“Oi! Paki!” they shouted at me, sitting on Vespas behind an array of rear view mirrors, flying Union Jacks. They were the ‘mods’ and ‘skinheads’. I had something in common with them! I, too, enjoyed music by The Jam. We were all short-sighted back then. Little did any of us realise, just a few decades later, we’d be taking an extended gaze into an array of rear-view mirrors, with 2020 vision bringing into sharp focus today’s multiple logjams over the global ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests. Before unwrapping that, let’s join some dots between psychology, economics and history starting a bit further back in time, a century or two ago.
“Stiff upper lip!” said the Victorians. “Children should be seen and not heard!” That was an era more proximal to the time of slave trading. It was a time when social values celebrated and rewarded risk, emotional stoicism and undertaking risky ventures.
Now, excuse me as I hijack ancient Chinese terminology to label those Victorian values as ‘Yang’. The term ‘Yang’ along with ‘Yin’ captures a profound insight about the pendulum swings between opposites in life. I have failed to find an adequate translation in English. Phrases such as ‘ebb and flow’ or ‘swings and roundabouts’ just don’t capture the essence of Yin Yang. They represent opposites in life, as well as the fact that those opposites are needy of each other and that life’s pendulum swings from one to the other and back again, repeatedly. For example, the bloom of summer cannot happen if the soil is not fertile with nutrients released by the freezing and decay of last winter’s fallen leaves. Summer needs winter. Winter needs summer. Yang needs Yin and Yin needs Yang and they take turns.
Yang captures the virtuous energies of coming forth, stepping up, pushing forward, expansion, adventure, drive, risk-embracing courage and orderliness; but extreme Yang can turn dark and manifest as bullying, oppression, fool-hardy aggression and gung-ho risk-taking. These dark manifestations characterise a dearth of good spirit towards fellow human beings, which can result in dictatorship.
Yin captures the virtuous energies of being flexible, accommodating, yielding, empathic and nurturing and nourishing; but it too can turn dark manifesting as unwarranted risk aversion, stifling smothering, ‘poor me’ victim-playing, whimpering, and staying aloof to induce guilt in others, by which to manipulate and dictate. These are unholy methods of manipulation, in the lowliest of spirit - truly insidious and pernicious – which can result in chaotic disorder. Imagine if everyone were to play Peter and the Wolf. Actually, don’t imagine! Just look around you! Today’s woke mania is dark Yin.
These are matters of spirit. Unfortunately, due to a runaway obsession with objective science, spirit is out of fashion and nobody is willing to brave this topic, even our spiritual leaders, and least of all, our politicians. Below, we will explore spirit. For now, suffice to say everyone, male or female is capable of exhibiting Yin or Yang qualities in their behaviour depending on circumstances. This is why ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are also inadequate descriptors for the Yin Yang phenomenon. However, each of us has a personality with a sweet spot, a comfort zone, tending towards Yin or towards Yang. I have a hunch that there are lots of Yang men, a few Yin men, lots of Yin women and a few Yang women. Yet, Yang men and women and Yin women and men must all co-exist. That’s four sets of people.
Typically, Yang people find themselves at home with meritocracy and political parties, which allow its expression by valuing individual freedom to take risk. Such parties would be right wing, pro-capitalist and libertarian on economics and socially conservative and pro-family. In current times, traditional British values and heritage (including celebration of Empire) fit here.
Typically, Yin people find themselves at home with political parties which celebrate inclusivity and compassion especially towards social groups, which largely regard themselves as oppressed, such as the so-called BAME and LGBTQ. They would lean to the left wing and perhaps be anti-capitalist, even Marxist/communist on economics, socially liberal, and against patriarchy (even without a robust definition of patriarchy). They can even be pro-anarchy, seeking to over-turn traditional social values to seed new ‘progressive’ values, which downplay meritocracy and British heritage (including Empire.) Yin forces of the feminist movement have found a natural fit here. Tony Blair’s labour party enabled the dark side of Yin energy to gain a powerful foothold in modern Britain, seeding the division and wokism we face today.
