Imagined, inherent traits of a group or nationality are not restricted to negative stereotypes. This belief also includes the sense that your country is somehow exceptional and better at government than everywhere else.
We see this in the UK, with many people maintaining the belief that ‘Britishness’ is what sets them apart from the rest of the world. The US, too, suffers exactly the same malaise, often viewing anything south of their country as a land of hot-blooded Latinos who can’t get their act together and run a country.
All these perceptions of one’s own country as exceptional are imagined and treacherous. There is no such inherent trait or spirit. Margaret Thatcher was particularly drunk on such concepts, as she spoke of the special ‘equity’ and ‘fairness’ of the British. She did her country a great disservice by perpetuating such a myth.
However, so many people be-lieved it. If you were to have told me, 15 years ago, that someone like Nigel Farage would succeed in politics in the UK, I would have laughed myself silly. There was no way someone like him could get away with the type of lies he spews out. There is no way such a levelheaded nation, known for its dour thought processes and attitudes, would give in to blatant hysteria and illogical arguments.
At the start of the election process in the US, when Donald Trump was just one of so many candidates in the Republican Party, Ann Coulter said Trump stood the best chance of winning. Everyone laughed at her.
The reality is that they have succeeded where no one ever thought they would.
This is not some romantic, underdog story, but the story of how fragile all countries are regardless of how successful they have been in the past or are today. Photos of Afghanistan and Iran in the 1960s could easily be mistaken for Carnaby Street or Paris. Just look at what happened there.
When a country no longer wants to rely on experts and instead wants to base policy on fears, misconception and emotion, it undercuts every achievement ever made
When a country no longer wants to rely on experts and instead wants to base policy on fears, misconception and emotion, it undercuts every achievement ever made and leads to its downfall. It’s like pilots planning their flight, but based on the insane idea that the world is flat, the plane’s wing flap and gravity don’t exist, but it will all work out, because the co-pilot wore their lucky socks. It just does not work. Government has to work like a machine.
Yes, society is fragile, and in my opinion, no country is more fragile than one which believes it is exceptional. In fact, I firmly believe that the word that captures today’s zeitgeist is ‘disillusionment’. People just cannot believe how fragile their once-sturdy countries are, and it is all slipping away fast.
The complacency of so many who don’t vote or think is partly to blame. However, it is hysteria that is the main culprit, and it is all manufactured on social media. You may think you are not part of it, but if you are on social media, then you are going to have a very difficult time denying your part in all this mess.
It has now been reported that a single man, who is incredibly wealthy, has been funding the campaigns of Trump and Farage. His name is Robert Mercer, and he is also very much connected with Cambridge Analytica, which specialises in ‘election management operations’. This is also known as ‘psy-ops’, which has been defined as “mass propaganda that works by acting on people’s emotions”.
Information taken from your Facebook activity and all of your activity on the net is used to build a detailed profile of you. All of this has been reported in The Guardian (UK) recently.
All that’s needed is for them to process around 300 of your ‘likes’ on Facebook, and they have in their hands a profile so detailed it rivals any Stasi file and is used to manipulate you without you even knowing. The tactic weaponises the internet and can give those in control more power over you than you would ever imagine.
The result is one very rich man creating a world that only he actually wants. They know all your buttons and triggers, and they play you like a church organ.
It is not difficult for a multicultural and open country to turn into the hell that is fascism. It doesn’t take long before a great country can become a rogue country. Perhaps that is why so many people hate refugees. They are a stark reminder of exactly how easily you can find yourself in their position. They are the proof that, given the correct environment, any country, no matter how ‘great’ it is, can fall from grace.
Just look at our own country, and how fragile it is today.
Democracy needs a special kind of vigilance, one that we are still unable to guarantee. We still don’t quite know how social media can be used against us. But I think we’re about to find out. At least Trump can be voted out, up to now at least.
Brexit is forever, and no amount of imagined exceptionalism is going to save it.
Edward Caruana Galizia is an actor and studied psychosocial studies at Birkbeck University of London.