Yes, I know it’s the weekend and some of us have a life, so why in the world do we have to discuss BREXIT now – important as it is but yet still more of a week day issue. Well it is precisely because some of us don’t have a life 🙁 Now that I’ve argued my point let me go back to post. I think what we all need to do in this BREXIT debate is this; think deep/hard about our core arguments, away from the politics of the day and sort analyse our views by categorising them. So if it’s an equally boring weekend for you why no follow along? So here are the categories;
- Ideological Prejudices
a- Ideological prejudices backed by your own real life experience
b- Ideological prejudices (extracted from own environment/others experiences/information silos)
c- Ideological prejudices based on expertise on subject matter - Political/Social views
a- Political/social views backed by your own real life experience
b- Political/social views (developed through political affiliations/information silos)
c- Political views based on expertise on subject matter
Reason for this little quiz is to understand that just because we believe in something or perceive in a certain way does not make it a point of fact and the reason we believe them as fact is because in one way or another we’ve been coached to view them as such; so I suspect that for many us (b) will be the category mostly used in supporting our arguments.
This brings me swiftly to another question; What is Democracy? Is it only about elections/referendums or is it more of an ongoing process of checks/balances? If we’re able to change our mind at election time or unseat a government when it goes rogue then surely both these elements are an integral part of democratic governance. Now consider if you will issues that have a lasting effect on our future for generations to come; is that not a good enough reason for us to have a proper debate without the noise of ideological prejudices/fake news & perceptions. Put it another way if Democracy was only about elections/referendums then it can be argued – particularly with the way these events have been influenced by big money & lobbyist/special interest groups – that Democracy is at its core about a hit & run proposition and about winners/losers with no compromise necessary. Match that with the rhetoric coming out of 10 Downing Street and you get a perfect match.
What’s the key take away from this mumbo-jumbo because is getting really boring now? It is this; we should NOT look at this BREXIT debate from the narrow prism of Remainer’s vs Leaver’s – that’s precisely what political ideologues & lobbyist would have you focus on and nothing else. We should really have a wider debate of what is Democracy & what are these Liberal Values we hear so much about but never articulate because if anything BREXIT demonstrates that we took the understanding of these concepts for granted for far too long when it turns out we have no real concept of what these mean – the only concept we seem to be great at is consumption and self awareness/interest. The first step in curing this problem is acknowledge that it exists then we can go ahead and make plans in addressing it because our future really really depends on it. BREXIT can be a blip or a sign of things to come in terms of the fragility of our core beliefs/values.