At the graduation reception for my department last week several new graduates said they had expected me to blog and give my reactions to the Brexit vote in the recent referendum. I had put one or two opinions on my Facebook page, but I wanted to let the dust settle a little and to reflect on the outcome. In doing so I have also heard the reactions of many others around me.
And those reactions have led me to reappraise my position - not because they disagree with me, but because they all feel as I do that as a country we have made a huge mistake that will be damaging both to the UK and its citizens but also to Europe as a whole - and probably to the wider world. And this has led to my reflection that although I know many people both across the University, in Sheffield as a whole, and more broadly across the UK, almost everyone I know shares the same opinions on this key issue. What that says to me is that my network is actually rather skewed - probably to people rather like myself. Put simply, I hardly know anyone who would have supported an 'out' vote or who would have been likely to do so. But at the same time I realize that there must be many people who, like me, have social networks where everyone thinks the same way as them - but where they all voted 'out' and don't know anyone who would have voted to remain in the European Union. Of course I have seen the data that suggest that there were disagreements over the desired result in 15% of households - but that leaves 85% where there was probably a common view.
What this indicates to me is something about the increasingly fragmented and divided nature of British society, where there is reduced contact between social groups defined in a variety of ways. Over the last 30 years or so I have taught, researched and written about social polarisation, social exclusion, segregated societies and the like - not just in Britain but in other parts of Europe. But I suppose that like many academics I have increasingly been looking at these issues from an elite perspective - someone in a steady and well-remunerated job, living in a middle class suburb and surrounded by a network of friends and colleagues - both at work and more broadly - who share similar backgrounds, interests and aspirations. Certainly I have been to some extent a field social scientist, getting out into poorer and more deprived neighbourhoods - I have walked the streets of Page Hall in Sheffield and talked to those who live there, I have undertaken both field and desk-based research in the poorest and most racially tense of the social housing suburbs of Paris, I have done policy-influencing research in the old shanty-town areas around Lisbon. But there is clearly a gap between my articulations of the circumstances of significant sections of society and the way such people see themselves.
Two of the most distressing aspects of the referendum campaign were Michael Gove's statement that people had had enough of listening to experts; and the line taken by one of the advisors to the 'Out' campaign that facts were irrelevant and the tactic that should be pursued was to reinforce people's prejudices. And that is incredibly easy to do in this age of ubiquitous social media which has legitimized the opinion of everyone - however poorly informed or plain wrong - and reduced the value to be placed on the views of those who do actually know what they are talking about in the increasingly complex globalized environment we live in. I suppose I, along with many many academics, count as one of those now-shunned 'experts', emphasizing facts and objective analyses that may not line up with the visceral beliefs of many people in the wider world.
I'm afraid I don't have an easy solution as to how to lead discourses and rhetoric back to objectivity, and understanding of complexity, and the acceptance of the views of those who have spent a lifetime working on particular areas - be those the attraction of foreign direct investment, migration flows, health policy, or terrorism. It may seem a cop out for someone involved in education to point to the importance of that sector: but I firmly believe that education has a major role to play - and at a much younger age than amongst university students.
It is too late to ask for reform of the press in some way - although the half-truths and untruths pedaled by the populist press were a dismaying feature of the referendum campaign, with no countermanding rebuttals put forward. (And I know that there were half-truths told by both sides - the fictitious necessity for an emergency austerity budget in the case of an 'out' result argued by George Osborne, contrasted with the carefully-worded but misleading statements about 'controlling our borders' by the out campaign which never actually said 'we will reduce immigration' although they were read as such by many people, or the probably deliberately misleading statements about the £350 billion contributions to the EU budget (note GROSS contributions rather than NET after receipts are taken into account) and the repurposing of this inaccurate 'expenditure' figure to the NHS.)
My first reaction on 24 June was to feel that the 'out' vote had been a victory of the uninformed over the informed, of the old over the young, and of those with a rosy view of a past world that no longer exists over those with a more realistic understanding of the present and the future. To an extent I still hold to those views. But the crucial questions now are about how to improve the level of understanding of today's world among many sections of society. This is not to blame them - but to point to inadequacies in the flows of information within the UK (and more broadly) which result in the identification of simple scapegoats - the EU for deindustrialisation and the fragile economic prospects of significant sectors of society (whilst the wider influence of globalization remains misunderstood); immigrants for shortages of school places, GPs and hospital beds (whilst long-term under-funding of public services - including the NHS - and poor service planning against predictions of future demand go unremarked). Many of these gaps in information availability come back to rest with politicians and with the political system more generally - those who deal in soundbites rather than real discussion of complexity, those who are responsible for resource allocation and national economic management.
We can't now turn the clock back on the referendum - even though there are now increasing indications that many 'out' voters are having second thoughts. We must look to future debates on major issues. And as educators people like me need to redouble our efforts to reach beyond the 'normal' recipients of our messages. Exactly how to do that most effectively is unclear to me. But we need to involve politicians and the press, to engage with social media - and perhaps we also need to broaden our own understanding of the world views and understandings of those who voted 'out' in the referendum. Perhaps we need to get out and about (even) more and stop talking only to people like ourselves.
