From Brexit to Trump: Why mobilising anger in a constructive way is now one of the key challenges in modern politics

The article originally appeared on June 30, 2016 at the LSE's EUROPP blog:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/30/brexit-trump-mobilising-anger/

Following Brexit, anger is palpable and omnipresent. Scrolling through Twitter as I write this, I find countless examples of anger on social media: Brexit was a cry of anger and frustration, anger of those left behind by globalisation, working-class anger, nationalist anger, Europeans in the UK are angry, anger at the European Parliament, anger produces unusual alliances…

Those disillusioned because of the Leave vote are angry too. Their anger is leading them to question and delegitimise the democratic process: This should have been a qualified majority vote; the UK cannot leave if some of its regions are against it; the over 65 year-olds and the uneducated got us into this predicament; it is not legal to base a political campaign on lies.

In short, anger matters. Our elites have been in denial on the role that the human experience and the emotions associated with it play in the political process. Technocrats and economists have been calmly trying to fix the euro while Greece has been facing a humanitarian catastrophe. The Silicon Valley techies are looking to end human mortality and build life on Mars, while the Bay area is facing a severe crisis of homelessness.

This twisted ambition to perfect the future human experience shows great intolerance towards accepting humanity as it is today, in all its imperfections. This imperfection is reflected in our mortality and our inability to predict the future or control uncertainty and a whole spectrum of good and bad emotions that arise from that predicament. Walter Weisskopf argued in the 1950s that neoclassical economics has the same psychological effect as valium – it is meant to soothe the human anxiety that stems from our inability to topple uncertainty by telling us that the world can be controlled and predictable. I would dare to extend the same diagnosis to the ongoing hi-tech revolution.

This aspiration to build a utopia where uncertainty and irrationality do not exist is in resolute tension with an overflow of emotions that is flooding the world on all fronts. Expert communities which are critical for our economic prosperity are displaying a complete inability to process a healthy range of human emotions and integrate them into the economic and political processes. People are expected to attain the Enlightenment ideal of rationality by eliminating or numbing down their emotions, especially the negative ones.
But that strips people of their humanity, with all the satisfaction and pain it brings, so people resist. Emotions are everything but being contained. And legitimately so, because the situation for many has become so dire that the discussion is no longer about unequal opportunities within the capitalist market place, but about the outright expulsion of certain groups from the market.

In the case of the United States, the events associated with the housing crisis have qualified as racial banishment rather than ‘simple’ displacement of the marginalised. Furthermore, the extreme right is on the rise in Europe through legitimate democratic practices and people are supporting Donald Trump as the Republican presidential candidate in the United States. Without the platform where emotions can be legitimised, they become bloodthirsty and turn into self-destructive anger which gets expressed through democratic procedures such as referendums and elections, as the only public platforms where it has a chance to be heard.

Democracy and anger

In her recent book, Anger and Forgiveness, the philosopher Martha Nussbaum examines the role of anger in the political realm. She analyses the Greek tragic trilogy Oresteia and describes how in the third play, Eumenides, Athena introduces legal institutions in order for the law to resolve guilt instead of the Furies, the ancient goddesses of revenge. Yet, the Furies are not simply dismissed, they are given a place of honour, in a reminder that “the legal system must incorporate the dark vindictive passions and honor them” (p.76).
The Furies accept Athena’s offer and because of this integration into the political system, they change their roles by assuming a gentler temper and becoming the Eumenides (i.e. The Kindly Ones). According to Nussbaum, Eumenides teaches us that political justice does not simply confine anger, but that it profoundly and intentionally transforms it from something inhumane, compulsive and ferocious to something human, reasonable and calm. But in order for that to take place, anger needs to be acknowledged and included into the project of political justice. This is done by moving away from dwelling on a past that cannot be altered and by focusing on the creation of future welfare and prosperity. The focus thus shifts from payback to deterrence.

