{"id":84970,"date":"2025-08-12T07:30:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=84970"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:30:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:30:26","slug":"black-and-white-thinking-takes-us-closer-to-fascism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/08\/12\/black-and-white-thinking-takes-us-closer-to-fascism\/","title":{"rendered":"Black and white thinking takes us closer to fascism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I discussed why fascist narratives can be both created and succeed in my National Column yesterday (yours, in full, for a \u00a320 a year subscription, right now). In it I said<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The anger and disillusionment that people quite reasonably felt as a consequence of the deliberate failure of the Tories to meet need was redirected for the political advantage of the elite that was actually exploiting people, and in the process, something that was once described by the German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt occurred.<\/p>\n

As she explained, the constant lying of our politicians is not intended to make people believe the lies that they are told. Instead, its goal is to ensure that no one believes anything any more. As a consequence, the intention is to ensure that no one can, with any degree of certainty, distinguish between truth and lies, and so between right and wrong.<\/p>\n

People deprived of that power are, in Arendt\u2019s opinion, also deprived of the power to think and judge and, as a consequence, are then unwittingly subject to the rule of lies. This then means that politicians who wish to manipulate a population for their own advantage are free to do so.<\/p>\n

That is what happens when we give up on nuance.<\/p>\n

That is what happens when we give up on believing that we have more in common with others than there is that which divides us.<\/p>\n

That is what happens when we forget that there is right and wrong, but that there is no one, or any group, that is at all times and in all places possessed of either quality on every occasion.<\/p>\n

That is, in effect, what happens when we give up on judgment. We become exposed to manipulation and so to abuse.<\/p>\n

And this is where we are. This is why politicians think they can lie to us, on Gaza, on the state of the UK, on Scottish independence, and on almost anything else. That\u2019s because they believe that we have forgotten how to determine the truth in amongst the noise that those who wish to distract us deliberately create.<\/p>\n

It is our job to work out what is really happening and to form a judgment upon it. That is what politics and political economy demand of us. It\u2019s hard, and it sometimes leaves us confused and feeling alienated, but that is the price we have to pay if we are to continue to believe in humanity and decency, and to believe that there are things that are simply right which we must do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought that idea was worth a second outing, here.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I discussed why fascist narratives can be both created and succeed in my National Column yesterday (yours, in full, for a \u00a320 a year subscription,
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[215,14,204,16,203,106,223,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-age-of-aggression","category-corruption","category-economic-justice","category-ethics","category-fascism","category-politics","category-politics-of-care","category-scotland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84971,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84970\/revisions\/84971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}