The other day I featured excerpts from an article by Toby Westerman, editor-in-chief and publisher of International News Analysis (INA) Today.
In another column, ‘Weapons of Thought Destruction’ dated February 23, 2010, Westerman describes how leftist propaganda works and why conservative counterpoints are denounced. Emphases mine below.
The tools which the Moscow elite use are as current as the Internet and YouTube, and their goal is as old as Lenin and the Bolsheviks …
Most “experts” continue to approach Moscow as a work in progress, a regime needing only the right words to produce a responsible, peaceful actor on the world stage.
Yet, blind eyes are being turned toward a series of threatening developments to which the “experts” pay little public attention and discuss even less. These include the Moscow-Beijing military/political alliance; Moscow’s aid to not only Iran but also to Syria and North Korea; and the support – even inside Russia as well as in Latin America — for the Venezuelan Marxist dictator, Hugo Chavez.
The blindness toward the Moscow ruling elite is no accident, but is carefully orchestrated and cultivated within the Kremlin itself.
Westerman then describes the tactics the Kremlin uses around the world, particularly in the West. When you read it, does it remind you of the BBC or the major networks in the US and other Western countries? Interestingly, the propaganda still runs in much the same way as Yuri Bezmenov described it in the 1980s. Westerman explains:
As in the Soviet era, the Moscow elite are employing a multi-layered approach to internal and external political manipulation.
Coordinating these efforts is the Main Department of Domestic Politics, an “independent subunit” of Russia’s presidential administration, which oversees a vast and intricate web of local governments, political parties, and think tanks.
From the Main Department, Russia’s elite can both form opinion and then poll it, i.e., analyze what they have created.
These analyses of concocted public opinion, based upon manufactured information in a controlled news environment, are then fed to Western, and especially American, “experts” who then form their own assessments based upon Moscow’s predetermined strategies.
These “experts” publish in learned periodicals, which are then cited by a host of journalists and pundits in front page articles and editorials across the nation.
In this way, alternative views are quickly dismissed as extreme or uninformed.
Just as Lenin in the early 20th century embraced the emerging film industry, today’s Kremlin elite attempt to use the Internet (liberty.ru, and others) and You Tube to spread their propaganda.
Certain journalists have been offered money to reprint articles, and English-language websites occasionally appear which spread the targeted message of the Russian elite.
Those deemed as “experts,” or who are recognized as opinion makers, receive special attention.
The Valdai Discussion Club, founded in 2004 by then-president Vladimir Putin, hosts annual meetings with Russian experts around the world, especially from the United States and Europe. Former ambassadors, editors and journalists from influential news organizations, and top personnel from influential think tanks, speak directly with top Russian government and business leaders and gain unique insights from these exclusive contacts.
These insights, however, are contoured to the priorities of the Moscow elite.
Propaganda and the self-loathing American
In another of Westerman’s articles, ‘Birth of the Anti-American American’, he traces the history and impact of Soviet propaganda techniques in the United States.
America did not always produce citizens who loathed the nation and identified with mass murders and dictators. The America-hating elite of the Obama administration is part of an ongoing process to turn America against itself.
It is a process which also produces a nexus of propaganda and espionage. The two are never far apart …
Until around 1920, the United States of America was the universally acknowledged land of opportunity and beacon of freedom to the world. While certainly not perfect, America stood out proudly from the social chaos and dictatorial regimes which held sway over much of the earth.
While the promise of America made life more difficult for oppressive political elites around the world, only one dictatorial leader decided to take action …
Shortly after the communist seizure of power in Russia in 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin commissioned a tough fellow revolutionary, Willi Münzenberg, to establish a propaganda network in the West, with the United States as one of its prime targets.
… the “masses” must be led by those who demonstrate correct thinking, and, in 1902, he published What is to be Done?, in which he advocated revolution led by an uncompromising elite. Lenin had implicitly broken with Marx’s idea of inevitable class insurrection …
The uninformed “masses” must be guided …
Along with political elitism, Lenin demanded that religion, if it was allowed to exist, would serve the state. Today’s socialists/communists around the world similarly seek religious submission to the demands of government. In the United States, the attack on personal conscience regarding abortion is one example of socialism demanding primacy over belief …
Both Lenin and Münzenberg were keenly aware of the power of the emerging media, especially the development of film presentations. Münzenberg’s network quickly grew and spread into the United States. Lenin’s revolution and policies were presented in the best light possible – mass murders and imprisonments were ignored – and anti-communist governments were assailed.
In the United States, Münzenberg’s network worked to attack every social defect. The admittedly flawed 1920 murder trial of two Italian born anarchists, Fernando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, became the vehicle for the first truly world-wide anti-American propaganda campaign …
The Münzenberg network worked unceasingly to tarnish the image of the United States around the world, and when Sacco and Vanzetti were execution in 1927, riots erupted from London to Tokyo. America’s beacon of freedom now shone less brightly.
Münzenberg’s propaganda empire made him the “Red Millionaire.” His financial success and influential communist propaganda, however, earned him enemies in western Europe and Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union. Münzenberg was murdered by person or persons unknown in France in 1940. The propaganda machine founded by Münzenberg, however, outlived him, and took on a life of its own …
The most damaging aspect of Lenin’s attack on the United States is what is referred to a as “The Politics of Self-Loathing,” in Lies, Terror, and the Rise of the Neo-Communist Empire: Origins and Direction. In many ways Lenin’s anti-American propaganda has become part of American life.
Generations of literary, film, and theater artists, as well as academics, school teachers, and journalists have accepted and propagated the line of hostility to America which extends back to Lenin and his revolutionary elitism.
This anti-American campaign also produced individuals willing to injure the security of the United States in favor of Communist powers …
More recently, anti-American propaganda enabled Communist Cuban recruiters to obtain the services of Ana Belen Montes, an influential Defense Department Analyst, who admitted in 2001 that she was spying for Cuba, and Walter Kendall Myers, a State Department veteran, and his wife, Gwendolyn, who plead guilty in 2009 to serving Cuban intelligence for thirty years.