What implications does this story have for our current political climate? Has the reversion of the Eumenides back to Furies happened because of the failure of our political institutions to honour anger and supply justice? Have the policy makers and expert communities expelled the Furies from the political process by continually turning a blind eye to the painful reality of daily struggles and the anger associated with it?
The Oresteia contains another powerful message: The idea that political justice requires angry emotions to guide it is wrong. Nussbaum warns us about the destructive power of anger and its uselessness for the political process. Yet, she also underlines the importance of recognising and legitimising anger as part of the political process and then focusing on transforming it towards future welfare. If we try to ignore it or rise above it, it will come back to hound us.

She reminds us that democracy requires a certain degree of vulnerability and the acceptance of the fact that our destiny is interdependent with that of others, even those that are different and those that disagree with us. A healthy society encourages people to feel comfortable with such vulnerability by encouraging social trust. Therefore, trust, which starts with acknowledging the emotions of one’s compatriots, needs to be a key concern of any decent society.

Nussbaum brings up the example of Martin Luther King, Jr. who saw anger as an impediment to the pursuit of justice because it blocked the empathy and generosity needed to build justice. A further example is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, which has focused on moving beyond the drama of anger and forgiveness toward the expression of shared values and a construction of attitudes that support trust and reconciliation such as generosity, justice and truth. The focus of the most constructive and powerful social movements historically has been on generous forward looking thoughts rather than on anger.

We need to recognise that it is not possible to banish human emotion from the economic or political experiences and challenges we face. If we want a healthy democracy, we need to cultivate it and show concern for all citizens in order to transition from anger to constructive thinking about future welfare. The focus needs to be on the prevention of ‘democratic wrongdoing’ via greater social prosperity, the reduction of poverty and illness and the inclusion of all citizens. We need to transform anger into generosity and concern for the welfare of all of us in order to deter future anger. That is the only way that democracy can be re-legitimised and redeemed. What we reap is what we sow.

Changing global business trends and Serbia’s obsolete strategy for attracting foreign investment

“At the micro level there seem to be many ideas, energy and creativity in every corner of Serbia. Yet, the country is stuck with an obsolete macro development model and lack of credibility from the international community”. 

Read more on LSE Research on South East Europe blog

Extreme weather policies in the EU and the Balkan floods

My commentary on the Balkan floods for LSE Research on South Eastern Europe can be found here:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsee/2014/05/19/devastating-floods-in-bosnia-and-serbia-call-for-implementation-of-eu-supported-extreme-weather-adaptation-policies-in-the-region/

Rethinking the glass-ceiling for female employees in the Balkans

As a gender issues “junkie”, I have recently sparked a few interesting coffee shop conversations on why women in the Balkans (and elsewhere, I am sure) do not get promoted into senior positions in their work places as often as men do. While nobody denies the gap, many people argue that both supply and demand factors influence it. In this post, I ignore the presence of direct discrimination at a workplace and focus on the more subtle reasons which could explain the glass-ceiling phenomenon. 

The supply side argument of the debate is that women do not want senior positions because they have family responsibilities and thus do not want to have to stay at work late or travel frequently. There is a logical inconsistency between “not wanting to get promoted” and “having family responsibilities”. I wonder if Balkan women would become more interested in getting promoted if their significant others were better at sharing family responsibilities.

The second argument from the supply camp is that women suffer from lower self-confidence than men, underestimate their own abilities and skill levels and therefore do not actively seek opportunities for promotion. Fair enough, I say, without wanting to get into the psychological nitty-gritty of why this could be the case.

Let us now move to the demand side of the discussion. My more honest interlocutors (from the employers’ camp) “admitted” that they highly value women as middle management, because of their great sense of responsibility and meticulousness. However, when it comes to senior positions, they find it difficult to promote women. Their clients expect to be able to call a company director at 9pm to ask about something, they expect to be able to go for dinners, drinks, to be entertained... Most women, again apparently due to family responsibilities, are unable to “keep up the pace” with such social demands (with all these families and small children arguments, who would have ever thought that in reality the birth-to-death ratio is negative across the Balkans). 

