The Strange Death of Liberal England

Walking from Stepney Green to Aldgate East you can understand why some people on the Brexit side feel uneasy about the changes in society. Doesn't mean you're necessarily racist ( though there often is an undercurrent of that). You walk back to the hospital after having a lovely avocado and cray fish salad. Sit in a small park in which boulders have replaced the traditional park bench. Two young women sit next to you, silently, staring vaguely out into the traffic, as if we're on a beach and the constant traffic the sea. All very post- modern, you think. No-one is reading a book. Newspapers? What are those?! Back towards the hospital lots of young women (Somali?) in the veil. Confident and attractive (some, at least) but I instinctively find it quite irritating, to be honest. First thoughts aren't always the truest. At the hospital you note that most of the staff and doctors don't appear to be English ( there are, you think, Geeeks, Pakistanis, Chinese, and Egyptians). You can understand why those on the Remain side want to stay. To pass the time you re-read some Hobsbawm. The strange disappearance of liberal England.At the turn of the century it is the working and not the middle classes that stand on the side of democracy, decency, progress. Of course, we can now talk of the strange disappearance of the progressive left ( thanks to 30 years of neoliberalism) but back then hope and liberation were 'red'. Retreat to the suburbs, the growth of inwardness ( a room of one's own). The confusions of the Middle classes since no-one knows who is what any more. Private absorption in ' getting and spending'. All sounds familiar, all too familiar. ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ The day after the night before: Went to sleep in Great Britain; woke up in Little England. Now, what we need is a Trump victory to keep the right- wing movement going. Making England Hate (again)? There's always been a strain of xenophobia in this country, or a kind of small- minded, inward- looking pettiness. A largely false kind of inwardness, it should be added. Lots of discussion in the papers today about how politicians and the media have lost touch with reality. All that feeds into a suspicion of experts, a lack of trust in public officials and disdain for any kind of hierarchy in this, our great and wonderful, our democratic and meritocratic, age. But when weren't poliicians and the ruling classes aloof? So many people seem to feel elated that, finally, their voice has been heard, that their vote counts. But they'll soon return to the reality that, actually, they have very little say in how things are run. Economic security instead of political participation. That's the trade off and has been so for a long time now. The Tesco revolution. The life of the Elois. A life of private pleasures and disengagement. Initially this stemmed from a change in religious sensibilities and an emphasis on ordinary living as the good life. Only thing is, it's led to a " somnolence of production" ( or, rather, " consumption"). Is this the final culmination of a process that Arendt called " the second turning inward"?