Ed Miliband has always been LARPing at politics.
And that's what the climate thing is about. Its players live entirely virtual existences, remote and disconnected from the lives lived by billions of ordinary people.
And that's what the climate thing is about. Its players live entirely virtual existences, remote and disconnected from the lives lived by billions of ordinary people.
https://twitter.com/Ed_Miliband/status/1459234433589039107
Why does Ed want to be the climate champion so badly? Why does he think he has a handle on what the world needs?
Because he's a complete stranger to democracy. He's from a class of people who believe society is theirs to manage and engineer, no matter what people think.
Because he's a complete stranger to democracy. He's from a class of people who believe society is theirs to manage and engineer, no matter what people think.
He grew up in wealth, but with the belief that he was good for the world and could make it a better place without requiring the consent of those whose lives his ideas would affect. It's a left-wing version of Divine Right.
Climate change flatters those of such a mindset, who came up in or during the late stages before a post-democratic, post-Cold War world, without geopolitical challenges or domestic political schisms, reading dull, dreary political texts like John Rawls'.
All that was needed on their view were nice guys in charge and the right configuration of global and domestic political institutions, and the results of offering the voter limited choices of style could be taken for granted.
He learned nothing from such an approach.
He learned nothing from such an approach.
Accordingly, Ed went directly from superficial academic work to the Brown camp as an adviser, was then gifted a safe seat in a constituency he had no connection with, and then competed with his own brother for the top job, all within a decade.
He has never worked in reality.
He has never worked in reality.
He is the epitome of what @Martin_Durkin calls the 'new class'.
They have no question in their mind about the legitimacy of what they want to achieve, are incapable of defending it from criticism, and cannot contemplate that anyone might not want it.
They have no question in their mind about the legitimacy of what they want to achieve, are incapable of defending it from criticism, and cannot contemplate that anyone might not want it.
The only way that the likes of Ed can understand criticism of the new class and its ideas is by imagining it as the opposite of what they think of themselves.
Believer -> denier
Honest -> devious
Science -> doubt
Nice -> nasty
Beneficent -> malign
etc.
Believer -> denier
Honest -> devious
Science -> doubt
Nice -> nasty
Beneficent -> malign
etc.
It means that they cannot debate. Literally. They are pathologically incapable...
You cannot argue with an automaton...
Ed did not form his understanding of climate change by either hearing it from voters, or through some democratic process. He got it from the likes of Anthony Giddens and a constellation of 'civil society' organisations. They flattered him, and the code was executed.
The automaton, which would not have survived in any other era of democratic politics, now had his script and was left to repeat it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and...
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