The Rise of Authoritarian Sympathy Among UK Youth: A Critical Analysis
Today’s woke educational establishment has produced neo-Stalinist cultural-Marxist youth who dislike democracy and even back dictatorship.
By Stephen Bailey. Published 2nd January 2024
A terrifying new survey has determined that a third of the UK’s younger generations think a dictatorship would be a good form of government. The research, undertaken by the ‘Open Society Foundations’ (link here: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/uploads/e6cd5a09-cd19-4587-aa06-368d3fc78917/open-society-barometer-can-democracy-deliver-20230911.pdf), has revealed that just 52% of people in the UK aged between 18 and 34 years old think that democracy is a force for good.
Among those aged 55 or above, the figure is 79%, still a troublingly low figure, especially for a first world, developed, and politically advanced country like the UK. Other findings include that 29% of the young feel that a ‘strong leader’ who did not hold elections was ‘a good way to run a country’, another very concerning result.
How concerning are these findings? Extremely, I say. Young people, who have been conditioned and programmed by the woke (cultural-Marxist) teachers who have now thoroughly seized control of the education sector (at all levels, primary, secondary, and tertiary) across the Western World, are so pathological and desperate to control society and what it says and does (i.e., its direction) that they would enforce and support a dictatorship in order to get their own way. It’s extremely disconcerting to think that such attitudes could exist in this country, one of the most advanced nations in the world. The nation that blazed the trail in developing several political ideas that have become established or adapted and incorporated into the political systems (to varying degrees) in many countries around the globe has sunk to this low. Very unsettling and disconcerting for the thinking citizen.
The current approach of the woke left is to work covertly in the background, silently penetrating the commanding heights (management structures) of all the important sectors of Western society (education, politics, economics, culture et al.) and get themselves into a position to control and direct policy in the direction they desire. BUT, when democracy goes against their agenda, as it has over the UK leaving the EU and in the 2019 General Election (the ‘wrong’ party got in, it should have been their beloved Jeremy Corbyn and his far-left Labour Party), their monomaniacal, pathological bitterness at not getting their way overwhelms them, and they are prepared to countenance dictatorship, showing their real anti-democratic tendencies.
Where do these attitudes come from? In previous post-1945 generations (people aged between 50 and around 83), the accumulated national experiences of the UK’s political development over hundreds of years and during World War Two (the manifest evils of the European dictators) plus the then still-present obvious evils of Soviet Russia had meant that the overwhelming majority of UK citizens subscribed to a consensus that democratic government was the best (or the least worst) to adopt, even if ideas on the exact policies it should adopt differed, sometimes widely, between the left and conservative wings of society.
This consensus began to be eroded during the 1960s. Although this concept has been around for much longer (it was first suggested by the Frankfurt School of thought during the interwar years of the early Twentieth Century, with the initial stirrings of its march through the institutions of most Western countries beginning in the 1960s), cultural-Marxism was given massive impetus by events like the publication of the Macpherson Report of 1999 and since that time has rapidly captured the commanding heights of many important sectors of UK society, such as education, politics, the media, policing, and the judiciary, for example.
As a result, the woke left are in a position to direct public policy in the direction of their agenda and consequently, there has been the fairly rapid transformation of UK society from its traditional basis and values to one ruled by woke ideas and rules.
Both education and politics are vital to current and future conditions in a society, and the liberal-left knows this only too well.
As with other sectors mentioned, the cultural-Marxist left have been slowly but surely entering the education system and gaining control of the management structure so they can influence and shape its future development in a way that suits their agenda.
In this, they have been spectacularly successful and education is now a powerhouse of politically correct thought, churning out ever more students who have been programmed to think of the world in cultural-Marxist terms.
Herein lies the crux of the matter. Cultural-Marxists tend to develop an extremely narcissistic and pathological belief in the moral righteousness of their own views and believe that theirs is the only morally correct way to act (and, by implication, that anybody who holds opposing views (such as conservatives) must be morally defective). When real-world experience means that things don’t go their way, their outrage is often too much for them to bear.
A good example of this is the vote on leaving the EU in 2016. The younger generations of cultural-Marxist Europhiles (pro-EU Remainers) arrogantly believed in the righteousness of the UK staying in the EU. When the perfectly democratically valid decision went against them, they just couldn’t accept it. ‘NO, that’s not the right decision’ they all shouted in their minds when they heard the result. ‘We want pan-European internationalism, not nation-states’ they added.
Democracy had gone against them and their resentment at the ‘wrong’ result was monumental.
A similar phenomenon happened with the 2019 General Election. The woke left were certain of the moral superiority of Corbynism and its ultimate victory over ‘evil’ Conservatism. Then, the real world disappointed them again and the democratic result went against them.
All this frustration simply overwhelmed the cultural-Marxist left, and in their bitterness and anguish, any pretence of holding to democratic methods to achieve their aims were abandoned, and the idea of forcing their ways on the electorate was accepted — they had embraced dictatorship in order to get their way.
This is extremely concerning. It proves that there DOES exist a quite substantial number of far left-wing youths today that often despise democracy and would even support a dictatorship if they don’t get their way, and it’s the woke educational establishment that has made them what they are.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Conservative Friends of Education or the Conservative Party. The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice or endorsement by Conservative Friends of Education.
