No sense of outrage

Jackie laughlin

Sceptre,
Thank you.

You may well be right about 70s economics graduates but very little has changed. Present day students tell me that it would be academic suicide to question the neo-liberal consensus.

is_that_so

Outrage is something we are pretty good at and George Orwell had it right. What we are not good at is actually doing anything.

Many of the "problems" mentioned here are emotive and are almost guaranteed to cause outrage.

A discussion seeks answers and tests hypotheses. It doesn't dress its arguments in emotion. However a real life discussion inavriably ends up being a Googlefest of references and statistics or the ability to use cleverer words to bash their opponent with.

To me a more serious question is who are we and who do we want to be? The Celtic Tiger/economic prosperity has allowed some extremely unpleasant traits to surface.

TBH we have not learnt to live with prosperity and all it seems to have done is bring out irrational anger and that begrudgery that we do so well.

In principle we are all in favour of helping the less well-off and the minorities and all of that but not if it either costs us money or shows up on our doorstep.

"Ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country." but can we be really bothered ?

bk

Ok, it is very simple, must people simply couldn't care less.

You talk about recent crisis, but in reality they are only minor incidents.

Every government, no matter what parties it is made up with is going to be hit with such "crisis".

The reality is that most people only care about the fundamentals, that they have a nice job, house, car, big screen tv, couple of holidays a year, etc. and that the government doesn't mess with their lives too much.

The thing is that these fundamentals have never before been so good in Irish society. Simply put the Irish are fat and happy and want things to remain that way.

Most people are intelligent enough to know that every government is going to be hit by minor incidents. All most people care about is that the fundamentals remain good and to lesser extent that the government deals with the minor "crisis".

Now if people started to lose their jobs, homes, etc. in the morning, the government would be out on it's butt very quickly, but as it is things are simply too good.

This isn't a uniquely Irish phenomenon, just look at the UK, the vast majority of people in the UK are against the war in Iraq, yet they are actually directly involved in fighting in the war and British men are killed there daily, yet the Labour party remain in power because they have done a good job maintaining the fundamentals of the country and the people.

Jackie laughlin

Is That So,
At whom was your criticism directed?

Emotion is not irrational and is an important component of argument.


Yes, complacency is a political perspective along with cynicism. Most irish people are opposed to a more equal society. It's not done to admit, just like it's not done to admit voting FF. Everyone is not focussed on personal wealth. Some are concerned about the plight of those left out.

bk

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Is That So,
At whom was your criticism directed?

I wasn't really criticising anyone, I was really just trying to explain to people who don't really like FF/PD, why ordinary people keep voting for them.

Jackie laughlin wrote:

Yes, complacency is a political perspective along with cynicism. Most irish people are opposed to a more equal society. It's not done to admit, just like it's not done to admit voting FF. Everyone is not focussed on personal wealth. Some are concerned about the plight of those left out.

But not most, most people are only focused on the plight of themselves, it is simple human nature. As I said above, I'm only trying to explain why the majority of people vote FF, even if it isn't trendy to say that you do.

sovtek

Ah sure did ya see who got evicted from the Big Brother house.

DublinWriter

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

We're not affected by the problems. It's always someone else.

Thanks, you've summed up the modern Irish Character in two sentances.

First They Came for the Jews

First They Came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller, Germany, 1935.

John_C

DublinWriter wrote:

Thanks, you've summed up the modern Irish Character in two sentances.

First They Came for the Jews

First They Came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller, Germany, 1935.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Game, set & match.

Jackie laughlin

People vote for FF because they know what FF represents and is likely to do and these people agree with that. "Self interest" is very often used to try to avoid a political debate.

DublinWriter

DublinWriter wrote:

Thanks, you've summed up the modern Irish Character in two sentances.

First They Came for the Jews

Outrage?

Hyperbole leads to amusement rather than outrage. The link to Nazi Germany is simply ridiculous.

Jackie laughlin

Conor,
It damages the argument but it's not quite ridiculous. People can agree with a political approach in which they are doing well. This can be expressed in seemingly non-political terms like, "I'm not interested in politics as long as I and my family can live in peace and a degree of comfort." The true statement is that I approve of current policies and so no reason to speak against them. This makes the speaker morally responsible for deciding to ignore, or indeed approve, the plight of others.