i was pretty busy with election-related stuff on friday & saturday, and trying to recover from it all on sunday. pity that the effort didn't translate into much of a result - at least not as far as the make-up of parliament goes. the MMP vote is looking positive at this stage, but only the advance votes have been counted so far. hopefully the full count will give a much more positive result.
i've put some posts up at the hand mirror in the last week - one on the asian vote, another on racist comments at a national party public meeting and one tonight on more tales from sign-waving.
just to carry on from this evening's post, i don't know if it's just me, but i'm feeling a real upsurge in nastiness of late. it's manifested in a variety of ways, but i think it's influenced by political and public discourse. in particular, the negativity around beneficiaries and single mothers has definitely gotten worse, and that's in direct relation to the welfare policies of the right. the commentary surrounding these policies still paints all beneficiaries as lazy and unwilling to do anything to change their situation.
the negativity is also informed by the likes of paul henry and other media commentators who revel in their apparent freedom from political correctness. which boils down to nothing more that their ability to be nasty about other people without consequence - which they guard as jealously as they can.
all of that stuff affects the way people behave towards each other. once it becomes ok to be judgemental and derogatory to one group of people (say beneficiaries), the shackles come off and it becomes acceptable to target any group for any set of circumstances. and the thing that worries me most about the election result we're left with is that the level of nastiness is going to rise even further in the next three years, in order to push through even more policies that punish the poor for being poor.
2 comments:
Stereotypes Are Dangerous. SaD. I think the country always gets a bit meaner and harder with the Nats. A big reason for this is their use of negative stereotypes to justify punitive policys.
How bad are stereotypes?, here's some examples.
Dirty druggies, bludging beneficiaries, breeding solo mothers, thieving blacks, bra burning man hating feminists and of course the mother of all stereotypes, the greedy jew.
For Some examples of how dangerous stereotypes can be, you only have to look at what happened to the jews, a modern example would be the police and state criminalising cannabis users.
Dont expect the Nats to change their behavior even though our prime minister is vulnerable to the mother of all stereotypes being used on him .....
Dangerous things stereotypes.
Useful when you want to divide and rule.
"For Some examples of how dangerous stereotypes can be, you only have to look at what happened to the jews,"
Godwin much?
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