumors about the Green Party. The Greens have a single MP. To a first approximation, no-one cares about any scandal involving the Greens – even if the scandal is true. If anything, it would make more sense for Labour to attack the Greens than it would for the Tories, as very few voters vacillate between the Tories and the Greens.
Well, it's not ideas, it's language abuse I'm griping over. Is "the alchemy of mind control" a helpful term in any way?
Wouldn't "as long as the techniques of narrative control remain the domain of the elite..." be better expressed as "while the elite use misinformation..." and perhaps ask what it is about the plebs that they'll accept being played? (if they are, which is semi-contentious).
Curious, on which specific interesting points are you referring to.
> Is "the alchemy of mind control" a helpful term in any way?
Maybe your criticism is less about this writer than about the imprecision of written language as a communication tool generally. In which case, bear in mind firstly that the writer is writing a quick post on a forum, not for a scientific journal. Also that imprecise language may seem imprecise to you, but may encapsulate broader meaning for others. Alternatively, a particular piece of writing might just poorly transmit meaning which itself is valuable. For example, I find Slavoj Zizek to be incomprehensible. But when he is well edited or I have read secondary texts, I have found his insights to be revelatory.
> Curious, on which specific interesting points are you referring to.
One of the common features of the ideas I mention is that they often garner an aggressive response, as people rightly dislike the idea that they’re enthralled by storytelling - but yet we are - it’s how we explain everything from the universe to other people, and likely originated with nascent theory of mind, sociality — lying.
So within us is the ability to sculpt narrative, to essentially deceive through attention manipulation or information selection, and also the response to that deception (anger, denial, pushback) - as they’re cultural ying and yang, the immune response and the illness.
It drives war when opposing stories clash, so great is the response that the wrong story, of which the story of stories is absolutely one, can evoke.
Anyway. I expect to be disagreed with. I may well be wrong and suffering under my own illusions - but my lived experience is that a good story is everything human.
> people rightly dislike the idea that they’re enthralled by storytelling
The fictitious narrative of free will could be the most potent narrative of all.
> but my lived experience is that a good story is everything human
I’m interested in the mechanisms by which narratives are conjured and mind control (this is too crude an expression for my liking but I don’t yet have anything better) asserted. Use of rhetoric, in combination with written and visual media are very powerful. This is well known. But the most powerful narrative web I believe can be created through the mechanism of introjection, where we don’t question our actions because this is simply what we see everyone else doing.
My underlying interest, I think, is the nature of reality. Peeling back the fictions of our own creation is a necessary ongoing part of that investigation.
>> The one big benefit of the internet is how easy it is to follow public statements now. It's much harder to say something at a press conference, have it on Twitter, then deny it the next week. Doesn't stop politicians from trying though.
Now they can also delete statements that become inconvenient. Or stealthily edit them.
> For instance, they initially approached the antisemitism debacle by treating it as a valid issue - they played whackamole with the press on it, and it kept the story (“Labour are antisemites”) prime in the public mind.
The antisemitism story became huge because it was seized upon by Corbyn's enemies who realised that it was an effective weapon against him. You cannot understand this story if you think in terms of the party as a unified force.
Yes, but the fiercest grip on the bayonet came from Corbyn himself - his handling of it was disastrous, and likely went against everything every one of his advisers recommended - you don’t engage is the prime rule - you make a small statement, and move on with a dead cat or a snazzy splash. Big statements, big movements, more to look at, more to push against, bad optics. See how Johnson handles his erstwhile crises - this is how he gets away with it.
In my view he was a good and integral man, somewhat guileless, and therefore utterly, utterly unsuited for politics - and he got eaten alive resultantly.
> I find it phenomenal that people in the U.K. are so caught up in the Johnson narrative - whether you’re for or against him, it seems absolutely everyone is within his thrall - talking about him, thinking about him, to the exclusion of all else.
“Occasionally someone from the outside stumbles over the alchemy of mind control, and they do things with it, often involving gas and guillotines”.
There has been no greater exponent of this mind control than Churchill: from “inside” not “outside” and he killed A LOT of people. Less of course than Stalin and Hitler. But still many. My point is that it doesn’t matter who wields the power, gas and guillotines may follow.
Now, it’s not about “stick your head in the sand”, so much as it is realising that on both sides of the aisle you’re reading from the same script - the same paradigm, the same dichotomy of stay or go, the same stage and set dressing. Your protests are expected, appreciated, and necessary, as they further the narrative, and deepen his power - because power flows from narrative, from the ideas which you accept as “just is” within the story, as it doesn’t make sense without them - never mind that it’s all a fantastical fabrication.
This is how kings are made. Johnson has been telling a particular story for a while now, in which he becomes king. It gave him vast popularity in the run up to the mayoral election (apt control of narrative is commonly called charisma), and from there, he’s been punting the same can down the road whilst we all chase it like rabid dogs.
This only ends when a better, stronger narrative comes along - and nobody in any position to challenge him has it.
Labour own a narrative in which they stumble onwards, tripping on their scabbard as they scramble up the dusty ramparts of Fort Johnson, and are stuck in it, as they mistake their narrative for their reality.
For instance, they initially approached the antisemitism debacle by treating it as a valid issue - they played whackamole with the press on it, and it kept the story (“Labour are antisemites”) prime in the public mind. The whole thing has been rather quiet lately, because they changed tactics, are are hiding from that narrative and are hoping it will wither away. It might - but it only takes an ember to rekindle a bonfire.
Rather, they should be getting ahead of the story, and should pick on, oh, I don’t know, the greens, kick off a rumour that they’re a Masonic cabal of drag queen drug lords and make them defend it, and drag the Tories into that mess. The crazier and broader the accusations the better - grapeshot gives a lot of holes to patch, and distracts from the one which hit below the waterline. Play it right and you make everyone remember that it was the Tories that started it, as labour smearing the greens makes no sense. Punching up and doing minor damage makes you look weak and petty, punching down and demolishing an innocent makes you look strong. Children understand this - the world is a schoolyard.
I wrote a little while back about narrative control as being the thing which divides the ruling classes from the consumer classes - I went to a similar school to Johnson, and the main thing you’re taught, albeit largely unwittingly (you have to follow the lessons which aren't spoken), is how to dominate narrative.
So, you want Johnson gone, you need either events to run roughshod over his constructed reality, and that would take something very substantial - or you need a greater master of human reality.
Thing is, as long as the techniques of narrative control remain the domain of the elite, passed on to their children through expensive institutions and family neuroses that spread mimetically through the affected population, the leaders will continue to be from the same caste. Occasionally someone from the outside stumbles over the alchemy of mind control, and they do things with it, often involving gas and guillotines, but it’s the exception, not the rule, and from the perspective of the entrenched ruling classes reinforces the need to gatekeep.
So. Johnson will likely one day go, but the disease that allows Johnson will remain until the next revolution.