Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things.
I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
The problem is that while some will still believe Johnson's lies, his backup team are not so good at it. Johnson is a performance artist, probably one of the few earning good money at this in these times. One of the necessities of performance art is that your audience suspends disbelief. John had a ready-made (oven-ready?) cohort to assist him; all he had to do was appeal to his voters' natural prejudices.
The issue with the backup team is that they are unconvincing. These politicians either come over as believing the prejudice they pronounce on; against immigrants, against people of colour or against being alert to injustice in society. Alternatively, these MPs come over as people whose agreement with Johnson is crumbling, as we saw with the vote on foreign aid.
So, where does Johnson go next? Brexit will not turn out to be the all-round well of happiness that the levers promised. Some will blanch as they recognise the selling off of the NHS. Racism is causing more people to be shocked than agree. Voters liked the solidarity that the England football team showed - and the results it brought. Passivity to thuggish tropes is waining; it is waining just when people will begin to feel the real economic effects of Covid (not Johnson's fault, but it is obvious he made many bad calls).
How long will Johnson last? And if his party - many of whom already cannot stand him and are beginning to be willing to vote against his extremes - throw him out, what do you think the Tories will offer us next?
Galaxy I think that a decent level of education teaches people to reason and to develop an argument. The less well educated are unable to do this and tend to go by their feelings. It is very difficult to change peoples' feelings. When people believe in something they believe deeply and sincerely so no matter how often they are given accurate information they invariably refuse to accept it.
Dinahmo
Galaxy I think that a decent level of education teaches people to reason and to develop an argument. The less well educated are unable to do this and tend to go by their feelings. It is very difficult to change peoples' feelings. When people believe in something they believe deeply and sincerely so no matter how often they are given accurate information they invariably refuse to accept it.
How condescending…
GrannyGravy13
Dinahmo
Galaxy I think that a decent level of education teaches people to reason and to develop an argument. The less well educated are unable to do this and tend to go by their feelings. It is very difficult to change peoples' feelings. When people believe in something they believe deeply and sincerely so no matter how often they are given accurate information they invariably refuse to accept it.
How condescending…
It certainly is.
I dont need to say anything really the thread demonstrates it beautifully. Johnson didnt need to do anything did he? , it's all here in its naked glory.
Dinahmo
Galaxy I think that a decent level of education teaches people to reason and to develop an argument. The less well educated are unable to do this and tend to go by their feelings. It is very difficult to change peoples' feelings. When people believe in something they believe deeply and sincerely so no matter how often they are given accurate information they invariably refuse to accept it.
Stalin was an intellectual, widely read.
Paul Hollander's book, 'From Benito Mussolini to Hugo Chevez: Intellectuals and a Century of Hero Worship' - is an interesting look at how many supposedly great thinkers Worshipped the likes of Hitler, Mao Zedong, Castro, and others who may not have contributed hugely to a better world.
Rosa Parks was a seamstress.
Mohamed Bouazizi was a street vendor.
Malala Yousafzai earned a Nobel prize at the age of 17, standing up for what she believed in, largely based no doubt on her feelings - of empathy for other girls.
Dinahmo
Galaxy I think that a decent level of education teaches people to reason and to develop an argument. The less well educated are unable to do this and tend to go by their feelings. It is very difficult to change peoples' feelings. When people believe in something they believe deeply and sincerely so no matter how often they are given accurate information they invariably refuse to accept it.
Could your opinion of British folk get any lower?
I think that would be a no ?
Are you going by your feelings Dinah ?!
In any case, you are confusing education and intelligence.
An intelligent person, regardless of education can reason and develop an argument.
I had to laugh at your comments, as they read as if written in another bygone age.
Galaxy
I dont need to say anything really the thread demonstrates it beautifully. Johnson didnt need to do anything did he? , it's all here in its naked glory.
Yes
Lin52
GrannyGravy13
Dinahmo
Galaxy I think that a decent level of education teaches people to reason and to develop an argument. The less well educated are unable to do this and tend to go by their feelings. It is very difficult to change peoples' feelings. When people believe in something they believe deeply and sincerely so no matter how often they are given accurate information they invariably refuse to accept it.
How condescending…
It certainly is.
More than a grain of truth though.
If it isn’t true how come some newspapers successfully manipulate people by printing untruths (usually front page) that some people believe and very few dispute? Why do they even bother to print such stuff?
No truth in it at all growstuff intelligent people can think for themselves.
Nobody knows how many people ‘believe’ what they read in the papers or on SM therefore nobody knows how many are ‘manipulated’.
It’s a fallacy to think that only the highly educated can see beyond their noses and that the ‘lower orders’ are gullible.
This philosophy is often bandied about on GN though, usually when annoyed posters can’t get others to agree with them.
Ha I have watched very intelligent people spout utter nonsense in the last couple of years, mostly on social media. Oh and spout bigotry as well as someone has previously mentioned.
lemongrove
No truth in it at all growstuff intelligent people can think for themselves.
Nobody knows how many people ‘believe’ what they read in the papers or on SM therefore nobody knows how many are ‘manipulated’.
It’s a fallacy to think that only the highly educated can see beyond their noses and that the ‘lower orders’ are gullible.
This philosophy is often bandied about on GN though, usually when annoyed posters can’t get others to agree with them.
