Sociologist wades into Occupy movement and other issues

Sociology professor Frank Furedi - whose latest book is First World War: Still No End in Sight - was a child refugee from Hungary who became a student radical in Canada in the 1960s. After moving to Britain, he became a leftwing firebrand who riled the Left far more than the Right. Since leaving the Left behind about 20 years ago, he has written a series of books arguing that the political labels of the past are meaningless and that we live in a culture of fear and low ambitions that puts a drag on society's ambitions. He was recently at a conference on understanding social protest and contestation, one of a series on leadership and public policy organised by Oxford University and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
 

The protest of the past 15 years has become about the individual. People get involved because of their feelings, they even take "selfies" at demonstrations because it's all about "me" and not the issue. People have become distanced from political concerns, they don't have political or ideological objectives.
 

The legacy of the first world war is that it didn't solve the problems it created. The legacy for today, the result of that war, is in the culture wars, our disputes about lifestyle and identity. The war was a crisis for elites that turned their worldview upside down because it destroyed the belief in liberal democracy, the foundation of what I call the normative values that define us. After the war, the 20th century saw no attempt to give real meaning to democracy or to protect it from authoritarian influences. The second world war rehabilitated democracy, but it was a rhetorical accomplishment: democracy was redefined in a technocratic way, as procedural. Real democracy has a logical priority of popular consent, a foundation of public agreement and the public playing a role. The European Union insulates us from democracy, the Basic Law in Germany outsources political influence to the courts. In Britain, the role of the judiciary in deciding law has become as important as lawmakers' role.