Over the last two centuries, the pendulum has swung from Victorian extreme Yang towards today’s millennial extreme Yin. A major vehicle for this necessary swing towards Yin was the post-war feminist movement, initially primarily women but now many men too. One can only imagine what inner deep angst and emotional turmoil must have been felt by those Yin men and women who bore witness to the atrocities of the slave trade; and also the deluge of male bodies returning from world wars, shredded like never before, by science’s machines of battle. In those emotionally stoic (Yang) days, the faculty of medicine failed to recognise the validity of deep emotional turmoil within Yin people, especially women, who had to witness such horrors, whilst remaining silenced by the prevalent ‘stiff upper lip’ culture. Medics regarded their internal tornado of emotion as a medical condition called ‘hysteria’. The emotional tornado was, of course, appropriate but at that time ‘mental health’ was not afforded the regard given to physical health. As for spiritual health, that is still disregarded even today. Just look at our priorities; we require Covid 19 victims to die alone in hospital, precluding last rites and bye byes for relatives. That is going to leave a long lasting spiritual toll on those families and its energy will necessarily play out as a drama over coming years.
Such moments of extreme gung-ho Yang, slave-trade and two world wars, are inflexion points fuelling a swing away from Yang toward Yin. A more recent such moment is the extreme Yang of the 2007/2008 financial crisis, which arose from gung-ho risk-taking with complex, convoluted financial products, even by retail banks. Think ‘credit default swaps’ and sub-prime mortgages. The ensuing decade-long austerity for the majority has further powerfully fuelled a Yin sentiment lurching away from systemic risk (Yang); understandably so.
Simply put, unfettered capitalism is Yang’s game. Capitalist theory permits risk-taking, expecting (or rather, hoping) winners will ‘trickle down’ some of their wins to the rest of society. Proper balanced capitalism achieves a semblance of fair play and equilibrium (for the Yin non-risk-takers) by requiring that (Yang) risk-takers bear the brunt of a loss, even elimination, if their risk fails. This ruthlessness towards the failed risk-taker supposedly clears the way for others to serve society by filling the gap left by the failed risk-taker. Schumpeter described such capitalism as a ‘creative gale of destruction’; but to bail out risk-takers (bankers) with the tax money of the non-risk-takers is to hijack capitalism. That hijack of capitalism, has caused the (Yin) non-risk-takers and their children to suffer prolonged austerity and long-term national debt. That is not true capitalism’s fairplay. That is not Yang’s game. That is simply a cheat’s version of capitalism. Capitalism got hijacked by people who call themselves capitalists! Such cheating on the part of people in power is in lowly spirit towards fellow Yin human beings, who never liked the game anyway.
As a result, the last decade has brought another wild lurch away from Yang’s penchant for risk/reward towards Yin’s playing safe. However, sadly, instead of manifesting its enlightened form, Yin energy is currently manifesting its darkest form as woke culture. This has been pushing our nation toward a culture of precautionary principle (extreme risk aversion), gratuitous offence taking (victim-hood), cancel culture (aloofness), feigned empathy (virtue signalling) and calls for lengthy lockdowns (smothering). Woke is a form of dark Yin, very dark, pernicious and insidious. Make no mistake, woke culture has its roots in the third and fourth waves of the feminist movement, essentially a Yin movement, always siding with those who see themselves as underdog. This movement makes no secret of seeking to ‘smash patriarchy’, competition and meritocracy. Thus, it aligns with communism and anarchy groups in seeking to end capitalism, which it regards as patriarchal. For two decades, it has infused education institutions with a new set of staff promoting woke value ideals, which enabled their free run at indoctrination of our youth resulting in today’s snowflake generation. The snowflakes now hold values which fundamentally clash with British heritage values, culture and common sense. As they say, the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.
2020 has brought us to a cultural cross-road. Actually, no! It’s more of a spaghetti junction. The destination we are trying to reach is a fabric of society with a broadly shared set of values underpinning social harmony and stability as the bedrock on which people can get on with their lives building a thriving economy in a democracy respecting open dialogue. The spaghetti is a tangle of twisted roads of the last half century. In addition to perverse economic theories, hijacked capitalist principles and the modern feminist movement (Yin men and women), science also confounds the compass needle. Science has given us some bizarre and nature-defying technologies, which can undermine social cohesion by challenging hallowed traditional codes for a virtuous life, which have survived the test of time. Do scientists have democratic mandate for virus ‘Gain of Function’ research (google it) to engineer viruses that are more virulent or potent than those occurring in nature? Indeed, even atheists admit that some of today’s technological possibilities are problematic if not ‘unholy’, which brings me to the matter of human spirit. It is a thing.