I wasn't referring to intelligent people but the effects of education. I'm not retracting my previous post.
Your post is a classical example of a strawman argument because I didn't claim what you're saying.
I agree Dinahmo, [Thu 15-Jul-21 21:13:21] although I doubt you can only learn this in a higher education setting.
An argument is something we construct and present. As far as teaching and learning in higher education are concerned, what is important is to determine the special characteristics of academic argument. ... Whilst establishing a universal structure for argument, it allows for the components to vary in content according to the discipline or profession of the subject matter. [The Role of Argument in Higher Education for the Professions - Leeds University]
This part of teaching is now being pushed back into schools. For most of us, our school would expect us to memorise and repeat conclusions. They could be said to have taught us that there is only one answer. 'A' level (and a good teacher) may have filled out on this and seem to be doing so more today.
Interesting that in his rambling and mostly contentless speech yesterday, Johnson made reference to the 'loony left'. This is not a phrase that I would expect a highly educated and supposedly intelligent national leader to make. A 'leader' whose initial declared intention was to unite the country. It's social media stuff. It's dog whistle politics designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator; part of the 'war on woke'. Divisive stuff...
Regardless of the statistics, people being told that they voted as they did because they were racist and stupid or uneducated are unlikely to feel anything other than insulted, and will be far more likely to dig in their heels and resent the people they see as attacking them.
Both groups are generalising about the other, and both have based their points of view on what the media has told them - either directly or by choosing vox pop participants to make the point.
The same thing happens with generalisations about lazy 'snowflake' millennials and wealthy ecology-destroying boomers. Some people in both groups will behave according to type, but equally the behaviour of others would sit better in the 'opposing' group.
It goes on with calls for the NHS to stop treating overweight smokers, who pay tax on their fags and sugar, setting them against those who present with sports injuries and anorexia, and men against women, parents against the childfree - pretty much any group you can think of is set against another one, even when there are more similarities than differences.
Regarding the discussion about education teaching argument, I agree that this is one of the primary advantages of university; but even then there are those who want to separate degrees into the subjects they see as valuable, and 'useless' or 'Mickey Mouse' ones. Whatever people do now is judged by others as irrelevant or negative, and it makes for a fractured society in which people seem to criticise difference rather than nurture shared experiences.
MaizieD
Interesting that in his rambling and mostly contentless speech yesterday, Johnson made reference to the 'loony left'. This is not a phrase that I would expect a highly educated and supposedly intelligent national leader to make. A 'leader' whose initial declared intention was to unite the country. It's social media stuff. It's dog whistle politics designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator; part of the 'war on woke'. Divisive stuff...
And "loony left" MaizieD. I hear the sound of the bottom of the barrel being scraped. He is a silly, vainglorious man but will have managed to do much harm before he is unceremoniously booted out.
Johnson and his cabinet, especially P Patel are very quick to throw around 'loony left' type insults, along with sneering comments about liberal lawyers, comments which are quickly picked up and repeated by their tame newspaper barons. Nobody can deny the nastiness of the front pages with the photographs of senior lawyers who were accused of treachery and near enough treason.
“When you are "woke" you are awoken to the fact that a man born into privilege was burning £50 notes in front of homeless people at the same "tender" age as those 3 "lions" who took penalties on Sunday....”
Whitewavemark2
“When you are "woke" you are awoken to the fact that a man born into privilege was burning £50 notes in front of homeless people at the same "tender" age as those 3 "lions" who took penalties on Sunday....”
That is something that I will never forget. I genuinely don't understand how people can vote for someone to lead the country when they are so contemptuous of its vulnerable citizens. It wouldn't matter how useless I thought the opposition might be, I could never bring myself to vote for anyone capable of that. What sort of mindset leads to behaviour as despicable as burning banknotes in front of people who are in need? Is if just to make the point that they have so much they can afford to burn it, and to show their lack of compassion to those in need?
I can forgive a lot of things that people have done in their youth, and even in older age if they are sorry and have made amends, but as far as I know none of them (Cameron, Johnson and Osbourne that I know of) has apologised or made any attempt at reparation - in fact they have presided over regimes that have made the condition of the poor even worse. It's one of those things that I wish I'd never heard about as it makes me feel sick.
Johnson is being caught out over other things
Times today......Leader headline.......Empty Vessel .Tke prime minister says" levelling up" is the defining mission for the government. On the evidence of his speech yesterday he has yet to figure out what it means."
Then he is called out for not answering questions at PMQ , an act of contempt of parliament ( this last from Baroness Boothroyd ).
He has been caught out time and time again for stretching the truth(I'm being polite ).
Why should we tolerate such a leader. ?Led by donkeys indeed.
I have just read an interesting article that the so called cultural war in this country is phoney balloney. The majority of people don’t know what it is and don’t care anyway.
Anyway do have a read. It’s an article entitled “ Most people in Britain don’t Know What a Cultural War is” published on 23rd March this year in the Politics section of GQ magazine at
www.gq-magazine.co.uk
I looked it up because quite frankly I don’t know what it is either except in the US.
The culture war has been introduced by the Johnson government which was copied from mad Trumps war on what he termed as woke culture.
Trump used it to bring division, hate and violence.
I am hopeful that this has been recognised by the U.K. folk for what it is.
Anger and division whipped up,against something that simply doesn’t exist.
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