Review (sort of): The politics of fear: beyond left and right.

This review does not intend to provide a complete insight into this book but merely covers the parts recalled or that caused myself to think of what the author's message is.
Much of Furedi's work once read and seemingly not absorbed at the time has a tendency to creep up on you - Mythical past, elusive future, for example (1). It has resonance and I am a fan though would not call myself a sycophant. Yes, I'd buy him a pint and maybe even ask for an inspirational quote in a book. I even considered nominating a spot in Prospect's leading intellectual poll. Though am sure he wouldn't appreciate an enamel badge being struck.

To those familiar with Furedi's work a significant part of the book covers ground that has been issued in essay form - perhaps an unbeknownst recognition of the fact that there is a great deal of competition for our attentions (2) and he is inadvertently accommodating to this. Books most definitely have their uses but in a fast paced world where lies travel around the world before teatime then information of worth needs presenting in many forms. In this though his early essays serve to soften up the reader before the book proper. Perhaps academic training on the sly?

In this I must apologise to many an author for an often scant recall of their works. Sometimes it's a mere passage or sentence that hits home. A key one in The politics of fear is when that shibboleth of the left is probed - religion. Advocating the devil mayhaps? It does sort out the fakers from the makers (one day I'll grow out off this but for now it's lubricant) and makes a wannabe consider what they are on about. In a non polarised but fragmented society it could also offer something of a key to newer engagements and thinking.

The ending session at the Battle of Ideas (3) event provided a spirited and reasonably anglo-saxon rejoinder* against this point. Some dissenters maybe missing out that the event seemed aimed at analysing the strengths of contemporary ideas and how we begin to deal with them. Maybe I'm astray here as my mind was, as always, preoccupied with other matters.
The range, calibre and quality of contributors was impressive enough to make the inquisitive question themselves and maybe attempt a gearchange. Dare we take the first step? A willingness to study and challenge one's own thoughts and motivations? Perhaps then an ability to remain focused in debates and rise above bar room banter?

I think so. I had a humbling experience observing the sixth form debate re sustainable architecture - a subject I really ought to be able to talk about by now. A couple of teenagers revealed a reasonable enough grasp of their subject to offer a confident and commanding delivery. The fact that I disagreed with their views, and worse - they hoped to become members of the legal profession, was alarming. I wanted to offer my twopenceworth but couldn't. Not very full vessel requires filling.

Getting back to the book -

The phrase pre-political also interests and seems somewhat ambivalent for aren't the problems we are dealing with those of a state actually in some disarray? Whose adherents lack a positive message and latch onto any bandwagon going to score points, comfortable in the knowledge that rivalries just aren't what they were. Whether new kid on the block, Cameron, can prove up to the task is debatable and better commentators have raised this. If perhaps he mounted a strong case for investment in development and industry rather than the stifling growth in bureacracy under Labour then I may even vote. I've done worse, albeit with no illusions.

Our politicians are daily ridiculed for the most part. There are maybe good ones amongst them but it seems to be something of a quagmire. The ridicule part is the easy bit but as a strategy makes poor politics. There is perhaps an element of fiddling while Rome burns; UK politics desperately in need of a volte-face and, on the surface at least, not getting one. One wouldn't profess expertise at any level but all projections thus far have proved optimistic and selfcongratulatory obscuring the fact that there are quite big problems ahead on current track. How to turn that around seems beyond their ken.

How long before the pre-political becomes Political and to what extent is it necessary, in particular, for the UK?


(1)http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745305318/qid=1134624695/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_0_1/026-0715067-7125224
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAD5B.htm
(2) At 169 pages and for less than the price of a reasonable evening's entertainment there are few - if any - excuses for not reading and discussing such a book.
(3)http://www.battleofideas.co.uk/
*http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?q=rejoinder
For the aspiring radical a reading of Norman Geras' The legacy of Rosa Luxemburg further illuminates this book. Although by no means discussing the same circumstances.