Following these discussions, I started thinking about the nature of such social demands and the sexual prism women tend to be observed through, as well as the highly sexualised connotations of female-male interactions in the Balkan work environment. To clarify, I am not saying that this is only the case in the Balkans, but the fact that senior management is dominated by men certainly makes it a lot more awkward for the very few professional women “enjoying” their company. The discomfort some professional women experience in such situations should not be underestimated (the fact that their significant others have a problem with their socialisation does not help either).

Therefore, the root of the glass-ceiling problem often goes a lot deeper than whether women want to pick up their phones at 9pm. It is essentially about succumbing to the rules of the game in a man’s world, because in most scenarios, a man decides whether a woman gets promoted.

God bless the many exceptions to this rule!

A Journey

It was unbearably hot in Santarem. Even a couple of fire ants managed to bite my toes as I was saying goodbye to my friends. They were going back to Sao Paulo, and all I could think about was the boat trip. I needed to get out of that muddy and sticky little town as soon as possible. I was so excited to leave that I decided to spend 10 extra dollars on my boat fare, to get a hammock with air-conditioning to sleep in. It had been a while since I felt anything close to a cool breeze, and after all, it was going to be a five-day boat ride through the jungle to Belem, a city at the mouth of the Amazon river. I deserved to be comfortable during my journey. As I trotted towards the port joyfully, I didn’t even feel the heavy load of my backpack. I must have been a funny sight: all sweaty, yet trying to be somewhat stylish; unable to tame my hair because of the humidity, yet not wanting to give up my shiny Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses which were covering half of my face.

I got to the port at 11am, an hour before the boat’s departure, completely exhausted from the sun and heat. It was a large roofless boat, without a single door or window, and it reminded me of a freight carrier rather than a form of public transport. Hammocks were hanging all over the place, people lying in them, everyone in everyone else’s face, feet, mouth – you name it. A strong smell of sewage was permeating my nostrils as I jumped over millions of suitcases and boxes of luggage. I noticed that others took the instructions of arriving early more seriously than I did, and for a good purpose. The earlier you got there, the farther away from the toilet and the closer to the airflow you could set up your camp. I felt a lump in my throat as I started picturing myself in there for five whole days.

But then it occurred to me. This must be the cheapest class. I’m being silly, I did pay for an air-conditioned area after all. Regaining confidence, I asked for directions towards my compartment. Once I climbed a flight of stairs, I found out that the air-conditioned area was identical to the one without A/C, except that apparently at night, they would put up some windows and let the air in. How they were going to do that in that currently wall-less architectural accomplishment, I couldn’t imagine. But, what can I do, I thought to myself; I can’t possibly stay in Santarem for another seven days until the next boat departs.

I looked for a hammock to accommodate myself into, so that I could sob over my destiny in piece and quiet. I was never going into that toilet, or eating on this boat, I had already had a severe food poisoning in Brazil, which almost cost me my dear life. I’ll probably get robbed as well, but it was all material belongings, I tried to comfort myself. I must admit that my Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses came in handy in those moments, to avoid drawing attention to my despair. I was literally the only foreigner around. As I sat there and sobbed, a lady came up to me and said that I was sitting on her hammock. I started discussing with her that she didn’t have any sign on it indicating that it was taken. After 10 minutes of cumbersome discussion and having drained all my Portuguese language skills, I realised that it was the lady’s hammock. I was supposed to bring my own hammock; you only get the hooks for it included in the boat fare. That was the end of all my hopes for surviving this trip, I was going to have to sleep on the floor on top of everything. How the hell did I get myself into this? I had to do something urgently. I went to look for the boat captain to get some help. He was young and quite handsome in his white captain uniform, so I decided to use all my charm and all my tears to get myself out of this situation. But all he said was: “Miss, are you from Sao Paulo?” which I interpreted as, Oh my God, you’re so spoiled, can’t you handle a bit of dirt? At that point I realised that speaking Portuguese was not going to get me very far. I would have been far better off not speaking a word of it, because I would look more lost and they would be more inclined to help me. There must be some sort of an international silent solidarity pact between those without foreign language skills, I concluded as I realised that my effort to communicate my despair was to no avail. People automatically assumed that I was living in the country, which was true, and that I exactly knew what I was getting myself into, which wasn’t true. I wasn’t sure why these two assumptions would even go hand in hand, but somehow they did.

