Many working-class leavers were not motivated by self-interest, but by values. Well-off liberals who back tax rises should understand that
By Gary Younge for The Guardian
In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, there is a moment when Augustine St Clare, who owns Tom, suggests that he is better off as a slave than he would be as a free man. “No,” insists Tom. “Why Tom?” asks St Clare. “You couldn’t possibly have earned, by your work, such clothes and such living as I have given you.” “Know’s all that Mas’r,” says Tom. “But I’d rather have poor clothes, poor house, poor everything and have ’em mine, than have the best, and have ’em any man else’s.”… infantilising people in the name of their own advancement is a bad thing – it is counterproductive. When you start from the premise that those who disagree with you are acting illogically or are too unsophisticated to understand their own interests, no meaningful political engagement is possible …… It is mythical about the past: those who evoke the wars conveniently forget that they could not have been won without allies. Those who evoke the empire conveniently forget that it could not have been maintained without brutality (as the current furore over Winston Churchill’s legacy illustrates). It is obtuse about the present: countries evolve, borders shift, identities develop. Our royal family is German; our favourite food is Indian; …
The mythification of the past.
I remember this old crass crank who obliquely took a jab at me, after telling that he will be going to Iceland on holiday, that Iceland was also colonized, all this making an indirect reference to a post on my blog (I never told him I have a blog). I ignored him, if he is not a coward he would have at least debated me.
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