The digital world is a hard edged one. Computing’s molecular level is binary coding, where all is either 1 or 0. Data must exist in one state or another, recorded in only one sharply ruled box on the spreadsheet; only one option must be ticked on the questionnaire, or the whole data set becomes invalid. 

Categorisation is a process of simplifying and fixing things in place, pinning them down. It makes the defined thing dense, impenetrable and undeniable; enduring, yet at the same time diminished, lacking in potential and numinous mystery. Categorisation encourages rigidity, singular identities, oppositions, conflict. The mutual exclusivity of categories (and hence tribes) sets one label against another, breeds antagonism. 

Tribalism and hostility are natural human states, but our sentient, cognitive states are fluid and unreliable. We are creatures of blending and ambivalence, of indeterminate states and confusions. We are changeable and self-contradictory. That’s why we seek certainty and explanations.

In the world before Google we had to live with this desire being thwarted – never discovering the answers to many of our questions, and thus allowing more than one possibility to exist simultaneously in our brains. Isn’t this what Keats meant by Negative Capability, a phrase he coined in 1817, and that he felt was fertile ground for creativity? 

Younger adults, especially, are at an age of self-determination. They crave certainty and the safety and predictability it brings, as they set out alone into the world beyond the family and try to establish themselves. 

The internet, virtually wired into the brain of anybody under 30, gives us the illusion that such certainties are the normal state of affairs. Even when we define the categories ourselves and create the labels and neologisms, they become instantly hard and crystalised: set in stone. And any attempt to question our positions, or moderate or alter our stance, must be an act of aggression, of enmity, a Viking raid, to be greeted with alarm and distress and rage. 

The coders and programmers who developed the internet, especially its social-media functions, are (largely) American. They have had their consciousnesses grown in the warm bath of heroic pioneering Individualism and Reaganite Market assumptions. They have taken it for granted that humanity’s greatest aspiration is the desire to stride out, alone, into the wilderness and tame it, to bend it to your individual will, to make it fruitful and profitable. 

Thus, they assume constant progress and innovation must be unquestionably good whatever their consequences. This also allows profit-seekers to constantly abandon markets as they become saturated, and develop new ones, encouraging ceaseless consumption: slash and burn economics. The wealth this brings to some of them seems to confirm progress and innovation’s inherent virtue and rightness. 

The belief that unfettered market capitalism is entirely natural, part of the freedom of the pioneering frontier, means that online innovators have funded themselves and their inventions by pitching the internet to investors as a way of making money. They’ve pointed out the potential to turn users into consumers in new ways: to monetise them.

Taming the wilderness of the human world has come from AI’s incredible ability to compile statistics on humanity’s unruly activities and behaviour, as recorded on the web. Human behaviour can be defined in countless categories and then tabulated. Correlations can be found between all sorts of different categories, allowing for incredibly precise predictions of interests and future behaviours. Human beings are turned into statistics, numbers, as money is. Their madcap lives become regulated, predictable, limited by rigid categories and definitions.

Do these assumptions and practices somehow bleed out from the algorithms into the online communities? Is this why the internet generations are so obsessed with defining and labelling themselves and each other in mutually exclusive categories: Cis-, Het-, Trans-, Bi-Curious, Of Colour, White Privileged, TERF? 

In the West, we have all been liberals, of one sort or another, since at least the 18^th century. Its victory has been total.

But from the foundational beliefs in liberty, equality, celebration of the individual and the consent of the governed, many political theories have been constructed. Liberalism has socialist and capitalist factions, as well as any number of socially moderated market models in between.

We have taken it for granted that liberty means personal, individual freedom to do and say exactly what we want, as long as it doesn’t hurt other people. This is the basis of pluralism, multiculturalism and diversity.

But there is a darker, egocentric and self-indulgent side to individualism. With the decline of religious belief in the west, access to the numinous, to transcendence, has been lost. The human consciousness has been thrown back on its own resources to find meaning. 

Self-realisation, the quest for Eudaemonia, has come to be recognised as the highest good. We all seek to become the best version of ourselves, to live our best lives. An enlightened individual, and their sense of identity, has come to be the highest unit of value.

But to a cynic this is nothing more than self-indulgence. We have consecrated self-gratification as our most exalted purpose. Human existence has been reduced to omnivorous consumption – of enlightening ideas, of formative experiences, of educational opportunities to better ourselves, of entertainments that enhance our moods and pass the time, of delicious foods, of flattering fashions, of possessions that empower or satisfy or adorn.

