It’s shocking to see so many leftwingers lured to
the far right by conspiracy theories
George
Monbiot
It’s not just anti-vaxxers. The themes of resisting
power and regaining control of our lives have been cynically repurposed
Wed 22 Sep
2021 09.00 BST
It’s an
uncomfortable thing to admit, but in the countercultural movements where my
sympathies lie, people are dropping like flies. Every few days I hear of
another acquaintance who has become seriously ill with Covid, after proudly
proclaiming the benefits of “natural immunity”, denouncing vaccines and
refusing to take the precautions that apply to lesser mortals. Some have been
hospitalised. Within these circles, which have for so long sought to cultivate
a good society, there are people actively threatening the lives of others.
It’s not
just anti-vax beliefs that have been spreading through these movements. On an
almost daily basis I see conspiracy theories travelling smoothly from right to
left. I hear right-on people mouthing the claims of white supremacists,
apparently in total ignorance of their origins. I encounter hippies who once
sought to build communities sharing the memes of extreme individualism.
Something has gone badly wrong in parts of the alternative scene.
There has
long been an overlap between certain new age and far-right ideas. The Nazis
embraced astrology, pagan festivals, organic farming, forest conservation,
ecological education and nature worship. They promoted homeopathy and “natural
healing”, and tended to resist vaccination. We should be aware of this history,
but without indulging what Simon Schama calls the “obscene syllogism”: the idea
that because the Nazis promoted new age beliefs, alternative medicine and
ecological protection, anyone who does so is a Nazi.
In the
1960s and 70s, European fascists sought to reinvent themselves, using themes
developed by revolutionary anarchists. They found fertile ground in parts of
the anarcho-primitivist and deep ecology movements, which they tried to steer towards
notions of “ethnic separatism” and “indigenous” autonomy.
But much of
what we are seeing at the moment is new. A few years ago, dreadlocked hippies
spreading QAnon lies and muttering about a conspiracy against Donald Trump
would have seemed unthinkable. Today, the old boundaries have broken down, and
the most unlikely people have become susceptible to rightwing extremism.
The
anti-vaccine movement is a highly effective channel for the penetration of
far-right ideas into leftwing countercultures. For several years, anti-vax has
straddled the green left and the far right. Trump flirted with it, at one point
inviting the anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr to chair a “commission on
vaccination safety and scientific integrity”.
Anti-vax
beliefs overlap strongly with a susceptibility to conspiracy theories. This
tendency has been reinforced by Facebook algorithms directing vaccine-hesitant
people towards far-right conspiracy groups. Ancient links between “wellness”
movements and antisemitic paranoia have in some cases been re-established. The
notion of the “sovereign body”, untainted by chemical contamination, has begun
to fuse with the fear that a shadowy cabal is trying to deprive us of autonomy.
There’s a
temptation to overthink this, and we should never discount the role of sheer
bloody idiocy. Some anti-vaxxers are now calling themselves “purebloods”, a
term that should send a chill through anyone even vaguely acquainted with
20th-century history. In their defence, however, if they can’t even get Harry Potter
right (purebloods is what the bad guys call themselves), we can’t expect them
to detect an echo of the Nuremberg laws.
I believe
this synthesis of left-alternative and rightwing cultures has been accelerated
by despondency, confusion and betrayal. After left-ish political parties fell
into line with corporate power, the right seized the language they had
abandoned. Steve Bannon and Dominic Cummings brilliantly repurposed the
leftwing themes of resisting elite power and regaining control of our lives.
Now there has been an almost perfect language swap. Parties that once belonged
on the left talk about security and stability while those on the right talk of
liberation and revolt.
But I
suspect it also has something to do with the issues we now face. A justified
suspicion about the self-interest of big pharma clashes with the need for mass
vaccination. The lockdowns and other measures required to prevent Covid-19
spreading are policies which, in other circumstances, would rightly be seen as
coercive political control. Curtailing the pandemic, climate breakdown and the
collapse of biodiversity means powerful agreements struck between governments –
which can be hard to swallow for movements that have long fought multilateral
power while emphasising the local and the homespun.
So how do
we navigate this? How do we remain true to our countercultural roots while
resisting the counterculture of the right? There’s a sound hippy principle that
we should strive to apply: balance.
I don’t
mean the compromised, submissive doctrine that calls itself centrism, which
leads inexorably towards such extreme outcomes as the Iraq war, endless
economic growth and ecological disaster. I mean the balance between competing
values in which true radicalism is to be found: reason and warmth, empiricism
and empathy, liberty and consideration. It is this balance that defends us from
both co-option and extremism.
While we
might seek simplicity, we need also to recognise that the human body, human
society and the natural world are phenomenally complex, and cannot be easily
understood. Life is messy. Bodily and spiritual sovereignty are illusions.
There is no pure essence; we are all mudbloods.
Enlightenment
of any kind is possible only through long and determined engagement with other
people’s findings and other people’s ideas. Self-realisation requires constant
self-questioning. True freedom emerges from respect for other people.
George
Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário