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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

‘social change’

Citizen-Driven Community and Nation Building #2

PART 2 The social system and its citizens As governance of social systems such as nation states become more complex over time, the distance between the citizenry and the social structures built for their benefit tends to grow. This results in a sense of victimization in citizens and a loss of accountability in leaders, as an increasingly-centralized government fails to meet the expectations of the people it is intended to serve. Mike Jay (2010a) identified 6 factors in social change, each of which operates at a different speed:- Core – The basic social operating system Culture – The solution set; that is, response systems and vMEMES manifested in beliefs and behaviours (memes) Code – Algorithm developed through learning and evolving human consciousness Conditions – Iintensity of the situation or change Context – Perception of reality based on a frame of reference Content – The actual representation of reality as we perceive it As scientific and technological advances enable us to create new systems and realities at an ever faster pace, the development of content is exponentially faster than development of the other dimensions, as illustrated in the chart below (Jay, 2010b)… The discrepancy between content (an increasingly intricate social reality) and the… Read More

Enoch Powell: Racist or Prescient?

30 April 2018 In April 2018 there was quite a  fuss about the 50th anniversary (20 April) of Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘rivers of blood’ speech. For example, Powell was described as “quite dishonest” by The Independent’s Sean O’Grady. Sky News’ Lewis Goodall argued at length that Powell was a racist and a populist. As reported by the likes of The Guardian’s Mark Sweeney and the Evening Standard’s Fiona Simpson , the BBC’s Radio 4 came under intense criticism for having broadcast the speech transcript (with critical analysis). Several expert contributors publicly dissociated themselves from the broadcast while former transport minister Lord Andrew Adonis threatened he would raise the matter in Parliament. So, it seemed appropriate to look again at Powell’s speech from an Integrated SocioPsychology perspective, explore how racist it really was, how prescient it was and how the contemporary United Kingdom looks in terms of Powell’s predictions and their impact. How relevant it is to today’s political landscape  is illustrated by Matthew d’Ancona who writes in The Guardian: “Powell was wrong about so much. Yet Powellism found its purest expression in the 2016 EU referendum result, which enshrined the convergence of two of his greatest fixations: hostility to immigration and opposition to Britain’s… Read More

Just what is Nigel Farage up to?

Well, one glance at the papers over the past few days and it’s pretty clear that Nigel Farage is back in a big way. He’s rather grandly attempting to shape the Brexit debate, reinvigorate –  if not relaunch – the Leave campaign and position himself as the Great Saviour of the referendum result of 23 June 2016. Not that Farage has ever exactly gone away; but his credibility as an influential politician has been in steady but sure decline for over a year. He may have been the first foreign politician to visit Donald Trump following his election; but, as reported by commentators such as The Independent’s Joe Watts (2016) any hope Farage had that Theresa May might use him as go-between with Trump were swiftly dashed by Downing Street. Then there was the disastrous endorsement of far-right Republican Ray Moore in the Autumn 2017 campaign for one of Alabama’s Senate seats. Not only did Moore lose the election in large part due to serious allegations of sexual assault but Farage foolishly defended Moore against the allegations – as reported by The Independent’s Andrew Buncombe (2017a). Perhaps the nadir of Farage’s post-referendum political life was last Monday 8th’s meeting with EU chief… Read More

Online Censorship: where do we draw the Line?

by Carla White  I am delighted to publish this ‘guest blog’ by Carla White. Carla is an experienced writer and blogger who describes herself as “passionate about looking deeper into the world around us”. She writes ‘alternative’ news posts for numerous websites and also has experience running and maintaining websites. She says: “You can always find me at my laptop, with a cup of coffee!” You can email Carla to find out more about her work. Social conditioning has a considerable effect on crime. It was Émile Durkheim who first noted the existence of a values consensus when, in 1893, he wrote about a collective consciousness that defines societal norms and makes certain acts unthinkable to conforming citizens. This idea is one regularly used by governments as justification for censorship. By reiterating the taboo nature of certain topics, they hope to reduce mass indulgence in these things. Admittedly, this tactic has seen success. Child pornography, bestiality and cold-blooded murder are just some examples of topics that incite shock and terror in the hearts of most. However, whenever information is restricted on a national scale, an ethical question is raised. At what point does information control become an active manipulation of the collective conscience? A brief… Read More

How the Plutocrats are waging War on the Bureaucrats… #2

PART 2 Tax obligations and ‘offshoring’ Besides intensely disliking bodies like the European Union due to the laws and regulations they impose on issues like consumer rights, health & safety and worker’s rights, the Plutocracy and the Elite have another very real reason to want to see such bodies severely emasculated if not actually broken up: tax. ‘Offshoring’, in the words of John Urry (2013), “involves moving resources, practices, peoples and monies from one national territory to another but hiding them within  secrecy jurisdictions as they move  through routes wholly or partly hidden from view. Offshoring involves evading rules, laws, taxes, regulations or norms. It is all about rule-breaking, getting around rules in ways that are illegal, or go against the spirit of the law, or which use laws in one jurisdiction to undermine laws in another. Offshore worlds are full of secrets and lies.” Secrecy jurisdictions – or ‘treasure islands’ as Nicholas Shaxson (2011) terms them – are tax havens which provide varying degrees of secrecy – ie: freedom from disclosure. This is to attract foreign individuals who wish to hide assets or income to avoid or reduce taxes in the home tax jurisdiction. Relevant laws and approaches to the… Read More

