Thinking is always important – particularly at times when we are encouraged to believe it is unnecessary. AI can do that for us, right?
It is a difficult period for social and human service workers, and more so for service recipients in Aotearoa. More broadly it is a challenging time for those of us who position ourselves on the political left. As abolitionist writers and other critical thinkers have pointed out, social work is no stranger to complicity in oppressive systems (Brockmann, 2024). Social work is defined and constrained by the political reach of the state. It is subject to the complex ways in which social power and privilege are legitimated, reproduced and/or modified at any given time. Nevertheless social work remains associated with the political left because practice (and theory) engages with systemically generated social suffering. The practice of social work, at least potentially, exposes some of the ideological myths of capitalism (Jones, 1983).
It is is little short of psychically ‘painful’ and emotionally debilitating to witness the contemporary influence of the political right. The unfolding illiberal Trump regime is, of course, especially disturbing (let’s shift Maralago to the Gaza strip – wtf !). The knife is going into the socially liberal left and a fractured US working class is prey to insecurity, desperation and Christian fundamentalism. The fox is in the hen-house. Dismantling state infrastructure is the explict agenda and privatisation is the endgame.
While Musk is purging the federal government of dissent, Guantanimo will be used to hold, humiliate and process non-citizens en masse. This we know. We also know that the same unchained populist capitalism is simmering in Aotearoa: concealed behind the same deceptive appeals to equality and freedom (equality on a radically tilted playing field and freedom for the powerful to do what the hell they like if it makes a buck).
In many ways the carefully curated illusions which justify this political turn have not changed since the nineteenth century: the idea of individual self interest as the engine of human well-being and the associated notion that the concentrated accumulation of private capital is in the interests of those with only their labour to sell. All of this serves to disguise the tyranny of big money. Despair and resignation are understandable as we see absurd levels of power and influence concentrated in the hands of a small group of tech billionaires: the likes of Musk, Besos, Zuckerberg – individuals who have apparently won the premiere division of the class war – oligarchs with no desire to let organised labour, human rights or social and environmental protections get in the way of their obscene profits.
It is critically important to realise that practical and ideological resistance, and political solidarity across the often divided political left, is vital at this time. It is equally important to grasp that this class-centered struggle for power is not new. I have always tried to encourage social work students to question the common sense of our times and how this is shaped. We must ask ouselves, where the current structure of our lives comes from, how it is generated and maintained? As Hannah Arendt (2023) argues, there is level of consent behind all exercises of authority and permitted dissent.
When we think of social and economic change, we must always ask ‘by whom and in whose interests’? A social work that is concerned with social transformation (leaving aside the question of whether such a thing is structurally possible) – that acts in the world ‘as it is’, with a view to how the world ‘could be’ or ‘should be’ – inevitably threatens the institutions and the power interests who have a stake in the ‘world as it is’. This should not surprise us. Thinking is important / struggle is important – it is useful to be strategic, organised and deliberate but I suspect there is also value in entering into fights that we are not likely to win.
Our shared history – the history of the world as we understand it (often as a history of the global north (Said, 2004)) – is one of oppression, suffering and struggle. We are all enmeshed in power and politics. There is nothing natural about business, global finance or established property rights. There is nothing ‘natural’ about what is policed and what isn’t.
The fraught relationship between collective interests and individual freedom (and between individual biography and the forces of history) has always troubled philosophers. It troubled the engaged thinkers of the 1930s – the likes of Arendt, Beauvour, Rand and Weil (Eilenberger, 2023) – in the shadow of the Great Depression, looming European fascism and the tyranny of the Soviet Union. Life to these women was not a quest for ease and comfort, but a jarring and often exhausting quest for truth, however complex, constructed and elusive.
History, of course, hasn’t finished and it is frightenly cyclic; albeit moving in spirals rather than circles. Human memory is strangely short. It is time to think and talk: What are the things of which we do not speak at this critical time? What is it that we do not see? What has changed since embarking on this accelerating lurch to the political right? What are the fears and insecurites that drive all of this and where does the power of resistance lie? It is important to understand that the kind of cruelty inflicted on ‘the other’ throughout the centuries has always required some form of aquiescense: to exclusion, differential rights and privileges: to the manufacture of fear and loathing.