The similarity of the anti-American theme is striking: the U.S. is the source of the world’s problems, society must be transformed with wealth spread more equitably, all opposition must be silenced, and God must be banished from the market place of ideas. It began with Lenin, initially propagated by Münzenberg, and continues to this day.
The theme of America, a land of racism and greed, as the perpetrator of evil around the world is an accepted secular gospel to many Americans. To protect the world, some “liberals” advocate the surrender of American sovereignty to an all-powerful world Socialist/Communist government.
God, the necessary author of all “human rights,” has been ejected from nearly all political discussion, and all reference to social morality, which underpins everything we do as a nation.
Because most private and public schools are more interested in advocating “politically correct” modes of thinking than teaching even an elementary knowledge of America and its past , many young adults share “liberal” misconceptions about our nation, its institutions, and history …
The necessary truth is that all “human rights” come from the God who loves us — what the state gives, the state can take away. Absolute “rights” can come only from an absolute authority – God. The state is a necessary evil which must be kept within strict bounds.
Think of it. Every time your children watch television or go to the cinema, they receive a (sometimes benign — even worse) dose of anti-Americanism. Every time they sit down in a classroom, they learn more about America’s failings than successes.
I know a number of teachers in primary and secondary schools — state as well as church-affiliated — in the US and England who are ashamed to be European and believe that the Left is correct on all these points. They learn this at university as well as at teacher-training days. They read ‘important’ left-leaning publications (e.g. New York Times, The Economist), which also help to shape their thinking.
However, we cannot leave the blame exclusively with teachers and the media. As you know, we are all affected by these influences from news, books and film. As my better half says, ‘Take it in but don’t be taken in by it.’
That said, please ensure you spread the word about the manipulative and false media messages we receive. Most people are unaware of their history.
Churchmouse Campanologist 
37 comments
July 29, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Linda Kimball
“Every time your children watch television or go to the cinema, they receive a (sometimes benign — even worse) dose of anti-Americanism. Every time they sit down in a classroom, they learn more about America’s failings than successes. I know a number of teachers in primary and secondary schools — state as well as church-affiliated — in the US and England who are ashamed to be European and believe that the Left is correct on all these points. They learn this at university as well as at teacher-training days. They read ‘important’ left-leaning publications (e.g. New York Times, The Economist), which also help to shape their thinking.”
The exoteric level is “anti-Americanism” as well as “anti-Europeanism” while on the deeper esoteric level it is “hatred of God the Father and His order of being.” In this light it becomes clear that the “old order” (traditional Christian Europe and America) must be hated because of its’ Christian foundations.
The total dissolution of America is one area of discussion in “The Original Lie: Basis of America’s Ruling Class Barbarians”:
“….Anthony Harrigan noted that a process of decay was being fostered in America by a “fierce and subtle” modernist orthodoxy. “Modernists are determined,” he argued,
“to force the acceptance of pornography as medical science, filth as artistic realism, and abnormality as a mere difference of opinion…Though the life of the country is basically decent, Americans are in the hands of a cultural ruling class which…is conducting us to ruin.” The amoral ruling class seeks to raise up a “liberal-bred barbarian” motivated by a destructive impulse” and unchecked by “traditional values and restraints,” in order to destroy America from within noted Harrigan. (ibid, pp. 39-40)
That the ruling class of Harrigan’s day succeeded in their unholy quest can be seen by Dennis Prager’s article, “F — You” from the Music Industry,’ wherein Prager succinctly describes today’s “liberal-bred barbarians:”
“the music industry, from producers to artists, is largely populated by people who regard social and cultural norms as stifling. Their professional lives are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts, and to profaning that which is held sacred.” (http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2010/12/07/f — _you_from_the_music_industry)
The barbarianism described by Prager is not restricted to music industry insiders. No, it is the prevailing attitude of the class of people described by Angelo M. Codevilla as the “Ruling Class…” In his book by that name, Codevilla notes that contemporary America is a kingdom divided against itself. Today there are two distinct classes and they are as different as day from night.” http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/kimball/101209
Hatred of God the Father and of everything flowing from and built upon the Bible is the real message inherent within much of what passes for entertainment, education, evolutionary biology, modern music, transnational politics, and so on.
Unfettered human passions, especially sexual passions, are the controlling reins in the hands of what CS Lewis called the Conditioners, who having “stepped out into the void,” are no longer human. In other words, men who hate and reject God the Father also negate their created being (immortal souls) and become demonized as a consequence.
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July 29, 2011 at 5:02 pm
churchmouse
Hello, Linda — Thank you for your comment and the links! So glad you stopped by to discuss this topic!
Taking your last sentence first, in denying their own created being, they then go further and deny others their own Imago Dei. That really struck me when I read Marx’s own writings (Marx and Satan). He loathed himself and loathed other people. Practically every relationship and every opinion he had on other people bore this out. Talk about ‘haters’ (to borrow one of the Left’s fave words)!
Another element I find common to the Left is the number of people who are socially maladjusted (e.g. behavioural problems in school) or have been receiving treatment for something psychological (e.g. bipolar disorder). Sometimes these people have both, then go on to the Left to rage at the system, even when they are running the system. I know of someone in England who fit this profile perfectly: had problems at school, latched onto the Left, became bipolar as an adult, clung more than ever to the Left (strangely, even when Labour were in power, he was still goutraged 😉 ). This person actually held a very responsible position for many years in a British corporation known worldwide and got that job through the connections his equally left-wing parents had. This chap had many more advantages than most and was able to provide very well for his family. So, I don’t understand this phenomenon at all. However, I digress.
A couple of years ago, I reread Vance Packard’s The Status Seekers from the early 1960s. He said that people who identify with the Democratic Party already felt like societal outcasts (for mostly imaginary reasons), therefore, they believe the political Left fits them better, even if they earn good salaries, live in the suburbs, belong to local organisations, etc.
