The Riots : On why they happened and how society must change

Last week the urban centres of Britain were hit by a series of riots which shocked Britain and the world. They spread rapidly when a peaceful protest at the death of Mark Duggan under debated circumstances at the hands of armed Police went awry after members of the crowd turned violent. The riots spread rapidly throughout London and then England leaving 5 dead and resulted in much damage of property. The course of the riots has been covered comprehensively so I’m not going to repeat what you should know, apart from to state that the authorities and the public all seem to have been take by surprise at how widespread the looting was and the speed at which It spread.

People were shocked that in relatively quiet suburban towns (such as my home town, Orpington) that had no conceivable connection to the initial riots in Tottenham, the young suddenly ran riot attacking local retail centres for games consoles and trainers. Many did not even bother to cover their faces and filmed their escapades which were then uploaded on Youtube. The fear of anything as trivial as consequences or the Police was completely gone; they were out for themselves and revelled in it, as if suddenly liberated from an ancient tyrant. It seemed as if the myriad unspoken rules and laws that we all live by to avoid a collapse into anarchy had been unanimously and spontaneously rejected by a large section of the increasingly disenfranchised and disillusioned youth. Why did this happen? Why did they reject our values and our society in such a brazen manner?

Firstly we must understand that all societal values are created constructs. Accepted modes of behaviour, both personal and cultural are taught to us from birth by the actions of those around us and we are expected to adopt them. Traditionally these included concern for the welfare of others, national pride, respect of proper authority, the concept of public service and a belief in something greater than ourselves, such as God or perhaps Empire. However in the past 50 years these old values have gradually slipped as we have become more selfish and less concerned about the society around us. It is not natural of human nature to respect authority or to believe in something greater; however we came to adopt these values through the conformity of those around us or through the stigmatization of those who do not conform, coupled with a carrot and stick coercion. ‘It is good to be the same as everyone else’ might as well be society’s motto.


We were all supposed to be equal parts of the same society pulling together for the greater good of our shared society, underneath the watching eye of our benevolent leaders, such as in Hobbes’ ‘Leviathan’. Hobbes believed that the best form of society was one where the monarchy provided for its subjects and its subjects were free to go about their day-to-day lives without interaction with the government. Substitute the Monarch for whatever elected leader we happen to choose and we have the foundation of Liberal Democracy.


We are free to pursue our lives to whatever ends we wish which we do mainly for our own selfish ends, and taken to its logical conclusion it has created a society of self serving automatons who live in an endless loop of work and consumerism for the benefit of only themselves. This has led to the gradual erosion of the old values (civic duty, respect of authority etc) which was the glue of society. These values have been eroded due to the adoption in the past 50 years of what is known as ‘Negative Liberty’. This concept was best explained by Isaiah Berlin, a hugely influential political theorist and philosopher, in his essay ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ where he set out the 2 notions of liberty, ‘Positive Liberty’ and ‘Negative Liberty’. Berlin defined negative liberty, as the term "liberty" was used by Thomas Hobbes, as the absence of coercion whilst ‘Positive Liberty’ was to have the opportunity to fulfill ones potential within society. One of the key tenants of positive liberty was that the individual should have the ability to participate in the government. However examples of positive liberty throughout history showed that it led towards tyranny. Using the example of the French Revolution he showed how the revolutionaries wished to overthrow the Monarchical system which was seen as unjust, to create a new equal society. However this ended in the Reign of Terror and the new order was just as barbaric and murderous as the one who preceded it. The same followed with the Bolshevik Revolution and many other revolutions around the world. They all started with the dream of a free society and ended up corrupt, murderous and authoritarian. One of the reasons behind this was the assumption of the leaders of the revolutions that they knew what was best for the common man and that they would if necessary force the people to be free. The values of positive liberty too easily could justify and legitimise oppression.