Where are we going? Is there an outside? Who owns the world? And, what do you intend to say and do?
Image credit: Franzisco Hauser
References
Arendt, H. (2023) Hannah Arendt on Violence, UK: Penguin Classics.
B Brockmann, O. (2024) ‘Imagining the end of official social work: Thinking beyond the possible and probable’, British Journal of Social Work, 00: 1–18.
Eilenberger, W. (2023) The Visionaries – Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil and the Salvation of Philosophy, UK: Penguin Random House.
Jones, C. (1983) State Social Work and The Working Class (Critical Texts in Social Work and the Welfare State,series ed P. Leonard), Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Said, E. (2004) humanism and democratic criticism, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
4 replies on “A time to think …”
Thank you- What a gem of light across a path darkened by so much adult amnesia, hypocrasy, inconsistency in the article. Then enacting the art in thinking/questioning who constructs power over and where does this power lie/who is priviledged by that definition of power/ who is disabled by its assertion, all remains jarring and often exhausting experiences in our social work. Opportunity for learning together as in reading your article Ian, teases us in how complex and seemingly elusive finding certainity is, or growing conscious of one’s vulnerability in ‘not knowing’ forms of applying critical thinking and remaining employed. How rich is learning in a appreciative human community. Thank you
Thanks Merrill – kind of you. It is not enough to simply dispel illusions but it helps a little. Trump and his allies are playing with their new-found power – testing the limits – toying with us and our world – and in a funny way the awareness of our powerlessness gives us strength – and other thinkers (and doers) have found a way through such times – and much worse. People are resilient and the capacity to think differently and tenaciously is part of what makes us human. The possibility of descent into fascism can’t be ignored because it has happened before and the unity of dominant financial interests with a powerful leader cult, a common manufactured external enemy, a national exceptionalism myth – and a desparate fearful working class – were all present in Germany in the 1930s.
A most profound gift of writing enlarging light on what are living and working amongst. Thank you
Hiya! I could say a hec of a lot, but I won’t, except to say a heartfelt thank you. This is definitely time for Kiwis to put the brain into high gear before opening the mouth, or casting their vote! Accompanying your post in my inbox is another in a series of papers being posted on my Academia online information feed. For example- From a short paper by Juli Choquet AFAD Intern Geopolitics & International Relations Studies
The making of Duterte’s myths: How Filipino society accepted to kill their own civilians?-
The opening quote- “What if drugs in the Philippines was not a problem?
It is quite a coincidence that just after Rodrigo Duterte’s election, drug became the number 1 problem in the Philippines. Indeed people believe in so. Why during the campaign poverty issue was not targeted by the politician? Why not talking about the awful working situation of the
overseas people and the huge amount of tax that the State is taking from them? Why not focusing on a redistribution program or on the land reform? The debate is all about drugs everyday because the president succeeded to make the people think about it”.
Futher on Juli adds,[sic] “Individual freedom is not an optional concept for states whom decided to stick with democracy. If the common will made their mind up about drug being a national issue, it remains to be financed under health and rehabilitation program besides. Unfortunately this has never been took into consideration by Duterte’s administration……you cannot undertake the responsibility to end drug traffic when rehabilitation programs were
completely out of the option. The reason is that those programs cost a lot and the government do not want to spend money into rehab because this is too unpopular for a government who were just elected.” [link- https://www.academia.edu/32475706/The_making_of_Dutertes_myths_How_Filipino_society_accepted_to_kill_their_own_civilians ]
I’m mindful of the tsunami of reporting about current US politics padding out our media discussion, and why did David Seymour make such an idiot of himself on the steps of NZ Parliament? More importantly, what other NZ based reporting is being shuffled into the “nothing to see here -move on” basket…. Time to look at our own back yard!