Re the music industry article (readers, if the URL posted above does not work, please try the one in Linda’s article) … I remember growing up having endless arguments with my parents about music from the 1970s. I thought it was great (still do), even they put up all the same arguments that Dennis Prager rightly states. In some ways, the 1960s music revolution — didn’t it happen quickly?? — was the thin end of the wedge, the slippery slope. Now I’m starting to sound like Mr Prager and my parents, although I realise this is a bit hypocritical. So, all I’ll say on that subject is that profanity, misogyny and quasi-treasonous lyrics have NO place in society. I’m not saying they should be banned, but kids should really think about what they are listening to.
In France, there are rappers (e.g. a guy named Cortex) who say a lot of terrible things about their country (and the police). They use the equivalent of the ‘f’ word to express it. Sometimes they get fined in court, other times the charges are dismissed. So, for them, it’s a bit of perverse money-spinning, media-friendly theatre which gets more kids to buy their CDs and see them perform. In the end, though, I wonder how many kids — not just those from the crime-ridden projects — will grow up hating France. It’s a great way of teaching people on a massive scale how to despise their own country, because a lot of middle- to upper-class kids also listen to Cortex.
I appreciate your sending me your article about the ruling class barbarians. When I lived on the East Coast in the 1980s, I worked with descendants of some prominent American families who were among the original European settlers. What you write is absolutely spot-on. There were certain ways of thinking which were required. A lot of these people had left the Episcopal Church (still fairly conventional even then) for the Unitarian Church because it was less ‘oppressive’. Others who had rejected Christianity turned to New Ageism, which was really big out there (and probably still is). In any event, both groups were either RINOs or firmly in the Democratic camp. And they all had complaints about school or parents. 🙄 They were so much more intelligent, caring and sharing than the average Joe and they would support whatever legislative measures necessary to get Average Joe to ‘improve’ himself (e.g. the seat belt laws of that era, which I was totally against and still am). No dissent allowed. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, so it’s only been over the last few years that I have started to re-evaluate it.
In closing, I absolutely agree with the quotes you supply on Communism being a religion. Satan is a clever chappie and likes nothing better than to flatter us and lead us down the path of pride.
The only answer, as you say, is a sincere belief in God. I hope more people are returning to a belief in Christ and biblical truth. I think they are, although one can never be sure. It won’t be measured by church attendance size, that’s for sure. Most of our denominations are rotten to the core. I think it will be more family-centred or internet-based for many for the time being.
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July 29, 2011 at 5:21 pm
lleweton
The analysis of historical trends described here and in the preceding series on Bella Dodd are beyond my ability to grasp sufficiently to make a considered comment. I would, however, tentatively register a sense of betrayal by those my class was brought up to respect.
The social codes by which we and our parents, who emerged from the great movement of people from the land to the factories of the 19th centry – could be defined by the terms ‘self-reliance’, ‘stiff upper lip’ and ‘deference’, the latter value relating to those of higher social status or achievement.
That class may be represented by the clergy, the academic world, magistrates, old-time bank managers, headmasters, and the ‘County’. In wartime all those symbols of stability and tradition were somehow transmitted to the youngsters of the day by the superb wireless programme, ‘Children’s Hour’. I was one of those children
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July 29, 2011 at 5:23 pm
lleweton
We did not know that even then there were people from that higher social group who were working against the world we were being taught to conform with and respect. I can only think of one proven example: the Cambridge spies.
Meanwhile, as troops returned from the war, many were embittered, I suspect as a result of their experience of military authority as it filtered down from the old officer class, through some who held wartime commissions – ‘temporary gentlemen’, to bullies among the NCOs. I postulate this as the inner cause of the surprise victory of the Labour Party in the post war General Election.
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July 29, 2011 at 5:25 pm
lleweton
The children of this generation who grew up to be the first of their breed to go to university then found their deference and ambition was rebuffed. The traditional upper middle class closed ranks. You could hear them notice our accents. ‘Not one of us’. Mrs Llew recalls sitting at breakfast in her Oxford College with 11 other girls. Two of them were from the County class. One was suggesting holding a party and said to her friend in front of the other 10 at the breakfast table: ‘The trouble is, we don’t know any girls.’.
It’s no wonder that the 50s brought the era of the ‘Angry Young Man’ and John Osborne’s ‘Look Back in Anger’, which was an icon of the situation I describe.
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July 29, 2011 at 5:26 pm
lleweton
And then there was another betrayal. Despite being regarded as outsiders we remained loyal to the principles which had been instilled into us. I think especially of the Church of England. I speak from experience: just as I, in adulthood had come to explore Christianity as an adult and begun to value the Book of Common Prayer, our social superiors from the ruling class began to destroy it. Also, ironically, the politics of the ‘Angry Young Man’ became fashionable and the old ruling class rushed to join in – and their descendants now occupy all the ruling heights of today’s media.
What is left? The values which we were taught to aspire to and were even then being dismantled by the very people to whom we had been taught to defer, just as we were beginning to adopt them.
But they are worth adhering to. Our children will inherit them.
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July 29, 2011 at 5:49 pm
churchmouse
Just so, Llew. When I moved here over 20 years ago, the only traitors of recent times, I had been told, were the Cambridge spies. Therefore, one inferred that everyone else was truly working for the good of the country, even though people differed politically on how to get there. Conclusion: keep moving, nothing to see.
On the troops returning from the Second World War, I have a theory which you can affirm or debunk. What made that scenario particularly bad was the memory many middle-aged men — their family members — had of their officers in the First World War. The same terrible treatment of the troops by officers (as seen in Blackadder) had occurred twice in the space of a generation! Presumably, those officers from the Great War were responsible for training those who served in the Second World War? I don’t know enough about it, although I also wonder if this was why National Service was eventually abolished as being thoroughly discredited. If you wish to shed more light on this for me, I’d be grateful.
Under those circumstances, though, it’s no wonder Labour won post-war. And might it have something to do with Labour’s enduring popularity among the British working class whose antecedents served in those wars? Again, I’m pleading ignorance here.