The captain then suggested I go back into town to buy a hammock since the boat was not going to sail out for another 45 minutes. So there I was, faced with two options – of which each seemed worse than the other, staying on the boat without a hammock for five days, or walking back into town with my backpack in unbearable heat, getting whistled after by slimy men and probably fainting half way down there, consequently missing the boat, which would entail staying in this dreadful town for another week and missing my flight back into Sao Paulo from Belem. 

Then something unbelievable happened, a gleam of hope which completely turned my fortune around. The captain suggested I should get a cabin. A cabin? You mean there are cabins on this boat? “All the foreigners are in the cabins,” he continued. “But it will cost you 200 dollars for the five days.” I was so broke that I contemplated it for a moment; 250 dollars were all I had for the trip. Then I thought of my dearest friend Ms. Credit Card, which I let myself use only in state of emergency. And I swiftly decided that this was emergency after all. I handed the 200 dollars to the captain hoping to figure out the rest of my life once in Belem, which I hoped would resemble civilisation. My 200 dollars would have probably gone missing anyway, I consoled myself, since I would fall asleep at some point in the five days and consequently lose firm grip over my belongings.

I was so happy when I got into my 2m² cabin. I could lock my stuff; I had my own little toilet and a shower head dripping above the toilet seat, as the only water source where you had to do everything from hand washing to hair washing. It was great! And for a second there I had thought that paradise was lost. Nothing was going to stop me from enjoying the Amazon any longer.

But of course it did. I stirred up so much attention with my sobbing, Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and a sudden shift of fortune that many of the locals were quick to befriend me. They were oh so interested to see my cabin. A guy wanted to charge his mobile phone in there, a girl only wanted to see what it looked like, another one wondered whether my bed was comfortable, and the list continued. There was simply nowhere to hide. This must sound arrogant, but having already lived in Brazil for well over six months, I was not into exploring the local culture, I was very tired of being asked for favours or money and touched by random men. My plan was to go explore the nature and think about my relationship which was falling apart. I was moody for sure.

Then came time for the first meal of the day. It turned out that the cabin renters got their meals before everyone else. What we could not eat in the dinning saloon was then taken out onto the deck so that the others could help themselves. I felt bad but I didn’t really have an alternative. I was forced to either participate in the segregation or starve. And I shamefully admit I chose the first. I was comforted by the facts that there weren’t many cabiners and that I didn’t have much of an appetite, so there was plenty of food left behind. One of the cabiners was a girl from the Amazon, who was travelling with her husband and brother. Her brother and she had somehow managed to get to London where she met her German now husband who was proud that he managed to, in his own words, save them from that hellhole they were now visiting, to remind themselves of how lucky they were to have met him, their saviour. There were a couple of others strange looking characters travelling on their own, and as the time passed, they successfully faded out my memory. I also got a feeling that they never left their cabins except to eat. Maybe theirs were more lavish than mine, who knows.

Knowing that I would be stuck on that boat for a while, I accepted my destiny and spent the days sitting at the deck, attempting to read, while getting interrupted every minute or so, by some really tedious person who had to ask me a thing or two. I don’t think I was ever as bored in my life, but from this perspective, I suppose only such an experience could have helped me to get a sense of how long and remote that river was.

