11 Comments on Have Ed and Mitt been swapping notes?

Rebecca hanson on Sat, 6th Oct 2012 4:11 pm


What is the centre ground?
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2012/10/03/who-is-on-the-centre-ground/

Edward Harkins FRSA on Sun, 7th Oct 2012 5:05 pm


“… it remains the case that elections are won in the middle ground.”

That endures, seemingly, as the truism learned through hard experience winning over ideology and aspiration.

I’m increasingly pondering, however, whether we are entering one of those transient, dynamic, bits of history. It becomes ever more cringingly obvious that the assorted political leaders are resorting to any and every shallow contrivance to court the fabled middle ground (back to basics, third way, we’re all in it together, one nation – and above all vilification of the poor supposedly scrounging on benefits),

Meantime it becomes ever more apparent to those entrapped in this middle ground that the ‘consensus’ politicians are endlessly mouthing platitudes that they no longer can deliver on. Is there also a dismembering of the middle ground under way? By which I mean that more and more of the ‘squeezed middle’ and the ‘generation rent’ are realising that they and ‘the poor’ are actually no ore than a few legislative actions apart.

As the man in the film said, “I’m not sure what I’m saying”. But this pondering has become stronger and stronger in my mind. – most recently reinforced by the ultimate pointlessness of Ed’s pantomime, one-nation-oh!-that’s-hit-on-Cameron’ stunt.

Rebecca Hanson on Sun, 7th Oct 2012 6:16 pm


Hello Edward. I enjoyed your comment so I’m going to try to express a few thoughts which may or may not help. I’d be interested to hear what you think next.

Traditionally the centre ground is liberal – split between economic liberalism (or the idea of negative freedoms – remove barriers to people being allowed to be free but don’t give them the resources they need to walk through the gaps which have been created) and social liberalism (give people positive freedoms – that is remove barriers and give people the resources they need to progress through society).

But I think the internet is collapsing the difference between economic and social liberalism. Because if we assume we want all people to be fed and sheltered and educated then the internet is the magic bullet which gives us positive freedoms which were previously unimaginable. How rapidly can we educate ourselves? How effectively can we communicate with the people who are in key positions in society who make decisions who influence our lives? How easily can we check whether our concerns are valid or already being dealt with by others?………

What’s possible has only just begun, its not really in focus yet. I think.

Edward Harkins FRSA on Sun, 7th Oct 2012 8:16 pm


Thanks Rebecca, (I think Matthew has come somewhere for a bit so we can talk). First reaction is that I don’t; see the Internet actually providing the positive freedoms you describe and that, rather it’s the negative freedoms it can provide at best. So I’m concluding for now that the Internet is yet again failing to meet some of the rather over-inflated expectations of it.

I’d further suggest that the Internet is more like a disruptive technology for a period until established interests regain control. I recently participated in a number of events as part of Glasgow’s Social Media Week that was, in turn, Glasgow’s involvement in the global-wide Social Media Week.

At those events I was several times struck by the growing sophistication of means of online control and structuring strategies on the part of corporate interests. Indeed at an NHS workshop, serious concerns were raised by some participants at what they saw as the insidious techniques being advocated (not by the NHS I hasten to add).

For me, one worry has been the steady trend in recent years among central and local governments and their agencies to carry out ‘consultations’ and surveys etc. purely online – thereby ensuring distorting and debasing effects on the outcomes of the consultation or survey. That this is happening more and more on matters of public and social policy is of particular concern.

Now if we were to look at the impact of globalisation on the ‘middle ground’ in the UK and other similar economies, then I think we could discern an unravelling, or at least a recomposing, of that middle ground; perhaps takes us back to your ‘what is the middle ground’?

Carl Allen on Sun, 7th Oct 2012 9:10 pm


Plenty of money is not the problem and neither is the internet the answer, much less the solution.

Indeed the internet is becoming too much the drug of choice.

Rebecca hanson on Sun, 7th Oct 2012 9:17 pm


I recognise exactly the things you are describing Edward but there is a part of the picture which you seem not to know and it is the crucial element here.

It is possible for individuals to develop skills in the way they contribute to mass online discussion which allow them to cut efficiently and effectively through all the things you have seen.

If a forum is managed for reasons other than free speech (or is simply badly managed) then, of course, free speech cannot be achieved. But disciplined posting which understands the laws of cyberrhetoric and is also sensitive to and gentle with human nature can diagnose such forums (which are then avoided) and can lead to enlightened discussion.

Here is an introduction to the discipline of cyberrhetoric:
http://cyberrhetoricbyrebeccahanson.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/mozilla-festival-notes-on-cyberrhetoric.html
and here is just a tiny insight into quite how far you can get very rapidly – but of course I didn’t post in detail what I came to understand because nobody is interested in hearing that and it detracts from the focus on the nature of how it is possible for people to come to understand it which I don’t want to do:
http://cyberrhetoricbyrebeccahanson.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/how-to-manage-agenda-of-form-if-you.html

Your references to globalisation are too brief for me to clearly understand your intention in making them. But from my perspective the biggest problem of globalisation is that it is difficult for people observing events to retain understanding and control of rules which are too far away from them. Mass online discussion and consultation, used correctly and accessed by people who understand how to use it, can collapse time and space and render the opaque transparent, re-enlightening our understanding of systems which have become counterproductive.