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July 29, 2011 at 5:54 pm
churchmouse
Sorry about this, I’m trying to reply to each of these messages individually to keep on topic but can’t seem to.
I understand what you’ve written about the upper middle class closing ranks but it doesn’t make sense to me why they would have done that? If you can explain more, I’d really appreciate it (thanks in advance). I don’t see why that would have happened.
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July 29, 2011 at 5:55 pm
churchmouse
I am totally bewildered now by the upper classes — including the C of E hierarchy — joining ranks with the working class. So, if you can shed more light on that, I would again be most grateful. Is it another proof of the axiom that societal trends start with the lower classes and travel upward so that they become accepted norms?
On Church, state, authority — yes, I appreciate what you are saying. So many of us were raised similarly: again, this notion that people were working for the improvement of society and the technological advancement of mankind (no sinister overtones in those days). We owed respect to those in charge: they didn’t get where they were because they were slackers, connivers or dolts. They knew what they were talking about, therefore, we could trust them.
(I’m so glad my father isn’t around to see what our world has become; he would have flipped.)
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July 29, 2011 at 9:16 pm
lleweton
I appreciate your puzzlement, Churchmouse. I only write from my own memories. And I generalise. I’m aware of that. I’ll try to reply properly soon. It will take some thought but I don’t think the power-holding class ( let’s describe it that way) actually joined forces with the ‘working class’. The ‘working class heroes’ of the 60s culture became fashionable. The Young Farmers’ Club ball yielded to the Art School hop. That’s where the fun was, and the status, and, as an incidental, access to the trendy jobs, PR, the media. A new in-group was created and the ‘oiks’ remained outside. Now they are patronised and bullied in their way of life. There was no joining forces, rather a new version of ‘effortless superiority’. But with the icnoclastic assumptions which the real outsiders had, with reason at the time, espoused. More in due course, if you think it relevant.
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July 29, 2011 at 9:51 pm
churchmouse
Yes, Llew, to me — and many of my readers — it would be relevant. Sorry to trouble you further, but, if you can at some point enlighten us as to how these two groups managed to meld or draw off each other, as it were, it would be helpful! 🙂 This is one aspect of modern British history which I have never fully understood. I have seen and read it stated but never the reasons as to why it happened.
And, does this have any relationship to Peter Cook’s Establishment Club in Soho and to That Was the Week That Was??
Also, is my thinking vaguely correct on the officers and troops of the wars of the 20th century?? I trust you to supply us with the answers. I hope that this would not be onerous but useful as many of us have questions as to how things turned in light of the wars. Again, my thanks in advance.
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July 30, 2011 at 3:14 pm
lleweton
I’ll deal the points as you have raised them Churchmouse. This sequence deals only with your first comment. Maybe after that a thread or a theme might be discerned. I don’t know. I stress these are my personal observations.
After the 1939-45 war: class resentments will have ranged from dormant to active among those who received their wages in a pay packet on Fridays (maybe a simpler way to define the group) not only because of varying experiences while in the military but because of memories of the unemployment of the 1930s and the 1926 General Strike.
As far as memories of the 1914-18 war go, the halls of our public (independent) boys’ schools are covered in the names of their former pupils who died, mostly as very young commissioned officers. The code which inspired them is simply expressed in Sir Henry Newbolt’s poem Vitai Lampada, http://net.lib.byu.edu/english/WWI/influences/vitai.html about Clifton College, which includes the lines:
And England’s far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
‘Play up! play up! and play the game!’
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July 30, 2011 at 3:16 pm
lleweton
Many who hold to this code remain. Many live in my part of middle England. They have a simple grace and courtesy. They are truly gentlefolk. Maybe age has brought us equality and communication or perhaps these people were always so, and we were simply strangers to each other. I do not know how we would have reacted to each other 60 years ago. Perhaps Mrs Llew and I have grown closer to them as well.
As far as post war National Service is concerned I don’t recall its being much disapproved of, apart from by those who had to do it, and maybe the ‘regulars’ who had to get them into line, in more ways than one. I was a reluctant recruit but when I was discharged I took with me the benefit of a seven month free course in Pitman’s shorthand and typewriting. This helped me get a foothold in journalism. Others will have similar positive stories to tell.As for the miseries of the conscripted, I have to say that I realised later that the bark of the NCOs at that time was immensely worse than the bite.
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July 30, 2011 at 5:37 pm
lleweton
Again I write only from my memory and my own perceptions. This is a subjective description of the time.
You mentioned your concern, Churchmouse, about the apparent inconsistency of the post war upper middle and middle class in closing ranks against new arrivals from the social rank just below them, while embracing the working class (I paraphrase here to help my definitions).
That however is not what they did. The intellectual social elite of the day embraced the discontents which the Labour movement symbolised, though generally not its individuals or their tastes and behaviour.
To bring things up to date for a moment, there is a possibly apocryphal tale that Peter Mandelson walked into a takeaway selling mushy peas and asked for some of the guacamole.
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July 30, 2011 at 5:39 pm
lleweton
Perhaps I should distinguish between elites of town and country. In the shires things continued as they always had and maybe still do, apart from the hunting ban. I remember from that time in the 50s a young woman student at my University College. She was the daughter of a farm worker whose employers were rather put out that when she left school she did not go to work at the ‘big house’.
The late 50s saw the Suez crisis and the invasion of Egypt by France, Britain and Israel, on a lame excuse concocted in advance by the three together. See Wikipedia’s piece on ‘Operation Musketeer’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Musketeer_(1956) .
This was hugely unpopular here and abroad and especially with the United States. As I recall the Guardian newspaper – or maybe it was the Manchester Guardian in those days – was especially critical. And there were protests and street demonstrations. The Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, resigned and was succeeded by Harold Macmillan.
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July 30, 2011 at 5:41 pm
lleweton
Cynicism about the ruling class was everywhere and it became very fashionable to mock the ‘Establishment’. The Establishment might well have deserved mockery at times. We were almost into the era of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ and the riveting political satire of ‘That Was TheWeek That Was’.