Because of this threat of tyranny Berlin decided that negative liberty was the safer of the two, saying that  ‘But to manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you — the social reformer — see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them’ . It is clear that he believed that coercion, even for an apparent benefit, would eventually lead to a reduction of freedom and tyranny. Berlin was an influential thinker at the heart of the British establishment, working for the British embassies in Washington, DC, and Moscow in the 1940’s and the  Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford from 1957 – 67. He was eventually knighted and received the Order of merit. His theories were hugely influential and were seized upon and promoted by the neo-conservatives in the US and their counterparts in the UK Conservative party (Under Thatcher) and in New Labour (under Blair). They believed that creating a society where we were free to live as we chose would guarantee stability. The consequence of this is a freedom that entirely lacks any meaning. And as mentioned earlier has created a society of competitive, self serving individuals stuck in an endless loop of consumerism and work for an end we will never feel satisfied with and never feel we’ve attained.


In an average day we will be bombarded with numerous adverts and examples of ostentatious wealth which we are persuaded will bring meaning and happiness to our life. We are told that to not own the latest technology or fad will mean we are somehow not enjoying life as much as we should or as much as those who own the desired item. As our need to gain a slice of the wealth we see all around us increases, our ability to actually attain it has dropped. We have become silent and dull worker drones, slaving away in our identikit pods at a job without any meaning or emotional connection for us, lacking in any sense of satisfaction or fulfillment, simply so we can afford to take part in the greater cause of the consumer.  During the last decade the gap between the rich and poor has increased and shows no sign of abating, yet we are still being told that to consume and attain riches is the only path to happiness. So a sense of entitlement naturally sets in. Now a flat screen TV has changed from being something that you can buy if you have worked hard enough to afford it, to being something that you deserve simply for existing.


With the function of Government now simply to ensure our freedom to do as we choose, rather than to radically change society for the better, they have become relegated in our eyes to a series of faceless middle managers who simply provide us with endless meaningless statistics and charts which show how their performance is being marked. Goals and targets are set and manipulated so they always show some sort of improvement, even though the experience of the general public might seem very different. Crime may be shown to drop and hospital waiting times improved yet the public’s perception is that they feel more afraid and that the hospitals are dirty and uncaring. With constant targets to achieve working in a public body is no longer about public service, but of score keeping and goal achievement. This creates a distrust and sense of suspicion between the public and public bodies and the Government who become perceived as distant and uncaring bureaucrats who do nothing to try and improve the life of the common man. Over time our perception of them as such becomes accepted as truth and a permanent part of the common narrative of our current society.


This sense of entitlement born out of our cultures essential emptiness, coupled with the erosion of the old stabilising values of community and respect for authority brought about by the selfishness of negative liberty, has created a perfect storm of an disenfranchised underclass who care nothing for authority and have been practically brainwashed that they need to possess the items which our society claim bring you meaning and happiness. We are reaping the consequences of the policies of negative liberty in a life with no meaning and our only opiate is the bitter pill of consumerism.


To leave this condition we are currently in we must have more than simply the freedom to do as we choose under a series of caretaker Governments. It is not enough to simply vote and say we are free, for that is not freedom in any true sense. When we are stuck in these self perpetuating loops of work and consumerism than we are as enslaved and helpless as we would be under many ancient tyrannies. It creates a death of the mind and of ideas, a stifling corporate world of no meaning, where you can live a life of so little consequence that it truly does not matter any more if we live or die. We are interchangeable robots acting under market forces we do not understand.


We should strive to attain a form of Positive liberty centered on the autonomy of the individual where the government should aim actively to create the conditions necessary for individuals to be self-sufficient, yet in a way which benefits the local community or wider society, so that we feel we are doing good through our actions and works, rather than simply creating wealth for ourselves or others. There should be no greater ideal pushed forward by the Government, this would remove the threat of tyranny, of people being coerced into conforming for ‘their own good’, and enable people to find their own meaning and happiness within an increasingly confused world. There can be no set model of happiness, a person’s happiness is as individual as their experience of life itself, but without a drastic change in society and recognising the failures of negative liberty, we are doomed to follow the current path of entitlement, emptiness, selfishness and consumerism.  


Many of these ideas and others are discussed in the excellent Adam Curtis documentary series The Trap: Episode 3:  'We Will Force You To Be Free' which i highly reccomend and is available free on the internet