It was already dark when we got into an old Belem port on the fifth day. It was surrounded by favellas, a Brazilian version of the ghetto. It looked so scary out there that the captain offered me to spend another night in the boat, since they weren’t leaving until the next day. He thought I would be more comfortable leaving such a dodgy area once the light broke out. I considered his option, thanked him and hit the road instead, although there was a fair chance I would never see the break of light again by doing that. That is how desperate I was to get out of that boat; I was not to last a minute longer in there. I figured there were many people getting off and that I would manage to get a lift by someone into safety. And I did.

As I checked into the hotel, showered and changed, my room phone rang. I picked up and it was one of the guys from the boat inviting me to go out with his friends. Of course, by dropping me off, they saw which hotel I was going to. Reminding myself of the good old "If you can't beat them, join them", I stuffed some money into my back pocket and ventured forth into the humid night.     

On Capitalism and Emotional Detachment

When somebody delivers to me a box of oranges and I pay for it, they are more expensive than in a shop because there is value added in this person’s delivery effort. If my partner brings me that same box of oranges and doesn’t charge me, there is no value added, although the activity is essentially the same. By the same token, if I eat food in a restaurant, I pay for the cook (among other expenses), whereas if my mother does it at home, her cooking effort comes free of charge. So the cook adds value whereas my mother doesn’t. If I take care of my own kids at home, I am an inactive housewife, according to the labour statistics, but if I cater to other people’s children for a wage, while I pay someone else to cater to mine, we make the economy grow. Does this mean that in order for an economy to grow, we need to uproot personal attachments? The less inclined to do favours and the more inclined to charge people for anything that we do for them, the more our economy will grow? The more detached we are from our keen and friends, the better it is for economic growth? Do capitalist accounting standards essentially promote emotional detachment or am I missing something here?

An Ethereal Encounter

She wanted to invent her perfect self. She would rise up each morning, look at herself in the mirror and hate what she saw. Her reflection was certainly not what she had dreamt of becoming. Yet, she couldn’t break the mirror. That would lead to seven years of back luck and little else. She needed a different strategy, one that would make a more permanent impact. She would wander the streets aimlessly, with cars honking at her careless and distracted walk along the edge of the pavement. She would flirt with death like that, day after day, as if it were the only thing that excited her. When she felt that death was not close enough, she would take the elevator to the top floor of one of the skyscrapers in the downtown and gaze into the abyss below. She would close her eyes and picture herself falling and her face hitting the pavement in great speed. It doesn’t matter what she imagined following this collision. Some things should be kept private. Having given vent to her self-destructive impulse, she would go back to her daily errands. She would exercise, cook, and then polish the mirror, keeping her eyes closed throughout this routine assignment. She wanted to dance a waltz, but she hated her lack of grace, so she never bothered.

He wanted to invent the perfect mirror. He would rise up each morning, look at his reflection in the myriad of curved mirrors hanging on the walls of his apartment and hate what he saw. He needed a distinct mirror. His apartment was clogged up with mirrors of various shapes and sizes. Everywhere he looked, he saw a different version of himself, all of which he disliked. The reflections were making him tired, but he could not dispose of the mirrors. He was afraid of the seven years of bad luck he could bring onto himself. He would wander the streets thinking of the perfect mirror. He felt that he was only an inch away of attaining it. He would look at reflections of passers-by in the façades of the glass skyscrapers in the downtown, but he found none of them inspirational. Each one had a curve at a wrong place and none of them moved graciously. He felt like dancing a waltz, but he did not want any of those people to join him, so he never bothered.

One day they met. He looked up from the crevice the skyscrapers in the downtown created, and instead of the sky, he saw her, graciously tumbling down towards him. He spread his arms to catch her and they began dancing their long-awaited waltz, while their ethereal reflection imposed itself onto the façade of a nearby skyscraper. As that moment turned into eternity, she got her perfect self, and he got his perfect mirror.