Sunday 23 September 2018

The New Set of Grenfell Victims and the Liberals

Humans are gregarious animals and our societies swiftly experience a need of leadership. We progress from using bloody conflict to decide this to developing peaceful political means (elections and referendums for example) and institutions to avoid the bloodshed of conflict. The commonly acknowledged, respected and even hallowed leadership begins with a duty to provide and guarantee social order. The assertions of liberals, set in law, guarantee that the leadership does not prey upon the citizen's freedoms and keeps citizen and leadership in balance. In a change reminiscent of a Beckett-like relationship, mutation has delivered a new kind of liberal; a spoilt and petulant child demanding that the leadership guarantee a perfect experience of reality free from disaster or misfortune of any kind. These children have legal and political power and will accept nothing less than god-like control of reality from their leaders. Victims of a state or a council that fails to provide this perfect reality are actively sought out and a new kind of propitiatory justice demands counter-victims working for the state be punished for the suffering of the first set of victims. The Grenfell Fire, as fires do, made the air in the immediate environment less than perfect and the Council or the state is seen to be the guarantor of perfect air. As a result we now have a new set of victims and the hunt for a new set of scapegoats.

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