And this is all so self-interested that it degrades the idea of community to the point that Mrs Thatcher could declare, to much right-wing approval, that “There is no such thing as society.” 

We forget that we are herd animals, at our best and happiest in the physical presence of groups that recognise and value us. Spending time with these accepting people can be mysteriously and profoundly satisfying (although we are all, undeniably, creatures of appetite and yearning and will thus never find complete fulfilment.)

To deny that, to focus solely on our own personal development leads to alienation and loneliness and misanthropic ennui and black despair. 

And the bizarre and groundless self-invented identities and labels we come up with cannot substitute for that lack of deeper nourishment. And the “Communities” of like-minded “Transgressives”, attenuated trans-continental webs of electronic data, tiny, equally miserable faces on your screen, will not provide you with the support you need.

You must think I’m a crazy Tory, now! I’m not! I promise! I know I’m exhibiting a conservative fear of the destructiveness of change, but I’m a democratic socialist to my very core. (In its simplest, earliest form: a belief that government should be by, and for the benefit of, society, and only as a result of this for the benefit of the individual. I’m absolutely NOT a Communist.) Democracy is a pragmatic, organisational principle, but socialism is a profoundly moral one. These are the principles that the new identarian, Social Activist, self-proclaimed “Left” have betrayed. 

The internet is a trojan horse, or an underground pipeline, secretly feeding corrupting right-wing libertarianism into the brains of its users and telling them that, because it is a form of “liberalism” that exalts the rights of the individual, and market equality, it must be a form of socialism.

In the Colston case, it is fine. I’m just pointing out how lucky we are. I don’t think there have been any further outbreaks of anti-statuary violence since Colston met his ignominious end. But that is because most British citizens have continued to observe the rule of law, at least by default, because we couldn’t be arsed to break the rules, because some of us have work in the morning. (Activists are often people with time on their hands.) And, in a very small, unthinking way, that is still a decision made. 

But it seems increasingly dangerous, in the age of Brexit, Trumpism and QAnon, to rely on “The People” acting with common sense as our sole defence against anarchy or the autocracy that inevitably follows it. 

I think in the Colston case some sort of collective response was necessary, not just to the act of destruction itself, but to the acquittal and its implications, even if it was simply to carry on as normal. These events have a subtle, subconscious effect. They start a tiny shiver in the pit of the stomach, of delight, or dread, or both, at the realisation that life, when stripped down, is lawless. Beneath the institutions and the expectations, the taboos and the conventions, people can, and will, do whatever the fuck they feel like. And feel self-righteous in the doing of it. 

With enough support or power, no-one needs to pay heed to your reservations or objections because neither democracy nor human rights have any independent substance in the world. They are not a necessary part of human existence; they are vague abstractions, unenforceable truces and treaties: promises to treat others well, if they promise to treat you well. And these promises can be broken whenever anybody feels like it. 

So justice will not prevail, eventually; it won’t be alright in the end or on the night. All is not for the best in this best possible world. There is no way out. 

No one is coming to rescue you.

Those infamous photographs of American lynch mobs from the ‘20s and ‘30s display groups of people who have taken the law into their own hands and felt self-righteous in the doing of it. There are photographs of Emmett Till’s murderers, celebrating their acquittal, looking just as jubilant as the Colston four. 

Support for the action of the Colston 4, rather than sympathy for their beliefs, (and, more importantly, their acquittal) is more troubling than the initial vandalism of an obscure statue of an old-time slaver. Those of us on The Left found it hard to suppress a wicked sense of glee, as we read about this flouting of the stuffy old system, at the thought of the outrage and alarm of those red-faced old racists.

But our laughter was complacent. We were assuming that people can take the law into their own hands, if they sincerely feel they are in the right, and everything will be absolutely fine. We could dismantle any protections against arbitrary, even destructive, political action and create a society without consensus and agreed codes, but by some miraculous process, no malign actors could possibly take advantage of this. Perish the thought! 

These assumptions are the result of all of us growing up in a country and society that is largely peaceable and nurturing; that provides us with at least basic education, and healthcare that’s free at the point of provision, that allows us to voice most opinions without serious suppression, that doesn’t arbitrarily imprison most of us. Or execute us. Most of us. Or at least most of the sort of people who go on protests. 