(Final instalment to follow later)
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July 30, 2011 at 6:28 pm
lleweton
I’m fully aware that I generalise. In the late fifties and in the sixties the sons and daughters of office clerks and skilled tradesmen arrive at university, and encounter contemporaries from a closed world of private education and middle class assumptions which is totally unknown to them, except that people speak as they do on the BBC.
While they try to adjust to this they feel alienated from their families who, despite their huge ambitions for their youngsters, feel left behind. The grammar school children are lost between two cultures. Many stalwart arrivals from the world where people had dinner at lunch time, quietly got down to their work though, obtained their degrees and left to work quietly in the professions
Of course some forced their way into the ranks of the elite, for example Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath, both incidentally, mocked for their accents by the public school leftists and Tories of their day. In ‘Private Eye’, if ever there was a reference to Edward Heath’s yacht Morning Cloud, the magazine spelled Cloud as ‘Cleoud’. Sound it out…. Both remained outsiders. Ironic that the two did not get on.
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July 30, 2011 at 6:29 pm
lleweton
But the ‘Angry Young Man’ was also born. While the ‘blue rinse’ conservatism of the Macmillan era is mocked in the satire programmes and magazines by the scions of its own breed, he really is left wing. He wants to attack the system. And with good reason, though a less valid one is that he just feels rejected. But this was where the fun was, where social success was, where mockery of the heritage was being led by those who were its most favoured inheritors.
And so a habit of thought, of knocking the ‘system’, making a joke of it and undermining it in all its traditional manifestations became an orthodoxy. These were the people who knew best how society should be. Time moved on. The new orthodoxy became entrenched in the estates of the realm (though less so in the House of Lords maybe) and in the media. And a new political mindset began to manifest itself.
I sum it up with these dread words of the former Labour Minister Douglas Jay, who (I quote from Wikipedia) wrote in 1937: ‘in the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.’
(end)
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July 30, 2011 at 11:37 pm
churchmouse
Llew, I cannot begin to thank you for your nuanced analysis of the post-war period. A few years ago, the BBC featured a documentary on this timeframe but didn’t cover it nearly as well as you have here. That documentary framed my thinking on National Service. They must have interviewed only the malcontents — only one man said something remotely positive, but in a rather vague way.
I understand now, thanks to you. There is much more to these years than what the BBC stated in the documentary.
On Heath and Thatcher — sometimes, perhaps you have seen this, where two people near enough in status who have risen up from the same, lower social class don’t get on. One or both feels threatened for some reason. For them, it is almost like looking in a mirror which reflects the humbler origins of which they do not wish to be reminded.
On the Angry Young Men, I often think of Kingsley Amis who became increasingly conservative over the years. I read that his son Martin (whom I met at a book signing in the early 1990s — a warm and witty man) is making that same journey. Interesting where life takes us in our acts and opinions.
Again, many thanks for your time spent on this post. It has helped clear up the mystery! 🙂
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July 31, 2011 at 1:31 am
churchmouse
Well, what do you know, Llew — the BBC are at it again with the 1950s. I have not watched this show, nor do I intend to (see comments upthread). This time it’s a fictionalised account — The Hour:
http://rantingstan.blogspot.com/2011/07/to-bbc-past-isnt-just-another-country.html
‘You see, I believe the BBC – and most progressive liberal institutions and supporters – don’t love the present day at all. Oh, there are things that they – and I – love about the present day, but they are all technological advancements that would have happened regardless of whether we went all social liberal or stayed socially conservative …
‘Everyone can see these things with their own eyes and make their own judgements about the state of society today – it’s shattered.
‘But what they can not do, unless they are over fifty years old at least, is remember what it was like before social liberalism. So, the BBC decides to tell them what it was like through these sort of revisionist dramas. It’s not that the BBC loves the present so much – it’s because they hate the fact that past society was so much better.’
Ranting Stan refers to a column by Peter Hitchens (yes, for those who are wondering, he’s Christopher’s brother). Comments are worth reading, too:
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/07/the-bbc-cant-recreate-1956-because-it-loves-our-selfish-grasping-present-too-much.html
‘What they don’t seem to understand is that the spirit of the age is what they need to capture, and that people in those times were quite unlike us.
‘They really did speak in those strangled accents, and in complete sentences. That is because they thought differently, had grown up with different experiences from those we know. Everyone over 25 could remember the war. Men really were courteous to women, and women – including educated women – genuinely expected to get married and have children and saw nothing wrong in that. The men wore blue or grey suits (often shabby) and knotted their ties tightly.
‘Most women – particularly in offices – were compelled to be fairly dowdy by the general shortage of money. Career advancement came very slowly, and so deference was common in offices. People knew if their colleagues were married. Oh, and stabbings in London were so rare that they merited a bit more than a paragraph in the paper…’
From the comments, Roy Robinson:
‘The comments attacking the 1950s seem to me to have a touch of the childrens history book from 1984 about them.I am surprised there is no mention of the wicked capitalists in their top hats who had the legal right to sleep with any of the women working in their factories.The late 1950s, Macmillans never had it so good years always seemed to be a time of hope to me in my childhood. There was the fear of the bomb admittedly but apart from that there was an expectation in all classes that things were going to get better,People looked forward to the future in a way that they don’t now. In fact the idea of the future has pretty much died.’
And from Alan Thomas in reply:
‘No doubt that is right, but whether it was due to circumstances rather than a ‘different breed of person ‘ (if that is the thinking), is open to debate. Most people in the late 1950’s would have first-hand experience of the war years, many of the long depression of the ’30s. It would be somewhat surprising to think that ‘looking on the bright side’ was not the mood of the nation in the post-war decades …’
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July 31, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Linda Kimball
“The late 1950s, Macmillans never had it so good years always seemed to be a time of hope to me in my childhood. There was the fear of the bomb admittedly but apart from that there was an expectation in all classes that things were going to get better,People looked forward to the future in a way that they don’t now. In fact the idea of the future has pretty much died.”
