Love and Anger

As the lock down continues and social distancing becomes the new norm there is a definite national mood swing taking place. This mood swings from anger to love and genial behaviour. This is all natural. We have our totems and the sacred and we look to them to bind us together. But we also feel let down, frustrated, angry.
 
The media is the main focus for all of our moods. There is anger at the government's handling of the crisis from some quarters and deep love for our Prime Minister from others. As I stated  in the Media blog 'new media' has some theories of its own and this was joined by a vague non condemning comment on This Morning by the mainstream media presenter Eamonn Holmes. 5G transmitters again came under attack.

First let's look at the anger on display in our society. This is largely, but not totally, to do with ideology. Everyone has an ideology. This is a set of beliefs which we all hold dear to our social make up. In other words we all have a meta narrative which helps us explain the world. This primarily can be religion, but this is coupled by political beliefs. At the start of This I decided to be non partisan. I'm what is called 'soft left' I have voted Labour since I was able to. I am a remainer in terms of the EU. However I decided that no matter what my views are on Boris Johnson and his government I'd will them to succeed. I'd do as they say. from the start people were openly critical of the government's handling of the affair, did they call a lock down too late? Why was Ireland closing down whilst we were still being told to wash our hands? I've mentioned before that for such a neo liberal government as this telling people what to do is really difficult as your ideology is about libertarianism, they'd just won an election on the pretext of freedom and individualism. However they did act eventually and told us to stay at home. The first big announcements were fiscal, trying to shore up the economy. Again a chief neo liberal concern. State intervention was suddenly trendy again after decades of decrying it. Facebook and Twitter were alight by left wingers claiming victory. An outgoing Jeremy Corbyn suggested on the BBC that he had been right all along.

However as time has gone on we see huge discrepancies in who is dying, social class and ethnicity seem to be now underlying health issues. The Left become incensed. another however which unites people in anger is the NHS, how badly resourced they are. Nurses pinning masks with paperclips, not enough aprons, ventilators. We hear stories that the government didn't reply to companies offering to provide ventilators, refusing to sit on EU meetings about how to fight This. This could be excused as still ideological but then ministers begin to say things in the daily briefing which upsets the non ideological. The Health Minister doesn't know how many NHS workers have died and in another briefing he seems to castigate NHS workers for using PPE too much. Anger becomes resentment.

Sociologically we find this interesting. Meta narratives are important, we all need things to get us through the night. Beliefs are important. But when our elected officials begin to be the focus of anger in times of crisis things can become dangerous. Weber believed we needed charismatic leaders to rally around. The charisma of a leader can move us away from traditional behaviour. In short we will follow a charismatic leader through difficult and new times. In Boris Johnson we had a charismatic leader whether you agree with him or not. He seemed the ideal man to get us through such a situation. Johnson was waiting for his Churchill moment. But then he fell ill. He got the virus and then left us with his ministers. Non of whom would inspire. Weber believed that in a modern society the charismatic leader could be replaced by rational legal authority - this is found in laws which back up rational behavior. in other words bureaucracy. But we are currently in a bureaucratic flux. We have left the EU without much of a plan on what we do next. The virus stopped the implementation of what we were going to do next.  Foucault believed that power lies in the hands of specialists. So The WHO and the NHS and health advisers are the power now. But they feel powerless as they are under resourced. So anger comes from the unknown. We don't have a proper framework to deal with this. The Labour leader wants parliament to be recalled, he is backed up by all opposition parties and senior conservatives. Weber would agree with this. Britain can defeat the virus by rational and legal authority. In other words strangle it with laws and procedures. People feel anomie, the Prime Minister is ill, his ministers are making gaffs. People need something they recognise. Another reason the Queen was used the other week.

The Marxist Mills would place the anger directed at the government as anger directed at our elite. The elite are those in our society who believe they hold all of the power and influence. The elite not only consists of the government but the military, the church and so on. In a more modern capitalist society this also includes the financial sector. From a Marxist perspective the elite have been dismantling our welfare state in order to protect banks since 2010 (perhaps earlier). This then has placed the NHS is a poor position. But not just them, also care workers. I heard a story from a relation about clients and masks being counted up. more clients than masks.

Anger exists among the exercising. Runners and walkers get on each other's nerves. This is because many people are regularly exercising outdoors for the first time so there are more people outside on our pavements, parks and countryside. I have a regular walk which covers two to four miles which I have been doing every day since our second daughter was born nearly four years ago . This covers roads, out of the way paths and fields. Normally you'd meet a few people, now it is heavily populated by all of the aforementioned. Social distancing means this has become impossible. those of us who have learned the rules of exercise are now sharing with novices.  The rules of what our daily exercise is seems confused. Cyclists meet with friends and tour the countryside, I see this daily. Runners do epic journeys across moors. Is this what the government permits? A friend had a notice put on his car because he drove his sons to a largely empty rural space not far from his home. they could have walked it but that would have meant coming into contact with numerous people. The reservoir near my home is policed, cars are turned away sometimes, walkers permitted. The anger and confusion can be linked back to Weber's theory of power. People need rational and legal authority - they need set rules. Without these people make their own interpretations of the rules as they are quite vacuous. The government leaflet sent to homes is vague, after telling us to stay at home it then gives exceptions - exercise and shopping but there are more exceptions to that as well. The police issued a statement today about 'rules' which are chaotic and contradictory - my friend wouldn't get a sticker now as long as he can prove his walk with his boys lasted longer than the drive to the open area of exercise.

 Weber would recognise this as as lack of charisma AND authority. Mills would say it was the arrogance of the elite expecting the entire populace to live the way that they do. This creates a huge divide. death is doing this too. Black and ethnic minorities are three times more likely to get the virus and more likely to die. This is because of their living spaces and culture. The elite don't live like this so they have made no allowances. The elite live in large spaces. Many BAME families are multi generational. The lock down happened after this had already started to spread, families living together with many generations in the one household spread it around. Why wasn't this thought of? Mill would say because the elite hadn't thought of it. Our politicians seem out of touch and to have lost control. This could be because this virus is striking communities they don't understand. Unless you have a certain cultural capital you don't know how to survive. Middle classes either obey the rules or know how far to push them. They sit in their gardens or go for walks/runs in the wide semi rural areas they live in. Or if they are city dwellers they have fairly spacious accommodation, self isolating is easy in such an environment. Sociologists have long stated that working class under achievement in GCSEs is often down to the living environment of the pupil. Small housing with lots of people living in it. hardly conducive to learning. Also not ideal for self isolation.

In supermarkets we see people heavily masked up, avoiding those who aren't. This is fear rather than anger. But the fear comes from the same place as the anger. The masks are something I'd like to address in another piece.

Of course there is love out there in This as well. people cheered again tonight for the NHS. We let the children stay up. people clapped, banged saucepans and fireworks and horns were let off. There is huge love for the NHS. Today the BBC music radio stations combined to get the British public to sing for delivery workers. Social media is full of fund raising and games and challenges. This could also be put at the place of a lack of leadership and authority. Pulling together despite the lack of these things. Rallying around totems which help us make sense of This.

We now enter at least another three weeks. Perhaps more. Sociologists are watching us and making sense of This.

Observation - at Morrison's last week a security guard asked a man to respect the social distance in the queue to get into the supermarket. He said he didn't have the virus. The security guard said that he didn't know that for sure. He replied "they are only getting it in London."