The expectation that we will be provided for, is further enhanced by our dependence on the digital world. The structures of programming are limiting and untransmutable; they allow only the options set out in their coding and algorithms. This gives us a sense that there is a natural structure and order to society and to the world itself, that we can fall back on, as there is online. And the more complete an experience of existence the digital realm provides us with, the more this sense is reinforced. 

This virtual world spoon feeds us, delivers to our door (“Alexa dim the lights”) which in turn leads to a the complacent belief that protest can stand in for reform: that all we need to do is express anger and a sense of disadvantage, and a better world will also be delivered to our door by somebody who deals with these things. 

For example, while many Social Justice advocates have come up with ingenious solutions to social ills, I have heard others say such things as, “white people are just going to have to learn to share their privileges” (or words to that effect.) This is not an actionable plan, and the implicit threat is unlikely to encourage the powerful to relinquish their power, which they hoard partly out of a sense of insecurity in the first place. 

Even if justified and understandable, expressions of anger can still make the situation worse, increasing resistance to our campaigns, polarisation and conflict. Self-expression for its own sake is not always constructive and beneficial.

But, in the developed world, we are spoilt; we live in happy ignorance of the wariness and circumspection, that so many people must exercise every day; the uncertainty that their community will not suddenly tip back over into bloody outrage: civil war, suppression, snatch squads roaring through the night, genocidal lynch mobs, whipped up by self-seeking demagogues dragging minorities from their beds, frantic combat over scarce resources; destitution and starvation caused by climate disaster that our enfeebled governments are increasingly powerless to mitigate; armed right-wing insurrectionists storming the capitol in an attempt to overthrow the democratically elected president…

We can believe that we can kick over the traces, from time to time, have a little tantrum, and, in the end, everything will settle down, and we can return to our safe, law and police-protected, comfortable lives. It’ll be fine. Suburban. This is Britain, for goodness’ sake! Peace and relative security are the natural order of things. 

I’m not suggesting that the Colston verdict will lead to an orgy of statue dunking. Of course it won’t set a precedent and lead to immediate anarchy, as some conservative commentators seem to be arguing. 

The government’s wisest and most just course of action would have been to point out their disapproval, but generously decline to prosecute. After all, the protestors had understandable reasons for their actions, and we all have sympathy with them.  Surely nobody wants to appear to defend and celebrate slavery. Having achieved their goal, these particular protestors seem unlikely to pose any further threat to society. I hope there aren’t many more public statues to unreformed slavers in Britain.

It is not encouraging that the Crown Prosecution Service went ahead with this case. It looks like an explicit attempt to resist the social justice movement: part of the famous “Culture Wars”. This, perhaps, gave the jury good reason to doubt that they could trust the judiciary, one of the three pillars of the establishment, to deliver a lenient sentence if they convicted. It is in exactly these ways: the decision who to prosecute and how severe the sentences are, that our penal system can be attacked as biased and unjust. 

However, that should not have been the jury’s concern, in delivering their verdict. If the legal system needs reformation, then they (and we all) should campaign for that, in whatever legal way we can. In taking up the role of jurors, these 12 good citizens had the responsibility of enacting the law as fairly and impartially as possible. Deciding to acquit people because you like them, simply reinforces and approves another flaw in our ad hoc and accidental legal system, demonstrating that its primary role is not to exercise justice, but to exercise arbitrary power.

Our condemnation of slavery, of racism, of prejudice derives from our belief in the essential equality of all people. Surely one of the greatest ways to demonstrate and to defend this principle is to maintain a rule of law that treats everybody equally and impartially. Equality demands consistency in law. We can’t just acquit our chums, no matter how lovely or good-looking they are. That’s not ok. 

Because if we do that, so can all the populist autocrats, all the identitarian nationalists who aim to dismantle all that we value and venerate in society.  

Donald Trump simply pardoned any of the fixers convicted of breaking the law on his behalf. Such traditional flaws in the American system (partially) explain how this moron was able to impose every arbitrary and tyrannical whim in his tiny, fevered brain on his tormented nation. 

Let’s not be like him. 

The lawyers for the Colston 4 claimed they were “on the right side of history. Jurors were invited to join them there”, according to David Olusoga (The Guardian, “This Verdict Puts Bristol on the Right Side of History at Last” 07/01/22). This plea goes to the heart of the problem, as does the approval of it voiced by respected establishment liberals such as Professor Olusoga. 

