I have been wondering (as my time in a University teaching job meanders to an end) about the function of dissent – questioning and challenging the status quo, power, vested interests – in organisations and in wider politics. I once wrote ‘‘One day I’ll find a place where there are no games of power / One day I’ll get struck by a meteor shower”. What are the implications of the current – and inescapable – power shifts in our social and political world?
Power is always central to social work, because we operate in situations that are influenced by imbalances of power – be it between social workers and the people we work with, between family members or between families and the wider structures of an unequal society. Not to mention within the bureaucratic organisations that we occupy and between the various professional disciplines that we interact with in practice: social workers are acutely aware of the relations of power within which we are all enmeshed. Power relations are a constant but the coordinates shift – the political terrain changes – and we scramble to adapt.
The thing about sea-changes is that we don’t always see them coming, even when they have been building for a long time. Across the ‘western world’ the horizon is tilting. Many of us feel ambushed by the rise of the political right. We struggle to process the gob-smacking reactionary politics of the Trump/Musk regime. Liberal commentators wrestle with the question of why / how this political avalanche has unfolded. Bernie Sanders is right that the US Democrat elite has lost touch with the material realities that confront the disenfranchised working class. Chris Hedges is right that the magical thinking and simple solutions of MAGA politics appeal to insecure people with little stake (or faith) in the system as it is.
Both the material and the ideological ground has shifted in complex and confusing ways with the development of communication technology and surveillance capitalism. Narratives of human liberation have become fractured and twisted. Dissent was once the domain of the left and Socialism was the aspirational alternative to a world ruled by Capital. Fear of the mob and more-so of the organised, unionised, working class, provided a counterweight to the whims of the elite. An uneasy status quo generated Welfare States and liberal institutions, balancing the excesses of Capital.
As per the opening gambit to this reflective post, dissent is an interesting thing. Chomsky, the aging American dissident, has argued that one of the key ways that liberal capitalist regimes maintain their authority is by allowing a degree of dissenting debate within limited paramaters. Althusser (1977) argued that the soft institutions – Royal Commissions, the Ombudsman’s Office, arrangements like and Independent Children’s Monitor, function as safety valves – sanitising and disguising oppressive social and economic structures. Universities have always had a bit of this about them – a place where dissenting left thinkers are tolerated. Foucault’s (1980; 1984) provocative analysis is that dissent is part and parcel of power sytems – that there isn’t an ‘outside’ and that institutionally sanctioned dissent in fact serves to maintain the democratic façade.
I think that there are elements of truth in such criticisms. I have spent most of my busy working life employed in social work and educational institutions. I have fended off or been burned by the various dragons which inhabit such places. I have tried to think for myself, to do what seems best and fair – to maintain a dissenting stance, at least some of the time (and when the stakes felt high enough to go out on a limb). Have I achieved changes, been part of better outcomes for people with little power? The answer is sometimes, in small ways, and at some cost.
I also wonder if we are at a tipping point. Universities are increasingly designed and managed / goverrned as corporate profit-driven enterprises. The wider political and cultural playing field with its anti-woke rhetoric, its polarised media platforms and its conflation of truth with power all mean that the curation of limited dissent is less functional, less necessary to governace and, probably, less likely to be tolerated. This, I think, is where the ascent of the populist right is taking us.
The fundamental contest of ideas and authority – the conflict between the interests of capital and labour – has remained the same since the nineteenth century. However both the practical relations of power and control of the popular narrative have shifted over forty years of neoliberal times (as the material leverage of organised labour and the cultural capital of the working class has been systematically eroded). We look to dig our heals in and push back, only to find that we are standing on air.
The strategy of the populist right has been insidious and effective: convince enough people that their problems are the result of social liberal leftist conspiracy and that ruthless billionaire demagogues are the new culture heroes to be glorified and emulated. Paradoxically, working class discontent and alienation has been coopted for the benefit of their masters. There is less need for the trappings of inclusive liberal process once the working class is effectively tamed.
The burning question is how to best challenge and mobilise against the narrative of the hard right in the here and now. New strategic thinking is required.
None of this reflection provides easy answers in what feels like a rising storm. A fascist future is a real possibility as the post war Western consensus unravels. The ground is shifting and those of us who would like to level the global playing field may need to do the same – the old resistance strategies of railing against the machine, shouting into the void, throwing our collective arms up in the air at the hypocricy and idiocy of the Trump era, are not enough. Intellectual analysis without action is not enough. We need to be less performative and more pragmatic: better organised, better connected: find a language and craft a message that speaks to those who have been swayed by the fork-tonged promise of a return to a golden age of growth and consumption (and gendered and classed normativity). Keep thinking / keep talking, especially to those who disagree with you.
Image credit: Jonathan Henderson – Wasteland
References
Althusser, L. (1977) Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays (2nd edn), London: New Left Books.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, M. (1984). The Foucault Reader. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
4 replies on “Dissent in a time of fever”
Kia ora Ian,
Great post and very timely. We’re living in a world where ‘once-in-a-generation events’ are now happening weekly. It feels the ‘quickening’ is amongst us and time (I feel) is about to run out.
On a side note before I write proper: The last five words of this post were almost like a punch in the face. I was only speaking with some people yesterday about the vacuum society finds itself in with social media (itself an arm of the system we’re trying to dismantle). We only seem to talk with and agree with those who are ‘on our side’. There is very little cross-pollination of ideas within society, as there seem to be only sides or teams that we battle against. I make it a point of, daily, either reading or listening to the ‘other’ side. The reason I do that is because I figure that if I want to try and dismantle a system (for the betterment of those on the margins) I need to understand how the other f@cker thinks. Otherwise, I figure that I am just urinating in the breeze and wasting precious energy.
