The ruling class has always been adept at exploiting divisions – be that religious or political sectarianism or nationalism. It has also learned how very effective ideological controls can be, allowing it to keep more overtly coercive measures in reserve, or targeting them at specific groups or countries.
For example, dipping into the old well of Russophobia was useful in fomenting anti-communism, and is useful now in whipping up a fever for war against Russia even among many of those who would usually call for détente.
Several inter-linking phenomena characterise what we call the neo-liberal era in which we have seen a massive surge in the power and reach of global corporate capitalism.
All these phenomena were aimed at cementing the power of the global elites and include:
declaring the “end of history” and of class-based political theories, heralding increasing political fragmentation on the left, and consolidation of the power of elites;
use of powerful global financial institutions coercively to enable the predacious stripping of public assets, and increasing global corporate profits by driving down pay and conditions, eg. the IMF's insistence on denationalisation, and imposition of “austerity measures”;
the destruction or neutering of working class collectives which were not just important for wresting concessions out of capitalism and its compliant states, but in creating and transmitting alternative narratives to those of the capitalist hegemons;
the crushing by force of some liberation movements, and the co-option and corruption of others, (eg. the rise to dominance of corporate or choice feminism after a blitzkreig of opposition to socialist and radical women’s liberation);
the promotion of hyper-individualism which deemed the Individual Person to be paramount, and not just the Individual as a Body but the Individual as an Identity;
expanding the ever useful cult of celebrity beyond Royalty, Iconic Heroic Figures and Movie / Sports Stars into the virtual world of Those Who Are Famous For Being Famous (and almost always, Fatuous).
All of the above required the expansion of the strata of enablers – the dense insulating layer of a technocratic-professional-managerial class.
Enablers have always existed but GCC has consolidated and expanded them into a dense insulating mass of a well remunerated, high status technocratic-managerial-professional class whose stake in the status quo is as deep as the controllers/owners of global corporate capitalism themselves.
Lower layers aspire to be part of that stratum and/or are beholden to it by virtue of being dependent on its spending power. More importantly perhaps, they are fearful of falling into the stratum below – the huge and increasing mass of the indigent which increasingly includes the working poor, those whose work doesn't cover or barely covers the costs of their subsistence.
Anything which threatens global corporate capitalism also threatens both its enablers, and all those others who have bought into the superficiality, short-termism and egocentrism of its various ideologies and their fragmenting, diversionary intent.
This is nowhere better illustrated than in relation to the cult of individualism and its partner in crime, identity politics.
The digital era has not just facilitated the explosion of global corporate capitalism, especially finance capitalism, it has granted GCC and its compliant states unprecedented control, including over information.
Faced with the subversive potential of the internet and social media, one countering strategy has been the enabling of a host of large-scale and miniature Influencers, each peddling their monetised aspirational and individualising messages, and gathering unto themselves, a virtual congregation.
Humans are profoundly and instinctively social. We clump – only damaged humans are extreme isolates – but we did not evolve in massive congregations, like wildebeest, for example. We evolved in small clans and possibly the relatively (in evolutionary terms) recent phenomenon of being forced into vast physical (and latterly, virtual) populations is stressful, so smaller scale convocations are comforting. They fulfil the need to belong, and they also allow the person to feel they are more than just a cog in a vast impersonal machine.
In a world in which the notion of the Individual has become not just reified but heavily commodified, and in which people are constantly exhorted to be “the Best Possible Version of Your Self” – in order to stand out from the teeming on-line masses as an Individual, you must have not just have (or pretend to have) the Best Possible physical form, you also need a Special Identity.
The rush of young people to embrace the ever-expanding notion of a bespoke gender identity may on one level be seen as just another sub-cultural phenomenon.
However, its core attachment to the notion of a soul-like, immutable gender essence housed in a mutable body – which can or even must be tailored to match the gender essence as far as various forms of surgical, chemical, prosthetic body modification will allow – takes it into the realms of a quasi-religious movement.
Unlike most youth sub-cultures, in which style, language, intra-group mores etc serve to signal a separation from, and rejection of outsiders, gender essence adherents want to impose their beliefs and sub-cultural attachments on others – ALL others.
It has become like a proselytising cult and at the moment it is being actively embraced and promoted by a host of powerful institutions – giant corporations, governments, NGOs, trade unions, voluntary organisations, lobby groups, media – hardly a mainstream voice is raised to question any of it.
The questioning voices initially were socialist and radical feminists who dared to point out that the emperor’s dangly bits were on full display. For their principled stance they have been consigned – most viciously and vociferously by the neo-liberal left – to the realms of not just social conservatism or the moderate right, but to literal Nazism.
The hyperbole or extremism implicit in the use of that inaccurate and offensive label owes a lot to the proselytising nature of the cult with its "pick a side" rhetoric that is worthy of George Bush in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.
Coat-tailing those gender critical feminists are rising numbers of right wing or socially conservative institutions and individual right-wingers who have realised this is a useful weapon to advance their own political and economic game plan – their start point being to label the gender essentialists as being on the far-left.
That an essentially individualist and individualising ideology which seldom comes close to questioning, let alone posing a threat to the status quo should be deemed to be far-left is a measure of how far right politics has slid in the past half century. It's possibly also a measure of how incredibly dumb some right wing commentators are, and/or how dumb they think their audience is.
Sadly, some gender critical feminists, including some who ought to know better, think they can hunt with a predatory beast and not at some point become its prey du jour but that's a theme for another day.
The resulting inchoate mess has been aided by the failure of the old Red Left to pull its collective head out of its 20th century schisms, and work to re-establish a broad alliance to take back some ideological and political control – to at least regain a power balance, before we’re all toast.
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