Take Churchill! To many Britons, his was the composed voice emitted from the wireless that lifted their spirits in blacked out homes during war time bombings. That spirit-lifting voice, which boosted hope and fed positive emotion, mattered more than the facts of his geopolitical decision making. Even today, emotion matters more than facts. Churchill was and still is a mascot for positive emotion to a majority of multiple generations in the UK. Whatever macro geopolitical decisions he may have made with whatever outcomes, modern woke culture is trying to undermine that emotional relationship, held by people and families, with Churchill through his voice. The fact-checkers try to discredit emotion because emotion is not fact-checkable. That is not the fault of emotion but the shortcoming of the fact-checker cult and science.
Let’s touch on Empire. What to say? At its height, it embodied British Yang. British culture strode forth across the world for hundreds of years leaving its legacy. Today, across the world, English remains the spoken language of business. Yet, the heady days of Empire are over and expansionism has given way to contraction. Yang has been giving way to Yin for the best part of the post war era. The turn of the millennium marked a significant moment in that contraction of the British Empire; self-determinative powers were devolved to Scotland. As flagpoles in England saw the Union Jack replaced with the St George’s cross, yearning questions rose up from deep within the collective psyche of the English, harking back to pre-Empire days. “Who are we then? Gosh! I forgot. What was Englishness? What is Englishness?”
By this time I was an adult, who had been grappling with such questions since childhood. What is it to be English? I already had my answers. So, in 2000, I became spectator as I watched a decades long national psycho-drama play out. I call it ‘Post-Empire Hangover’; and in this drama, yet again, Yin and Yang feature in starring roles. True to form, the Yang characters want to leave the past behind, push forward and simply move on. Simply! However, Yin characters are frustrated by that, preferring to slowly psychologically process the changes, to dwell on the turn of events as they take time to re-orient, to re-calibrate their compass, to re-draw their internal map of what is reality. Is the sky still up above and the grass down below? What has changed? What has not changed? In turn this dwelling frustrates Yang.
I, the paki, marvelled as the flag that adorned those mod’s Vespas of the 70’s was discarded and the BBC convulsed over the question of Englishness and English heritage. Radio 4 squirmed as it broadcast programmes clutching for answers: what is English dance, English song, English food, where does Englishness begin, where does it end? A BBC anchor presenter, Jeremy Paxman’s somewhat self-conscious series titled ‘Empire’, hungered to find merit in the British Empire project through the eyes of today’s citizens of former colonies.
What is more, heritage is not just a backward looking business. People are constantly seeking to lay down new heritage to mark today’s prideful moments for future remembrance. This happens even at the personal level. I have a white friend, whose deceased relative was a governor in Africa during the British Empire. He recently came across a manuscript of his relative’s memoirs in the attic. He has recently had them published as a book and, of course, with much pride.
I have a relative who, having achieved a high level of business success, recently made an endowment to his former business school to fund a scholarship for social enterprise. He named it after his parents in honour of their story of courage, drive, initiative and perseverance, which lifted them from impecunious immigrant status to high professional success. Future unborn generations of his family will take pride in that, even though the hard work involved will not have been theirs. How is it that the pride arising out of feeling the pedigree running through their veins is felt by future generations? The emotion passes down the line, kept alive in fable, song, folklore, memoirs, trinkets, art and spirit. I call it communal memory. It’s a spiritual thing. Science can’t measure it.
Equally, it works the other way too, on a personal level and in the present moment. I have a black friend, Mike, in the USA whose living grandmother remembers the segregation of blacks to the rear seats and standing on buses in Florida. She is angry. Mike has heard her stories first hand; he is angry. Mike’s 11 year old son is angry; and it’s not just anger. There can also be a sense of shame. “How could my forebears have allowed this to happen? Shame! I don’t want that to be my pedigree! That’s not my pedigree. I’m a person of substance. How could that have happened?” The emotion is felt by new generations. It can pass down the line, kept alive in the depths of the eyes, body language, dance, song, poetry, spoken memoirs, art and spirit. I call it communal memory. It’s a spiritual thing. Science can’t measure it.
