Establishment Media with Reference to UK Politics

Before commenting on politics it's important to bear in mind that popular and establishment media create an image of reality that is often highly inaccurate. Many people, understandably, think and make decisions largely based on this inaccurate image. 

Honesty, accuracy, evidence and fairness are thus regularly absent from establishment media. The reasons for this are very complex and have much to do with maintaining a divide between the rich and poor. 

These points are tied up with spin and political rhetoric, which is about fooling people into liking and voting for you. Spin and political rhetoric is often about creating an inaccurate, abstract, negative and unfounded image of an opponent and is often about evading honesty, transparency and directness.

I feel that not only the wider population but many of our politicians buy into the political rhetoric they use and the abstract, unfounded notions of society that they promulgate. For example, I do think that most Conservatives feel that they are "working in the national interest" or that "living within our means" is a fair thing to say. But these phrases are part of an abstract political rhetoric that isn't tied to reality. I would describe believing in political rhetoric and distorted veneers of reality as some kind of mass delusion fed and sustained by a powerful, biased and reality-reversing media.

One of Friedrich Nietzsche's primary insights is that many of humanity's cherished ideas and views are motivated by shadowy instincts, drives and desires. The Conservatives' ideas and views, for example, are motivated by greed and insecurity. Such ideas and views are dressed up in a palatable way, "living within our means" kind of seems reasonable on the surface, but their essential meaning is bound up with greed and fear. In a more accurate rendition, living within our means is actually saying that "we aren't going to address the deep power and class imbalance of society but are going to steal money from those who need it most". 

When ideas and views are bound up with insecure self-serving drives you can expect volatile reactions. For example, David Cameron erupted in PMQs on the issue of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, shouting "It might be in my party’s interest for him to sit there. It’s not in the national interest... for heaven's sake man, go!" This reaction occurred because Corbyn represents a threat to the societal maintenance and dominance of the rich-elite, which is based on their self-serving insecure drives. When the rich-elite are faced with a character like Corbyn they thus lash out in an irrational way. This also explains Alan Sugar's, Richard Branson's and Rupert Murdoch's hatred of Corbyn.

The abstraction of reality that occurs with the application of political rhetoric and inaccuracy in the popular media also leads to desensitisation and depersonalisation. We are presented with a thin distorted layer of reality and aren't able to adequately connect with actual reality. In my view this occurs to an extent with any media, as media or language slides between people and the rawness of reality and can end up disconnecting us from the truth of our inner and outer worlds.

Rhetoric, inaccuracy and spin encourage increased detachment or desensitisation as they aren't about exploring and revealing truths. They are about manipulating people, distorting events, scaremongering, ignoring happenings and/or presenting situations in a one-dimensional way. The result is that we aren't able to properly connect with many events occurring in the world. This, I think, is partly why we have a PM who holds a first strike nuclear policy.

I don't think Theresa May emotionally understands the consequences of using nuclear weapons. Similarly Micheal Fallon, the Conservative Defence Secretary, holds an insensitive attitude towards military action. Fallon offers complete support for future military action in Syria to a government responsible for this. He must not remotely empathise with the many civilians that have died in the Middle East as a consequence of our foreign policy and he must not realise that our approach is fuelling perpetual war, hatred and extremism. If May was present for the atom bombing of Hiroshima and had family who died there and if Fallon had witnessed and had family who died in a military attack in Yemen they would, I'm sure, think differently about nuclear weaponry and military intervention.

Violence and death, then, have been depersonalised and we have been emotionally desensitised to horrific issues. This is why it is refreshing and inspiring, for me, that Corbyn is so reluctant to use military action. Presumably Corbyn is sensitive and empathetic to issues of violence and sees military action as a last resort. He genuinely prioritises diplomacy and dialogue. As far as I'm concerned he is a responsible and humane politician, seemingly a rare phenomenon.

In order to develop and flower as a society enough people need to understand the bias of establishment media and enough people need to be able to separate bullshit from accuracy, honesty from lies, substance from vapidity, spin from sincerity.