When Grievance Met Culture
It was perhaps a sketch made famous by Monty Python which first introduced us to the idea of competitive grievance. Four Yorkshiremen share alcohol and ridiculous stories of their deprived childhoods, with each trumping the previous speaker in exaggerated victimhood.
What becomes apparent is that for each speaker, the other three don’t really exist. After each sorry tale comes the derisive line: ‘You were lucky!’ Only their grievance matters.
It’s very funny – but maybe the laughter is quietening now because many believe the emerging grievance culture in the west is threatening both politics and wider social harmony. Research shows what we already know in our bones – that a sense grievance, whether past or present, can poison behaviour and attitudes. A doctor recently said to me, ‘Everyone is just so angry! And I don’t have a cure.’
But the doctor’s despair is the politician’s delight, for this is a tide they can surf. Figures in both US and UK politics amplify grievance daily among specific demographic groups to gain and hold a following: ‘The elite are not listening to you! They don’t care! I will hate the people you hate! I’ll get revenge on them! We’ll drain the swamp.’ The dehumanisation has begun and the orators are riding the crest of a wave.
Nothing but a grievance culture could have created events on Jan 6th 2021 in Washington – an attempted coup by supporters of Donald Trump two months after he had lost the election. And it is not difficult to imagine similar scenes here in the UK in three years time. Who’d have thought? But then grievance, in clever hands, quickly becomes hatred, which is a toxic fuel for action.
It wasn’t always so. In their book, ‘The Rise of Victimhood Culture,’ Manning and Campbell discern three broad historical responses to grievance. They start with the honour/shame culture in which offence is dealt with by direct retaliation, by blood feuds, by pistols at dawn. In honour cultures, the victim has low moral status; it is settling the score which is the moral force.
Then in western societies of the 19th and 20th centuries, the honour culture is replaced a dignity culture. Insults or injury may cause offence but the response is different. Direct but non-violent actions are encouraged. Instead of challenging the individual to a duel, perhaps social contact is withdrawn or the legal path is chosen. Or perhaps a degree of toleration is encouraged, some letting go of the grudge. The moral force here is in the process, in seeking non-violent resolution through societal channels.
But it’s all change now in the emergent grievance culture, where the victim takes centre stage. Neither honour nor process now matters; it is the victim who is granted highest moral status, engendering what Manning and Campbell call ‘competitive victimhood’. Everyone can be a victim now, even the privileged. Hear the cries of wealthy pensioners last year who thought they’d lost their winter fuel allowance. Everyone is now a victim – rich and poor alike. As online algorithms entrap people in ever smaller communities, echo chambers of their particular grievance, moral worth is now something defined by victimhood, by the colour of your skin, (whatever the colour, you have a grievance) or fixed identity groups with the divine right to ‘cancel’ opponents.
JK Rowling goes from saint to pariah in no time at all, because of her understanding of gender. Who JK Rowling is beyond this particular belief is of no consequence. Vicious verbal assaults and death threats multiply. And whether you agree or disagree with her is not the issue. We’re just watching how the grievance culture, fed and watered by social media, operates. What you believe in matters; but who you hate is equally important.
It’s not that grievances don’t exist in the world and need urgent attention. Paradise was lost a while back and injustice swaggers. And so our island history is full of brave souls addressing grievances. Without them, we’d have no Magna Carta, no (official) end to slavery, no fight for universal suffrage, or the creation of the NHS or the exposure of the Hillsborough, Windrush and Horizon scandals. Grievance can be a moral cause.
But what is different in the grievance culture is the hell of separation, the loss of connection with others; the demonization of those outside the circle. It doesn’t want you cheerful; it wants you consumed by rage. With the gift of hate, it offers you identity not for being yourself but for not being someone else: ‘Thank God I’m not a Pharisee!’
The grievance culture baptises the victim’s self-pity which is unwise. It offers only one prism through which to look at the world, when one prism quickly becomes stupid. Racism exists but not everything is racist. Fascism exists but not everything is fascist. Misogyny exists but not everything is misogynist. Immigration causes problems but not every problem is caused by immigration. Single prisms suck the humanity out of our shared existence. They stop contact. As with the four Yorkshire men who couldn’t listen to each other, no one else really exists once we step on board the victimhood carousel.
In this climate, consensus-builders are mocked as weak while grievance entrepreneurs are celebrated as bold and people with answers.
The 1997 film, ‘Life is Beautiful’ is set in a Nazi concentration camp, as a Jewish Italian bookshop owner tries to protect his son from the horror, by reframing the things that are done. It is not just a comedy but it is a comedy and received mixed reviews for this reason. While many were moved, others asked if laughter could sit comfortably with genocide? Should we not just be angry? But what endures about the film is the attempt to reach beyond politics and difficulty towards a celebration of human ingenuity. Here there is the prism of anger, without question. But here also is the prism of human spirit and joy. Two prisms are better than one.
We don’t know what the future holds, but if the quality of the journey defines the destination, we’ll look for politicians who live from joy rather than rage. The grievance culture is rooted in pessimism while joy is rooted in hope and gratitude, which are better colleagues. And we’ll celebrate prophets who speak truth to power with due ferocity – but do not speak hate to their followers, for hate is a false identity and an emotional cul-de-sac.
And maybe beyond lies a larger and more truthful response to the unfairness and beauty of life. We can surely do better than the four Yorkshiremen?