By the turn of the century England’s and America’s upper classes had for the most part embraced science as progress and Darwinism as the definitive answer to the Ultimate Questions. In particular, Darwinism told them just what they wanted to believe, which is that certain people are far superior in every way to the masses. In short, they had embraced the religion of “select men” as gods.
However, WWI and WWII destroyed that initial faith and ushered in postmodernism, which can be summarized as “all men who embrace the faith are gods.” Now though the “upper class” is greatly expanded and still at the expense of the unscientific masses….rubes who still believe in God the Father, morality, family, work ethic, and self-sacrifice…the elite “brotherhood of progress” still finds itself paralyzed by the fear of falling into nothingness.
They believe in nothing but “me, myself, and I.” Above all, they require power for the sake of power. They are barbarians from the void fueled by hatred of everything good, true, real, traditional, and authoritative (ie., moral absolutes). Believing themselves superior, they are instead a class of parasites who feed off of the masses they hate. As is the case with parasites, their precariously maintained inflated sense of self must of necessity come at the expense of the masses they hate, thus they are compelled to transfer onto the masses all of their own sins in order that they can then crucify them.
They must keep alive their hatred of the past because an abyss of nothingness awaits them, thus they require that the masses they hate have no hope either.
Recognize this as envy. It has always been the case that the miserably envious demand that those who are the object of envy be as miserable as the envy-bitten.
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July 31, 2011 at 10:01 pm
churchmouse
I accept what you are saying about egotism, Linda, but wonder if Darwinism was that well known or understood among the general British populace at the time. Llew would probably be better positioned to answer that question. There seems to be a considerable length of time between a theory’s appearance and its acceptance among the general population. Was Darwinism that fully accepted in the first half of the 20th century in England?
I should say that I speak as someone who grew up as believing that natural selection had some part to play in God’s creation, as He directed it over the ages. Maybe the nuns — old enough to be my great aunts — were wrong. (The Catholic Church accepted theistic evolution in 1950. The Presbyterian Church of America, quite orthodox, later made concessions towards it. I’ll go into these in a separate post.) Until recently, I never saw natural selection as a platform for egotism, although I do wonder if some American Christians use this as a reaction to Richard Dawkins. (This topic doesn’t play too heavily in Europe and most of us wonder why today’s Americans emphasise it so.) Not having read any of Dawkins’s books (nor do I intend to), perhaps it is more of a reaction against him than Darwin?
I don’t mean to be provocative or to offend you, it’s just something I — and many others on this side of the pond — cannot fully fathom, although the points about egotism and postmodernism are well worth bearing in mind. Personally, I equate these with Marxism. My problem is that I cannot quite equate where natural selection and egotism come into play.
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August 1, 2011 at 1:22 pm
lleweton
This is just for information, Churchmouse (and Linda) in view of the reference to me in the above comment. The fifties and sixties, as you will have deduced, was the period of my teens and twenties. In my world – first generation white collar and first generation university – the mention of Darwin would have brought a response of ‘Oh yes, that’s something to do with the survival of the fittest, isn’t it?’ or ‘ Ah, I know: the missing link and apes’. I don’t think ‘Darwinism’ in the form of an ‘ism’, with echoes of the previous century’s religious controversies, would have been thought of in my circles.
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July 31, 2011 at 4:49 pm
lleweton
Thank you for your response to my account of the 1950s as I remember them, Churchmouse. Strange that what is part of the lives of Mrs Llew and me should have become history. It is interesting to look at it in that light. My thanks also for the links and references in your comment above. My memory may be limited but I don’t think a ‘spirit of optimism’ would have been a term recognised in the suburbs, the town terraces and the villages of post war England. The war – we had been there for ‘the duration’ – was over and thank goodness for that. I think that was the prevailing mood in my house, apart from the ongoing worry about the Soviet Union. That was enough to be getting on with. Re ‘The Hour’, Mrs Llew and I have been enjoying it as a kind of refuge for us as culural aliens in this new century. But we do not forget that the fifties were the time of the execution of the innocent Timothy Evans, for example. Perhaps it was a time when there really was too much deference to established authority. Which brings us back to the satire programme ‘That Was the Week That Was’ – and the iconoclasm which led to the current authoritarianism.
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July 31, 2011 at 9:37 pm
churchmouse
Yes, it was a period of complexity, it would seem. I was born near the end, so cannot comment. I would have thought it was only a ‘spirit of optimism’ in the US, where things, by then, were really looking up. Therefore, that comment came as a bit of a surprise.
It’s reassuring, in a sense, to read that you were concerned about the Cold War, too, because the BBC (and similar media organisations not only in the UK but in the US) paint it as something which only concerned spittle-flecked McCarthyites. Yet, I recall as a child in the early 1960s being clearly aware of fallout shelters. Signs in black and yellow (nuclear symbol) were posted in every department store and public building. Although later on, Dr Strangelove was seen as a satire (and I still like watching it), it wasn’t so amusing then, even though it was quite provocative as Kubrick filmed it at the time, safely from leafy Hertfordshire.
It seems to have been a transition period. Believe me, you aren’t the only one to feel old. I do, too, and I grew up in the Flower Child period … This is now rebroadcast on BBC4 as art and as part of history. Prog rock is truly a thing of the archivists. ::clears throat and reaches for a restorative tonic::
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August 7, 2011 at 12:32 am
churchmouse
Hallo, Llew —
Have you read this analysis? I would be interested to know your thoughts …
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/saturday-essay-a-brief-history-of-amoral-mediocrity/
‘With the very best of intentions, the first majority Labour Government of 1945-51 set about creating a welfare State in which those just back from a crippling war could feel that, if nothing else, the burden of weekly anxiety about money among the lower middle and working classes could be banished …
‘By the early 1950s, the consensus that the social side of Labour was spot-on had become so widespread, influential Conservatives were able to admit, “We’re all Socialists now”. That Party returned to power and, by freeing up the economy and allowing the first of many credit booms, ushered in a 13-year period of dysfunctional growth alongside poor exporting performance. Thus the willingness to live nationally and personally on unaffordable credit began – and coincidentally, two other elements were added: television ownership, and the political class’s discovery of advertising agencies.
