enantiodromia
ɪˌnantɪə(ʊ)ˈdrəʊmɪə,ɛˌnantɪə(ʊ)ˈdrəʊmɪə/
One year on...and the tables are turned. Looking back to the days of early July of last year it seemed as if the right was triumphant. The Thatcher revolution was to roll on, the parliamentary Labour party was in revolt and UKIP was triumphant. As the months went by to November Trump was elected President, Leonard Cohen and Castro both died and the march of the free market seemed to be about to sweep us all away. We were st he end of history, the tools of prediction no longer were valid, accurate or of any use in a new paradigm of the populist right.
But
then odd things began to happen. Some of us sensed a change in the
wind, the political tides of the left once spent seemed to gain in
strength. The irony was that the neoliberal agenda that had isolated
so many, now rapidly turned in such an acute angle that was so sharp
that it cut the throat of the purveyors of Brexit and all that came
with it. The paradigm shift turned rapidly into a Gramscian earth
quake unrecognized by many and yet the crisis of hegemony was so
subtle that few perceived its strength and purpose.
Another
media had emerged and few noticed that now two discourses were
active : one was conventional and connected to the daily right wing
press of the Mail, the Express and the Sun and the other that had
first been glimpsed during the Scottish referendum had been seen
in Trumps victory and the Brexit referendum as a right wing tide was
false.. Yet it was more than what it seemed.....it was as though the
specters of the right once embraced by large sections of people had
been seen to be false like wisps of fog and the reality dawned on
the many that had been left behind by globalization and the parties
of liberal democracy. In very early May I wrote a speculative piece
about how Jeremy Corbyn took the Labour vote up to 37% and created a
hung parliament. As we watched on election night as the prediction
came partly true, I smiled to myself and wondered what would happen
next.
Carl
Jung the Depth Psychologist coined the term enantiodromia which
literally means changing from one thing to its opposite. As I write
this piece in early July I notice that Labour now has a 6% lead in
the opinion polls. The Tory party no longer knows what to do or what
to say. It wants power that much is clear and it wants to stay there
at any cost. It will support any policy that will keep it there, it
will sell its soul to the DUP to do so. Yet within its heart it knows
that it is dying. The conspirators are surrounding May. Boris Johnson
calls for the end of the Public Pay cap and of austerity and Gove
flirts with ideas of ending live animal exports The alt right with
its Anders Brevik pony tails and its fake Oxford scarves and their
cigarettes , look confused and lash out at any one challenging them. They even forget that the term"libertarain" is an adjective and not a noun.
The
tone has changed on social media, This time last years the trolls
swirled around people like myself and now we see the trolls weeping
under their bridges. They cry out that the left are so dominant. And
yet every troll shaking under his bridge cries out the same words.
They call the left, “tools” and “nut jobs”, they claim
ownership of a patriotic working class group yet each one looks the
same, sounds the same and uses the same terms. And everyone of them
fails to realize what is happening. I have lost count of how many
comments from this group are interchangeable from one troll to
another. Nothing significant has been said except to hand out abuse
at the “snowflakes”. They fail to understand that every snowflake
has a different pattern and every troll has the same basic 20 words
that they spew out. The alt right fades as quickly as the comet that
was Milo Yiannopoulos burns out and fades away. The miserable old
Nazgul of the right in he York Question time audience have withered
and faded. UKIP seem to be experiencing entryism from the far right.
Who could have imagined that instructions have been issued by the
Wimbledon tennis organization that no chants of “oh Jeremy Corbyn”
were to be heard on Centre court ?. Yesterday I was told by several
people that they heard in the Swansea Valley the same chant. Things
change......
The
chant is merely a symptom of a savage thirst for change and as the
current runs strongly on the populist left presaged by Bernie Sanders
in the States and by the Green party and others prior to 2015 in the
UK. In Holland the Green Left have surged and parties like Podermos
and Syrezia belong to the same phenomena.
Thinkers
and thereoticians ranging from Varofakis, Picketty and Paul Masson
provide an intellectual critique that has been needed for so long.
Technological change has made all of this possible, wjile change of
the communication form feeds it and the old established positions
weaken. We stand here in July 2017 and look at another world where
the likes of Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Nigel Farage,
beg the question ...just what is the point of them in this paradigm
and place? They have nothing to say about Hillsborough, Grenfell
Tower, or the market mechanism, privatization or peace they have
nothing to offer or say on any of these events or issues. They are
being outsourced and replaced..and yet they still do not know it.
.The
issues of a citizens income, new technology and big data clearly
shows that the paradigm has been changed and a left agenda with it
new ideas, new terms and new approaches are winning in these days of
summer that are so reminiscent of the period of the early 70s. The
rules have been rewritten, the unintended consequences of Brexit have
enabled reform, revolution and revolt to take place. Let us see what
happens next.........
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