Communal memory works on a collective level. How do you think the Jewish community has kept the dream of returning to Israel alive for thousands of years? No wonder Brexiteers call for recognition of a British Independence Day.
Not long ago, a very tall and sturdy white English friend of mine asked my advice about a medical condition on his hand, Dupuytren’s contracture. I informed him it is hereditary amongst Scandinavians and this suggests his forebears were Viking and that Margaret Thatcher also had this condition. His face lit up in marvel as he instantly found a new relationship with his condition – a symbol delivering instant pride borne out of a felt connection to the achievements of forebears, with which he has had nothing to do.
Just white? No! Viking actually! Anglo-Saxon actually! Gaulish actually! Celtic actually! Roman actually! Norman actually! Bavarian actually! So, let’s not whitewash whites. (Pun intended.)
And so too, for the black community! Heritage matters. Lost heritage matters equally. If some English folk find themselves searching pre-Empire times for their lost Englishness, just imagine what it must be like for some black folks. If we English buy into 800 year old pride in the freedoms gained with Magna Carta, then perhaps we can understand how some blacks might buy into 400 year old anger and shame from freedoms lost with enslavement. Empathise. Around that same era, the names, language, culture, beliefs, identity, values and heritage were wiped out for multiple different types of black ethnicities from different tribes. Any systems of order, which those various tribes may have had, have been eradicated. Perhaps an order of seniority, or authority, or respect or homage – who knows? Perhaps today’s black male on black male crime is a 400 year old lost pecking order seeking to re-establish itself. Who knows? I can’t prove that; nor can you disprove that. Not all blacks are the same black… actually. So, let’s not blackwash blacks. (Pun intended.)
When all is said and done, we all just want to feel good about ourselves and where we come from and where we are going. Despite DNA snapshots, despite whatever modern secular, science-obsessed culture says, heritage and roots matter to the spirit enormously. Any good psychologist will tell you it is remiss to think the actions of our forebears have no bearing on our spirit. Heritage matters. Ask orphans. Behold how so many orphans strive to seek out their origins. Roots matter.
With regard to the story of black slavery, pride and shame are two sides of the same coin. They are in sync. If one waxes then, so does the other. If one wanes then, so does the other. If the pride is kept alive, then if without empathy, the shame can be kept alive too.
So now I can highlight another psycho-drama playing out. I might call it ‘Post Slavery Hangover’. Some might call it ‘BLM’. Interestingly, the same characters, Yin and Yang, feature starring roles in this drama too. Yang characters want to forget it and leave the past behind, push forward and simply move on, perhaps because denial makes coping with shame easier. Simply! However, Yin characters are frustrated by that, preferring to slowly psychologically process the past and the changes, to dwell on the turn of events as they take time to heal, re-orient, to re-calibrate their compass, to re-draw their internal map of what is reality.
Not only that, but the playwright has incorporated this drama into a significant number of scenes and Acts of the other drama, ‘Post Empire Hangover’. So we are witnessing a literal interplay – two plays intermingling - with four lead characters and at least five subplots:
White Yin in tug of war with White Yang.
Black Yin in tug of war with Black Yang.
White Yin in tug of war with Black Yang.
Black Yin in tug of war with White Yang.
Oh, and don’t forget gender.
Yang men and women in tug of war with Yin men and women.
White Yin wants to apologise. Indeed they feel a deep-seated yearning to apologise and to also have the apology broadly accepted once and for all. Black Yin wants apology and not just reluctant token apology, but apology with all the hallmarks of authenticity.
In contrast, white and black Yang both just want to move on.
A modest majority of females tend towards Yin. A modest majority of males tend toward Yang.
The best bit is that the playwright has left it up to us to write the ending. What’s yours? Thankfully, Nigel Pocock has published an academic paper entitled ‘The Legacy of Slavery: Towards an Aetiology of African-Caribbean Mental Health’. Look it up. You might find it serves as a useful programme guide to the dramatic performance and actors in both plays.
I hope you are sitting comfortably.