And those reactions have led me to reappraise my position - not because they disagree with me, but because they all feel as I do that as a country we have made a huge mistake that will be damaging both to the UK and its citizens but also to Europe as a whole - and probably to the wider world. And this has led to my reflection that although I know many people both across the University, in Sheffield as a whole, and more broadly across the UK, almost everyone I know shares the same opinions on this key issue. What that says to me is that my network is actually rather skewed - probably to people rather like myself. Put simply, I hardly know anyone who would have supported an 'out' vote or who would have been likely to do so. But at the same time I realize that there must be many people who, like me, have social networks where everyone thinks the same way as them - but where they all voted 'out' and don't know anyone who would have voted to remain in the European Union. Of course I have seen the data that suggest that there were disagreements over the desired result in 15% of households - but that leaves 85% where there was probably a common view.
What this indicates to me is something about the increasingly fragmented and divided nature of British society, where there is reduced contact between social groups defined in a variety of ways. Over the last 30 years or so I have taught, researched and written about social polarisation, social exclusion, segregated societies and the like - not just in Britain but in other parts of Europe. But I suppose that like many academics I have increasingly been looking at these issues from an elite perspective - someone in a steady and well-remunerated job, living in a middle class suburb and surrounded by a network of friends and colleagues - both at work and more broadly - who share similar backgrounds, interests and aspirations. Certainly I have been to some extent a field social scientist, getting out into poorer and more deprived neighbourhoods - I have walked the streets of Page Hall in Sheffield and talked to those who live there, I have undertaken both field and desk-based research in the poorest and most racially tense of the social housing suburbs of Paris, I have done policy-influencing research in the old shanty-town areas around Lisbon. But there is clearly a gap between my articulations of the circumstances of significant sections of society and the way such people see themselves.
Two of the most distressing aspects of the referendum campaign were Michael Gove's statement that people had had enough of listening to experts; and the line taken by one of the advisors to the 'Out' campaign that facts were irrelevant and the tactic that should be pursued was to reinforce people's prejudices. And that is incredibly easy to do in this age of ubiquitous social media which has legitimized the opinion of everyone - however poorly informed or plain wrong - and reduced the value to be placed on the views of those who do actually know what they are talking about in the increasingly complex globalized environment we live in. I suppose I, along with many many academics, count as one of those now-shunned 'experts', emphasizing facts and objective analyses that may not line up with the visceral beliefs of many people in the wider world.
I'm afraid I don't have an easy solution as to how to lead discourses and rhetoric back to objectivity, and understanding of complexity, and the acceptance of the views of those who have spent a lifetime working on particular areas - be those the attraction of foreign direct investment, migration flows, health policy, or terrorism. It may seem a cop out for someone involved in education to point to the importance of that sector: but I firmly believe that education has a major role to play - and at a much younger age than amongst university students.
It is too late to ask for reform of the press in some way - although the half-truths and untruths pedaled by the populist press were a dismaying feature of the referendum campaign, with no countermanding rebuttals put forward. (And I know that there were half-truths told by both sides - the fictitious necessity for an emergency austerity budget in the case of an 'out' result argued by George Osborne, contrasted with the carefully-worded but misleading statements about 'controlling our borders' by the out campaign which never actually said 'we will reduce immigration' although they were read as such by many people, or the probably deliberately misleading statements about the £350 billion contributions to the EU budget (note GROSS contributions rather than NET after receipts are taken into account) and the repurposing of this inaccurate 'expenditure' figure to the NHS.)
My first reaction on 24 June was to feel that the 'out' vote had been a victory of the uninformed over the informed, of the old over the young, and of those with a rosy view of a past world that no longer exists over those with a more realistic understanding of the present and the future. To an extent I still hold to those views. But the crucial questions now are about how to improve the level of understanding of today's world among many sections of society. This is not to blame them - but to point to inadequacies in the flows of information within the UK (and more broadly) which result in the identification of simple scapegoats - the EU for deindustrialisation and the fragile economic prospects of significant sectors of society (whilst the wider influence of globalization remains misunderstood); immigrants for shortages of school places, GPs and hospital beds (whilst long-term under-funding of public services - including the NHS - and poor service planning against predictions of future demand go unremarked). Many of these gaps in information availability come back to rest with politicians and with the political system more generally - those who deal in soundbites rather than real discussion of complexity, those who are responsible for resource allocation and national economic management.
We can't now turn the clock back on the referendum - even though there are now increasing indications that many 'out' voters are having second thoughts. We must look to future debates on major issues. And as educators people like me need to redouble our efforts to reach beyond the 'normal' recipients of our messages. Exactly how to do that most effectively is unclear to me. But we need to involve politicians and the press, to engage with social media - and perhaps we also need to broaden our own understanding of the world views and understandings of those who voted 'out' in the referendum. Perhaps we need to get out and about (even) more and stop talking only to people like ourselves.
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