The jury’s job is to decide if the law had been broken. If it has, it is the judge’s job to decide an appropriate sentence. Yet the defendants’ lawyers were urging the jury to exploit a historic flaw in an already deeply flawed system, to strike a blow for a different, if related, cause. 

This is exactly the argument used by O.J. Simpson’s lawyers. In 1994, they persuaded a jury that because Black people in LA had been systematically misused by its police force, They would, somehow, be redressing the balance to allow O.J, one of America’s rich and privileged, to murder his ex-wife and a passing waiter, and to walk away from the courthouse entirely unpunished. 

What’s more, by talking of being “on the right side of history”, the Colston Four’s lawyers urged their jury to consider not truth and justice, but merely how they would look. They promoted the idea that our society was irreconcilably divided and in conflict and that, rather than healing divisions, it was their job as good citizens to take sides so they could help to bludgeon their enemies, the forces of evil, into submission. This was such a high profile case that the jury would inevitably be feeling self-conscious and vulnerable, aware that their decision would be momentous and would be scrutinised and criticised by a whole nation, even internationally. In this highly charged and fraught atmosphere these arguments by the defence were insidious and corrupting.

The reason why a jury trial made sense to the Colston defendants goes back to the age old tradition of juries being allowed to come to openly un-legal verdicts in the service of a higher justice. An op-ed in The Observer(09/01/22) celebrates the independence of UK juries and the principle that “there is no such thing as an incorrect jury acquittal: juries have an absolute right to acquit a defendant in a criminal trial regardless of the legal arguments advanced in a case.” The article mentions some of the times protestors and climate change activists have been acquitted by juries who were in sympathy with their beliefs and the urgency of their cause. I remember the historian Alan Brooke telling me how 18^th century courts would deliberately undervalue the value of stolen items, so that destitute and desperate thieves could avoid the gallows. 

Checks and balances, I guess. The advantage of a legal system administered by people, rather than algorithms, is the potential for compassionate flexibility. 

The rest of The Observer piece defends the verdict, and the jury’s right to make it, against attacks by various members of the government. The newspaper is concerned that Boris Johnson’s administration is attempting to strengthen its hold over the judiciary arm of government. The prime-minister likes to project a bumbling, genial character, but his government seems to be eroding our democratic institutions to consolidate its position and become more autocratic. This is deeply alarming and must be resisted.

Luckily, the personal tweetings of petulant Tories have no force in law or parliament. Yet. However, it is important not to fuel their campaigns. We must be scrupulously fair and just, if we are to condemn injustice in others. It may not be the best idea, then, to defend the historic right of juries to make arbitrary decisions, an age-old vulnerability of the system, if not an outright flaw. It makes us look hypocritical.  

I’ve been catching up on the Saturday and Sunday papers (The Guardian and The Observer, for me.) I keep them and try to read as many of the opinion pieces over the next few weeks. That’s why my news concerns are always a little behind the times. 

For example, while everybody else has moved on, I’m still troubled by the acquittal of the Bristol/ Colston four, despite being in complete sympathy with their moral position. 

These activists felt so strongly about this issue that, after exhausting all other options, they were willing to take direct action that clearly broke the law. They seemed admirably principled and courageous because they seemed willing to bear the consequences of this unlawful act. 

However, the Colston Four’s decision to opt for a jury trial (I believe it was their decision) rather than a magistrates’ court, while risky, appears to be an attempt to avoid those consequences. Various commentators have pointed out that the magistrates would undoubtedly have found that they had broken the law. It would only have resulted in a fine, but would involve an admission of guilt. A jury trial could have landed them in prison, but it also gave them the chance of acquittal.

The Criminal Damage Act, 1971 defines the offence thus: “A person who without lawful excuse destroys or damages any property belonging to another, intending to destroy or damage any such property, or being reckless as to whether any such property would be destroyed or damaged, shall be guilty of an offence.” (cps.gov.uk)

I guess the defendants claimed they had a “lawful excuse”, though I don’t know what part of law that would be: “I didn’t like it” doesn’t sound like a solid legal defence, no matter how understandable. The defence claimed that the council’s refusal to remove Colston’s statue was, itself, a hate crime, but this sounds disingenuous, not least because, surely, being the victim of crime doesn’t justify perpetrating another, different crime. 

I guess the defendants claimed that their actions were defending Bristol’s people from offense… It’s a pity, though that such a caring gesture should look so like an act of alarming, unilateral mob violence…