Edward Harkins FRSA on Mon, 8th Oct 2012 11:24 am


Hmm… Rebecca I see where your coming from and do know about what you describe as the ‘crucial element’. That, however, is not sufficient – and anyway I think it is a fatal flaw to describe anything in such a dynamic, multi-dimensional and interrelated scenario as ‘the’ crucial element. What you are describing entails the need for mass skilling-up the population for the Internet to be used in such sophisticated ways. I, for example, have to admit I don’t even understand the locus or purpose of some of the words (terms?) you are using

In the meantime, the powers-that-be are always developing to stay those few steps ahead in the control and manipulation game (in fact they need only be a few steps behind so long as that’s temporary).

This is all very evident in the ongoing condition of our politics and civic society. Our politics and politicians seem now subjugated and beholden to the likes of the corporate interests and oligarchies of extreme wealth – a latter day version of the ‘Industrial Military Complex’ that outgoing USA President Dwight D Einsenhower (no left wing radical) long ago warned of.

In fact I suggest we may be in a catch 22. In this situation there are not the political means, still less support from the political class, for any broad based citizens’ attempt to make the kind of significant and sustainable use of the Internet you describe be (unless for purposes and in modes sanctioned by the powers that be).

I am, indeed, more taken with the notion of the impacts of globalisation (albeit they are much understood and often much hyped according to the motives of those doing the hyping. But we are already taking the discussion well off-topic from the condition of the middle ground

On that topic I believe that we are both demonstrating that ‘something is going on’ which is either deconstructing, or reconstructing, whatever the middle ground is.

Rebecca Hanson on Mon, 8th Oct 2012 12:18 pm


“What you are describing entails the need for mass skilling-up the population for the Internet to be used in such sophisticated ways.”

That’s going on as more and more people (especially women) are becoming confident in using forums.

“In the meantime, the powers-that-be are always developing to stay those few steps ahead in the control and manipulation game (in fact they need only be a few steps behind so long as that’s temporary).”

They were two years ago but they aren’t now.

“Our politics and politicians seem now subjugated and beholden to the likes of the corporate interests and oligarchies of extreme wealth.”

Many are but not all. But the people sitting chatting on the forums generally aren’t.

“On that topic I believe that we are both demonstrating that ‘something is going on’ which is either deconstructing, or reconstructing, whatever the middle ground is.”

Yes I agree. But I strongly suspect this is the feeling of the beginning of a new period of enlightenment….. bringing us full circle into the idea that the middle ground is not an ideological place, it is one of engagement with reality – a dimension travelling along an axis more akin to Hawkins’ scale of consciousness than to anything which I hear our politicians talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsVIzK1VLdo

Edward Harkins FRSA on Mon, 8th Oct 2012 12:49 pm


OK Rebecca we don’t want ping pong, so I’ll try to say final words on our track on the Internet…

First the positive; I agree with the sentiments and thrust of your concluding comments (hence why we’re both in the RSA).

As for the rest, if a whole lot of people are sitting around in front of a whole lot of screens participating in a whole lot of fora; that suits the powers-that-be just fine. It’s all no action and to little or no effect. When it looks like that activity will instigate real-life actions, the powers-that-be will develop and exercise the ‘effective’ tools.

On the notion that the powers of control died out tw0 years ago – that’s much, much, too contemporaneous a take with which to declare an entire era dead. The use and method of control comes and goes – I did say that it need not be of significance if the means of control all behind if that’s only a temporary blip.

Just one example is the return to Financial Repression as an inter-state tool of economic control. Very few people are even aware of the return to the opaque system that was last used to rescue the Western Global economy in the dire post WW2 period. That system dictates the terms of life of almost all people, companies, and institutions in the affected economies – but these constituencies are mostly completely unaware of it.

That’s not 2 years ago, that now, its ongoing, it’s reality.

If folks are sitting around ‘participating’ all the while in online fora that, as I said, suits the powers that be just fine.

Rebecca Hanson on Mon, 8th Oct 2012 1:00 pm


“If folks are sitting around ‘participating’ all the while in online fora that, as I said, suits the powers that be just fine.”

That’s not what I’ve found Edward.

You can effectively disable your opposition if they have no medium of positive freedom which allows them to develop their thinking and become capable of challenging the status quo. I’m sure you’re aware of how this is done in the read world – sacking all the people who oppose you, discrediting them, and disabling them from developing their ideas and so on.

Cyberspace is a bit of a problem for this though. If people can still explore their ideas in collaborative ways, they are still a threat.

Discussion forums have traditionally been managed in a very predictable, effective and unpleasant range of ways.

However networks such as linkedin.com suddenly made it very easy for private individuals to set up and run forums where they could find the people they needed to chat to to develop their thinking. At the same time it became hard to disable someone by damaging their computer because people suddenly had access to multiple input methods. If your computer goes down now you can still contribute to a conversation on your mobile device – and vice versa. At the same time major organisations like Al Jazeera were getting the hang of how to moderate forums well to promote free mass online discussion.

Lots of contemporaneous things going on.

Rebecca Hanson on Mon, 8th Oct 2012 2:03 pm


I like ping pong – unless the referee objects. I think others are more likely to join in if there is a conversation going than if there isn’t.

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