Now to my brothers and sisters: Let me just start by saying that I won’t be pulling any punches here and if you think I am going to solely blame the ‘capitalists pigs’ then I suggest you stop reading now.
I blame (in a big part) us. The collective. We have become too slow, too lazy, too self-centered, and too preoccupied with the next shiny thing to see the very slow but incremental tidal surge coming our way. This has been a scene of roadkill in the making for 30+ years.
The first thing we need to do before getting to work is look at OURSELVES in the mirror and accept we have collectively allowed this to happen. I am angry and disappointed at us for letting the b@stards win. And make no bones about it – they have – for now.
Case in point – Climate change and the environmental disaster befalling all of us. We can cut emissions in this country by 50% and worldwide by 30% by simply changing the way we eat and we choose not to. We choose slow, lazy, self-centred, preoccupation and leaving a ‘dead earth’ for our tamariki and mokopuna.
We have let them win and to think anything less is not good enough.
We have allowed them to:
• Turn societies against each other by simply turning our attention to someone less fortunate than us.
• Make us politically uneducated
• Make us reactionary as opposed to taking stock and planning for the long-term take-over
• Having us so busy surviving that we do not care about anything or anyone else – It’s a real-life Squid Game out there
• Make us believe that because our lives are tough it must be my neighbour, not the new policy/legislation that will wreck our lives/environment/society for the next 20 years
We have become a society that cannot read/watch/listen for more than 2 minutes and 30 seconds before we become bored.
We have no patience in the real fight that must happen. A war that is for the future of our collective existence. It is an existential fight we must take on if we are to exist if we want a life where equality is a given, not something that we have to fight for.
Here is an example of what I mean – and I am giving you this example NOT so that you can think that we’re patting ourselves on the back, but as an example of the patience we need to fight back with. This is only one example, and I am sure that every one of you reading this can think of at least 2 things that you can organise around and fight back on.
Here in rural North Canterbury, we have a huge problem with Nitrates in our drinking water (both town-supplied and private wells). Without boring you with the science it has major health implications. Everyone knows it does, and it’s a problem around the world and there are several groups (locally and internationally) fighting tooth and nail to rectify it.
But it is a problem funded by HUGE MONEY who does not want to let go of it.
It is a problem that is (and will continue to) getting worse. But the problem with fighting it here in Aotearoa, is that the major vested interest that causes it is dairy – our lynch pin to the export world.
We started a community group about a year ago to take this on because we know it is important for everyone and that this form of capitalism is causing health issues.
We also know that this is a long-term fight. We have guessed that by the time this is won, we will most probably be pushing up daises or close to it and the younger ones will need to run with it.
But it is a fight we must take on with long-term strategic thinking and a huge amount of patience for the betterment of the collective.
We also have some wonderful academics, scientists, and NGOs fighting for our right to safe drinking water but without society coming together their shouts of alarm will be potentially drowned out. We have to do this together, otherwise THEY will pick us off one by one.
In the last 12 months, we have:
1. We got our water tested through a Green Peace initiative. For us, it was about being informed and having a starting point.
2. We then got onto FB and created an event for like-minded folk to meet up and discuss the issue and to get a feeling as to whether this was something we wanted to agitate against
3. After several meetings we decided that our first step was to lay out our concerns at the Community Board level which we did with a deputation.
4. Following that we started a series of meetings/discussions with experts and community groups (Academics and scientists – NGOs Local and International) This had several advantages:
a. To let them know that there was a community-led group agitating for the same things they were interested in
b. It grew our knowledge of the issue exponentially
c. Broadened our base of support both nationally and internationally
d. Brought in some fantastic ideas as to how to combat this and allowed us to bounce our own ideas off the experts
5. We then contacted ECAN for information and received a very inadequate response
6. We deputised again at the Community Board through an academic contact
7. We went the level up in local Government and deputised at the Waimakariri District Council through the same academic.
8. We then did an OIA with ECAN because of the initial response and received an eye-watering admission that they had no control/idea of what was going on in the Canterbury plains.
9. We then complained (via email) to Taumata Arowai, The Ombudsman, and the Attorney General and we have received various responses.
10. Currently waiting for responses from the Ombudsman and ECAN before strategising for the next 12 months of work
All done with just 4 committed people.
Imagine if we had 40, 400 or even 4000 people each with 1 issue fighting together to get things better, Imagine the noise, Imagine the change, Imagine the difference?
This is but an example of the work we must all look forward to taking on with whatever fight you choose to take on, if we are to turn the tide,
Brothers and Sisters, we NEED to get our sh!t together. It is NEVER good enough to let things slide. It never was and I wonder when it became so.
Before signing off, I re-read what I wrote and I sound like an angry middle-aged man. I am – the older I get the more I look back at what we have left and the more work there is to do.
I/We may be angry, but we’d like to think we’re like that frog with their hands around the throat of the capitalist stork and we’ll eventually throttle it or die trying.
Hasta la Victoria Siempre
WRAN – Waimakariri Residents Against Nitrates
Luis
Thanks Luis – a little longer than the comments we usually approve but have let this one go. All credit to you for courage of convictions. Let’s hope more people can be awakened from their complacency and we can begin to turn the tide. We, of course, need to be in this for the long haul and solidarity is a key. Ian
Awesome!
Thanks Anne – Hope your good self and familiy all doing okay ~ Ian