In my lifetime, there have been two major shifts in political storytelling.
When social democracy (1945 – 1979) was replaced with Thatcherism / neoliberalism in the UK, UK Conservatives and (US Republicans)* needed to disguise their efforts to increase inequality and narrow opportunity for the masses. So they began telling more blatant lies, and telling more stories that only sounded like they might be true. Secondly, for various reasons (including the arrival of the Web), many media businesses are no longer robust enough to publicly challenge lies and half truths.
The impact on me, personally, is that my head is filled with their useless, harmful ideas. By examining some of these useless ideas, I hope to reduce their hold over me, to reshape them into something more useful.
A few ideas and alternative views that I’ve found to be useful when examining the stories I’m supposed to believe in:
- Billionaires do exist
- Capitalist Realism
- Change is possible: The conditions required for an alternative story to reach voters
- Competition – used to distract and exhaust
- Consumerism, myth of free, rational consumer
- Cultural dementia
- Fascism, simplistic explanation
- Flooding the zone
- Fundamental attribution error
- Incompetence, not a conspiracy argument
- Media is left-wing – one of the most important right-wing lies
- Monarchy and the media
- Neoliberalism
- Social media and populism
- Stories, humans being vulnerable to
Plus: Notes related to the Brexit disinformation campaigns:
- Lies: Reasons why Brexit is not valid
- Corrupt politicians & neoliberalism: The Vote Leave #Brexit Con Trick
- Conservatism: On the importance of hope and optimism during Brexit and Trump
- Fake nationalism: Boris Johnson and fake Brexit nationalism
- Nostalgia & social media: Brexit explained in three tweets
- Cultural dementia: Brexit, empire and cultural dementia. David Andress demolishes lazy nationalism
- Fake news: Brexit and carelessness
- Lobbying from the U.S. Daniel Hannan. Who is he? Who funds him and what do they want?
More ideas being added soon, subscribe to be notified.
*Of course, UK Conservative and US Republican are just labels. And they’re not the only politicians that lie. In general, it’s the politicians who are mostly funded by the powerful few that tend to lie more – and in the UK and US that’s the Conservatives and Republicans (currently).