Hard Right Johnson, Wilhelm Reich and the ‘befogging’ of the masses

So said Wilhelm Reich in 1944, “Only on paper does the process of social development appear as easy and pleasant as a taking a stroll through the woods. In hard reality it encounters new and unrecognised difficulties one after the other. Regressions and catastrophes result”.

The election of a Conservative majority government in the UK with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister is definitely a regression and may well be a catastrophe. Johnson’s Tory government becomes the latest in a line of hard right governments that have taken over major geopolitical states. Positioning themselves as daring voices speaking out against the ‘establishment’, despite in fact being the establishment, this model of leader started with Victor Orbán (elected Hungary, 2010). A number of world leaders have followed in his wake, such as Narendra Modi (elected India, 2014), Donald Trump (USA, 2017), Matteo Salvini (Italy, 2018), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil, 2019), and now, Johnson (UK, 2019).

Being right, annoyingly

I saw an acquaintance on Twitter – a Labour-voting millennial – announce that out of guilt, she would be buying ‘reusable make up wipes’; that her new washing machine doesn’t have a tumble dryer; and that she was thinking of buying a bike. This new concern for environmentalism was sparked, she said, as a result of having seen David Attenborough’s latest documentary with footage of overcrowded walruses dying from cliff tops, Extinction Rebellion’s protests and from following on Twitter, 16 year old Swedish environmental protestor, Greta Thunberg.

Greta Thunberg -the new generation’s not-so-new ideas about saving the environment