How the Plutocrats are waging War on the Bureaucrats…

11 July 2017 In seeking to explain the 2016 EU referendum result, the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency and the rise of white working class right-wing nationalistic populism in general across much of Europe, many commentators, such as Rob Ford (2016) in The Observer, have portrayed these things as consequences of the relentless growth of globalisation. As the transnational corporations have created a New International Division of Labour pitching their operational bases where labour is cheapest – eg; North Africa, South-East Asia – so the traditional white working classes in the West have become the ‘left-behind’. As explored in Underclass: the Excreta of Capitalism and So the Turkeys did vote for Christmas?!?, the resultant competition for the jobs there are left make them particularly susceptible to racism, xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment. For the PURPLE vMEME, with its safety-in-belonging need threatened by those not-of-our-tribe, this is a not-unnatural reaction. See: Is Racism Natural..? There is a complexity in this scenario, though, that is not always acknowledged – particularly in the way the mainstream media often tell the story. At the time of writing, as widely reported – eg: Mehreen Khan in the Financial Times – the UK has its lowest unemployment rate… Read More

Breaking-Up Britain needs a National MeshWORK

It’s to be seriously hoped that Theresa May doesn’t get the landslide victory on 8 June that was initially predicted – and which she clearly aimed for in calling a snap general election on 18 April. As discussed in 8 June: Time for a Change!, she clearly thought she would be able to crush a weak and ineffectual opposition. To her chagrin though, Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran speaker at  public rallies, has proved a robust and highly effective on-the-stump campaigner. Although greatly under-reported in the largely right-wing dominated mainstream media, he has consistently pulled crowds in their thousands to his campaign events. In spite of the under-reporting, there has been enough grassroots and social media activity to get at least some wider attention to them. In comparison Mays’ carefully stage-managed appearances before mere handfuls of Tory activists would have seemed pitiful if not for ‘doctoring’ of the photos to make the audience seem that much larger. (See the examples below.) Slowly but surely Labour have closed the gap on the Tories in the opinion polls. Whether they can close it enough by 8 June – assuming, of course, that the polls are reasonably accurate –  is a different matter. The third factor in all of this is… Read More

2009

A Year of Starts and Stops… 1988-1996    1997   1998     1999     2000     2001    2002      2003     2004     2005     2006     2007     2008     2009     2010     2011     2012     2013     2014      2015     2016     2017     2018      2019     2020    2021-2023 21st Century Group     HemsMESH     Humber MeshWORKS     Humberside MESH Network Gallery: Rossett Year 13 Psychology students in publicity poses taken during an actual lesson, January – all photos by Lynda Lee/Rossett School – click on photo to enlarge February: For the first time, provided general tuition support to 2 university students doing degrees in Psychology. Commentary: One was ‘Julie’, the young lady who had previously been an A-Level tutee and then come back to  me the previous August. The other was an Open University student. Both found my explanations easier to understand than their respective university tutors! March: The results from the January Psychology exams showed another good smattering of As, Bs and Cs. In the Health & Social Care results, most of the students had got their target grades while 2 had exceeded them. Commentary: Considering how fraught things had been with this very mixed ability class at times, overall these were very pleasing results. March: Asked by Spiral Dynamics… Read More

8 June: Time for a Change!

Theresa May’s decision to hold a snap general election on 8 June is being widely seen as an attempt to further weaken – if not outrightly dismantle – a crisis-ridden and ineffectual Labour opposition and to gain a much larger Tory majority in the House of Commons. It was also quite explicit in her 18 April speech announcing the election – see the newsfeed video clip below – that she wants that increased majority so she can eliminate any opposition in Parliament to pushing through her version of Brexit.   May named the House of Lords, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists as being the ‘enemy’. In a sense it was a little duplicitous for her to include Labour in quite the way she did. Jeremy Corbyn has been reported – eg: The Independent’s Rob Merrick – as saying Labour would vote against a final Brexit deal it didn’t approve of and Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer – as reported by The Guardian’s Rowena Mason & Anushka Asthana – has proposed  that the UK could still participate in various EU structures and agencies post-Brexit. However, in general Corbyn has been broadly supportive of May’s Brexit tactics so far. He… Read More

2004

The Beginnings of ‘Integrated SocioPsychology’ 1988-1996    1997   1998     1999     2000     2001    2002      2003     2004     2005     2006     2007     2008     2009     2010     2011     2012     2013     2014      2015     2016     2017     2018      2019     2020    2021-2023 21st Century Group     HemsMESH     Humber MeshWORKS     Humberside MESH Network January: Facilitated a session in Grimsby on Learning & Change for Common Purpose South Humber as part of their ‘Profile’ programme. Commentary: The contact with Common Purpose South Humber was made via former Common Purpose in Hull director David Burnby who had been inspired through training with me in July 2001 to go freelance. David was much impressed with my training style and the Gravesian approach. In 2002 he had co-promoted the third delivery of An Introduction to Spiral Dynamics & Related Models of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and also sold an in-house version of the programme into Hull’s Preston Road New Deal for Communities project. January-April: Delivered Understanding MeshWORKS for North Lincolnshire Council Community Investment Team members who had not been on the first tranche of training in late 2002. Commentary: Jenny Gavin-Allen saw the need for as many members of her team as possible to be exposed to the Gravesian approach, related models… Read More