‘Harold Macmillan (‘SuperMac’ to the cartoonists) may have given TV performances we regard today as hilariously inept. But at the time, they showed that he had grasped far more quickly than Labour just how influential the medium could be. He was also the first to discover the soundbite – “You’ve never had it so good” – and the first PM to use such a vacuous form of words to wipe the floor with the Opposition. SuperMac romped home in the 1959 Election, but he did so with talented help from an ad agency …
‘The general drift of Labour’s appeal in that seminal year [1964] was that they were The Moderns and the Tories were The Grouse-Moor Nobs. Only Labour could ‘forge’ the technology required to drag Britain out of the Victorian age nurtured by Thirteen Years of Tory Misrule. And the whole thing was summed up by more vacuity, ‘Let’s Go with Labour!’ It was all the most dreadful tosh, but does hold within it the chilling chimes of today, where the Left calls itself Progressive, and the Guardian dubs everything else Reactionary.
‘A product of class mobility via very high intelligence and natural cunning, Harold [Wilson] loved to display his liking for working class things like brown sauce and a pipe. In fact, he smoked cigars in private and rarely used HP sauce or indeed ate breakfast. His insouciant genius was to decide on an image, and then stick to it … ‘
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August 1, 2011 at 11:53 pm
Linda Kimball
“… but wonder if Darwinism was that well known or understood among the general British populace at the time”
Darwinism was absolutely indispensable to Marx and therefore Marxist Communism, and of course to Hitler’s National Socialism and to the rest of the Progressive movement as it overspread W. Europe and America.
Darwinism was brought to America from W. Europe, and was here by 1853, according to Angelo Codevilla, professor emeritus at Boston University and author of “America’s Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It.” By 1853, writes Codevilla:
“….much of America’s educated class had already absorbed the “scientific notion” (which Darwin only popularized) that man is the product of chance mutation and natural selection of the fittest. Accordingly, by nature, superior men subdue inferior ones just as they subdue lower beings, or try to improve them as they please….Darwinism corrupted Northern and Southern thinkers equally.” (p. 17)
If Darwinism was not well known among the general British population it was for certain as well known among certain influential British thinkers and power-brokers as it was here in America.
” Was Darwinism that fully accepted in the first half of the 20th century in England?”
Here in America, Darwinism is still not accepted among what Codevilla describes as “the country class.” Among our progressive “ruling Class,” it is safe to say that they are Teilhardians rather than Darwinists. This is because the “Ruling Class” are for the most part occult spiritists, Theosophists, Zen Buddhists, etc.
“Until recently, I never saw natural selection as a platform for egotism, although I do wonder if some American Christians use this as a reaction to Richard Dawkins”
The answer is no. As for myself, I see Dawkins as a chameleon-like sophist whose burning passion is the annihilation of God. In his book, “The Rage Against God: how atheism led me to faith,” Peter Hitchens has much to say about Dawkins that you would find of interest.
“I should say that I speak as someone who grew up as believing that natural selection had some part to play in God’s creation, as He directed it over the ages. ”
Below are five quotes from one of my research files. As you read through them ask yourself this question: In light of the following admissions and declarations, is Natural Selection any more true than Darwinism?
“The theory of evolution is impossible. At base, in spite of appearances, no one any longer believes in it….Evolution is a kind of dogma which the priests no longer believe, but which they maintain for their people.” Paul Lemoine. Encyclopedie Francaise 1937 edition. (President of the Geological Society of France and director of the Natural History Museum in Paris.)
“As the creationists claim, belief in modern evolution makes atheists of people. One can have a religious view that is compatible with evolution only if the religious view is indistinguishable from atheism.” Will Provine, No Free Will. Catching Up with the Vision, Ed. By Margaret W. Rossiter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) pS123.
“…evolution is the backbone of biology and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on unproven theory. Is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation. Both are concepts which the believers know to be true, but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof.” L.H. Matthews, “Introduction to Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin (1971 edition), pp. x, xi.
[The theory of evolution] “forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature.” Harrison Matthews. Introduction to Origin of Species (1977 edition) p. xxii.
“In fact [subsequent to the publication of Darwin’s book, Origin of Species], evolution became, in a sense, a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to `bend’ their observations to fit with it. . To my mind, the theory does not stand up at all . . If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces, and radiation, how has it come into being? . . I think, however, that we must go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is Creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it.” H.S. Lipson, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution,” Physics Bulletin, Vol. 31, p. 138 (1980) [emphasis his].
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August 2, 2011 at 5:05 am
churchmouse
Thanks, Linda!
So many unanswered (unanswerable?) questions. One is about the dominance of one species of animal or plant variety over another (e.g. grey squirrels over red, American crayfish over native UK crayfish, Spanish bluebells over native UK bluebells). And what of geological formations which are millions of years old, from which we derive petroleum products? It seems as if the study of geology or astronomy would be forbidden under Creationism, not to mention a trip to a natural history museum. Taking it down another route, it would not surprise me to see people believe in a flat earth again or in geocentrism. Should Christians be using the Bible as a science book? Anyway, I’ve got a couple of resources to post on this at some point.
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August 2, 2011 at 5:16 am
churchmouse
Sorry, forgot to add — it seems to me that Marx distorted Darwin (just as he distorted Scripture) for his own purposes. The Wurmbrand book Marx and Satan said that Darwin added clarification to the second edition of his book (‘to the Creator’) which remained throughout subsequent printings.
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August 2, 2011 at 9:06 am
Linda Kimball
“So many unanswered (unanswerable?) questions. One is about the dominance of one species of animal or plant variety over another ”
We seem to have forgotten that there is indeed a hierarchy, Plato had some sense of this for which reason he spoke of a chain of being. Augustine writes that God created a diversity of minds that were originally meant to exist harmoniously within God’s created order.
