It’s clear to many of us right now that much of what we’ve taken for granted these last forty years is under threat. Even more than that for those of us who’ve become adults in the last twenty years is that much of what we count as progress – sexual equality, conversations about justice in race, culture, history and even language, identity, representation are under threat by a whole host of voices that shout loud, hate dissent from their point of view, have no sense of irony and are, in the end, pretty damned smart about how they play their tunes to get people onside.

I’m not going to rehearse the litany of actual people, events and decisions that challenge me everyday at the moment. I want to examine here two related subjects that don’t need us to look at whether Presidents are racist or if Parliament should be sovereign.

The first of these is whether democracy can survive. This seems like an overly dramatic question. I can hear people saying ‘don’t be so extreme’. Except it’s a question worth asking, right? What if people who we see calling ‘fake news’ and not giving a fig about being caught lying repeatedly really don’t care for other people having a say? What if the right wing press hates dissent and fact based decision making because ideologies don’t allow for other points of view being valid?

When someone breaks with the social contract, makes an argument that’s extreme or completely selfish or focussed only on their own interests to the lack of all others, ceding ground to them normalises their activity and also provides space for them to take from the rest of us permanently. In these cases ceding ground to the edges (be it left or right, intolerant or utterly apathetic) is a slippery slope. I used to hate the slippery slope argument as being vacuous. I was wrong. It’s slippery because once these people start to get their way they are able to control the narrative, to cast the rest of us as fools, as weak, as too straight for our own good. ‘Look,’ they say. ‘The world didn’t end just because I got my way.’

To an extent they’re right. Except they’re dead wrong as well. Each time they take, each time they shut us down, each time they hate on us, they’re changing the world a very little bit. In the end they want no dissent and will change the world to make it so. It’s creeping, it’s hard to see the piano move when it’s only an inch at a time but make no mistake. It’s moving.

Most people like this, most BULLIES, for that’s what they are, work on the assumption that the majority won’t stand up to them and they’re generally right. Most people walk on by. Not all, but sometimes it’s enough to let them get away with it. When these people are in power they cluster together like turds in a rock festival portaloo. When they’re unchallenged newspapers start to print their narrative, culture starts to make their arguments for them, their opponents are lost because they’re moving to oppose them too late with arguments that are now too little, too redundant to get their supporters active.

The second is our inability to believe in evil. I don’t mean the kind of evil we associate with serial killers, they seem unbelievable even if fascinating. I mean proper evil, the mundane evil of following orders, of Nuremberg defences, of bureaucracy killing people because the rules said it was right, that we needed a hostile environment. I mean austerity that kills people of cold and hunger, of disability tests that humiliate and impoverish. Of the approach that assumes rich people are morally better, that they should go to jail less, that they don’t have to live by the same rules. Am I concerned with racism? With sexism? Of course I am, but these other things are precursors or metanarratives that provide fertile, non-conflictual ground within which racism and other forms of prejudice can grow without fear of being weeded out. Why? Because all forms of evil render those around us as less than human. As soon as dehumanisation of anyone in society is considered acceptable evil has taken root. Left unchecked it leads to children in cages because they’re no longer human, no longer deserve to be treated like ‘us’. It leads to MPs objecting to upskirting laws, it leads to trolls on line who hate on those different to themselves.

The real problem I have with evil, beyond that it’s evil, is my own response to it. So many times I’m too weary to fight back, too worried about how I’ll be perceived, about the fact that relationships may falter, that people will think it’s all I care about. THere’s a price to standing up to evil, to those who hate us and it exhausts us fighting it all the time, hollows us out, tempts us to be like those we oppose. If we oppose. So often I’m on my way somewhere important, I’ve got other responsibilities to satisfy, work to do. It isn’t easy to think that if I do risk so much it will make a difference, that it will change anything! It’s easier to think ‘I’ll just keep on cooking eggs, because it’s really unlikely they’ll do anything to hurt me or mine.’

Except of course when they do it’ll be too late to resist it.

So what then? Is democracy doomed? Is liberal society finished as strong men (in that horrible utterly toxic sense of strength) pat each other on the back while crapping on those who would build consensus, who would think carefully about consequences?

Quite possibly, but I think we have plenty left in our arsenal to oppose these enemies of ours.

Here ‘s my list of how to defeat them.

  1. Recognise them as what they are – your enemy. It will be emotionally challenging to have an enemy, to live with that. But they see you that way already and it doesn’t take two to start a fight, just one person will to hurt another.
  2. Find a way to articulate what you love. We spend so long calling out their bad behaviour or crying about how bad things are going to be that those around us could be forgiven for wondering what we’re actually fighting FOR. For instance. I love equality of opportunity, I love mercy, I love grace and justice. I love respecting others around me. I am a PROUD social justice warrior and I’m proud to say that I want to treat others as if they matter, to help them do better, to help them be all they can be. It’s what I love about humanity and this world I’m in. I will fight FOR that.
  3. Get active. See the cost and do it anyway because this is what we forget: the cost today to oppose our enemies is infinitely SMALLER than the cost that will come when those who hate, those who care only for themselves, get their own way. Look for opportunities to get involved in your community, in charity work, in acts of forgiveness and in acts of saying ‘this is the way to live – the way that values others.’
  4. Resist the urge to become like those who hate the way we want to live – be they craven politicians or compassionless rich or fundamentalist ideologues – oppose them by being defiantly who you are. After all, that’s what drives them fricking nuts in the first place. Call them on their behaviour unapologetically, insistently and don’t back down until you’ve got your way. It’s ok to be a pain in the ass. For goodness sake they are.
  5. Focus on what matters. I see allies splintering apart because they’re played by the enemy or because they’re too worried about the pennies to realise the pounds are slipping through their fingers. Hold on to your perspective, hold on to dissent (unless the dissenter wants you to become less human and/or dead – then kick them hard where it hurts) and make sure you support others who dissent as well.
  6. Finally, in my list of 5(+1) write to those in power, talk to them, don’t block them out, don’t let them live in a bubble, in a world in which they hear only those who approve of their craven ideologies. Act within the rules as much as possible. There may come a time for physical resistance but it’s not now.(after all, nearly all major societal changes involved some form of violent protest alongside long term peaceful protest – be it enfranchisement, ending slavery, equal rights for minorities etc. etc. etc.)

Remember – we’re all flawed, we’ve all got stuff the enemy can attack us over. So it goes – but don’t give up or shy away just because of that. Get into it and fight for what matters. We were naive to expect the fights our parents and grandparents had to settle the matter once and for all. Now’s the time to waken up and be prepared to get angry, to hold that anger and to act for the type of society we love – one built on respect, support and dignity.