After the fall, where there had been harmony and order now there was discord, disorder, domination, tyranny, brutality, slavery, and red tooth and claw.
Where there had been the City of God, in Augustine’s view, there was now the City of Man typified by Babylon, Sodom, Carthage, Rome, and in modern times by Soviet Russia, the Third Reich, and the Sodom that America is quickly becoming.
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August 2, 2011 at 9:27 am
churchmouse
Yes, we have forgotten about a hierarchy, which conflicts with our modern society in which ‘everyone must have prizes’ (e.g. schoolkids). I think the television series Downton Abbey has been broadcast in the US (on PBS, maybe). It was very popular here in the UK and pundits hypothesised it was because there was a certain order to the household portrayed — upstairs and downstairs. Of course, not all the younger family members or servants were happy with the order, but to the ordinary viewer, it looked like an appealing Edwardian way of life. The lord of the manor exercised responsibility towards his servants and they, in turn, worked for him as loyal, diligent employees.
As we discussed upthread, people looked up to their social betters, who often (not always) demonstrated a good example in life and work. Gradually, that eroded — no doubt the City of Man effect to which you refer. These days, honest people have become disillusioned and some are quite frustrated. Very sad state of affairs. Again, it’s only by returning to moral living through a deep belief in Christ that we can turn this around. The problem with that for most people, no doubt, is that Christianity isn’t a silver bullet (and concerns the next world); they want something instantaneous.
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August 2, 2011 at 9:27 am
Linda Kimball
“. And what of geological formations which are millions of years old, from which we derive petroleum products?”
Another thing we have forgotten is that mankind’s senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, etc) are constraints upon what man can actually know about this world. For example, we know from the reactions of other creatures that they can see things, smell things, and hear things that we cannot, These sensory constraints translate into our technology and empirical science. In other words, no matter how sophisticated our technology and science, it too is captive to man’s sensory constraints…. his fallibility.
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August 2, 2011 at 9:28 am
churchmouse
So true!!
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August 8, 2011 at 3:48 pm
lleweton
Re your reference further back in the thread to this http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/saturday-essay-a-brief-history-of-amoral-mediocrity/ , I’m sorry I missed your original message to me,Churchmouse.
I can’t comment on the economics which are beyond my expertise but I do remember the beginning of what was then called the ‘never never.’ It involved much signing of documents as I recall. There were no credit cards. I think it’s true to say that this form of borrowing, carefully used, improved the quality of life. I believe quite a lot of people did think we’d ‘never had it so good’, whether intellectuals mocked or not. Their memories of pre-war unemployment and hardship backed up that view. In my household we became owners of a fridge and television, and rented a phone from – I think it would have been the Post Office then. None of these had we owned during the war or before.
There was indeed a gulf between what the writer called the ‘Grouse Moor Nobs’ and ordinary wage earners. This gave the fashionable metropolitan intellectuals a huge opening for mockery of the then ruling class. Other stereotypes, almost verbal cartoons, were ‘blue rinse’ supporters of the Tories and the ‘hangers and floggers’. As I think I’ve argued in this thread, there was good reason to challenge the social and political presumptions of those who exercised privilege and the prejudices of those who felt safe under their wing.
Meanwhile the trade union ‘establishment’ was getting increasingly powerful. Think of the wonderful ‘Fred Kite’, shop steward, played by Peter Sellers in the film ‘I’m All Right Jack’.
On the subject of Harold Wilson and image making, I remember seeing old clips of him as President of the Board of Trade. He spoke received pronunciation then, without a Yorkshire accent
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August 9, 2011 at 4:47 pm
churchmouse
Thanks again, Llew, for your insight! It’s great to read about these things first-hand!
On credit cards — ‘carefully used’ — the operative words. My late mother-in-law thought that Harold MacMillan was outstanding; she, too, believed that the UK had ‘never had it so good’. It sounds like a great time of optimism.
Thank you for further explaining the social caricatures, which were still around when I arrived in the 1990s! Based on recent events around the country, I think we might well see a resurgence of ‘hangers and floggers’ — from both main political parties.
Interesting, too, to read how Wilson changed his accent to fit his new image … My better half had the misfortune to sit near Tony ‘White Heat of Technology’ Benn on an internal UK flight and said it was the longest trip he’d ever had. Benn talked incessantly about himself to the woman (perhaps an assistant) seated next to him!
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August 22, 2011 at 11:53 pm
I.C.E.
Mandelson, the Labour peer I remind you, not a conservative one, is eyeing up an eight million pound property. He’s contemplating buying it outright, which means he feels he can cope with the upkeep on the property too. I ask you, where’s the difference between the Tory and the Labour parties these days? They’re all getting rich from our endeavours… I ask you also, how does any formerly financially rank and file politician get to be able to afford something like this? All he had to sell was.. well, was us – down the river, I would think! I’m not too relaxed about that, personally!
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August 23, 2011 at 9:47 am
churchmouse
Thanks for that news on Mandy. GRR!! £8m house for a peer who purports to represent the ‘little people’. Yes, we’ve paid for that through taxes, all the way through his EU-level posts.
And how many houses does Blair (‘just a regular guy’) have now? Six, seven? It’s hard to keep track — does that include the flat they bought for Euan? Hmm.
At least with the Tories, we know where they are with wealth. Labour — elite Socialists — are beyond the pale. That people can continue to vote for them defies logic. Oh, wait — a number of them are in the public sector or on the dole. Yes, it makes sense now. Meanwhile, there are millions of hard-working Britons who are having problems making ends meet every month and are worried about their pensions. They pay their taxes and then are told that they are narrow-minded, lazy, good-for-nothings (both Labour and Tories being guilty of making these pronouncements). It’s sickening.
Yes, we have been sold down the river. Unfortunately, I don’t see a solution on the horizon.
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