Does Morrissey have a coherent political worldview? Discuss...

[Dazza]

Hiya - I wonder if this is part of the problem.

I'm not going to get into an 'is he racist?' thing because on balance I don't think he is. I think Morrissey is a contrarian and supports the underdog at such things, hence he was 'left wing' in 80s Thatcher Britain and supports 'silent majority' outfits like UKIP and For Britain now. For what it's worth I think that Anne Marie Waters is a strange piece of work and I can't see the appeal, but Moz is welcome to support whoever he likes.

That said...I remember a quote from Billy Bragg to the effect of "I don't think Morrissey ever figured his politics out" and I think there's something in that.

People tend to fall into one of three camps politically in my experience:-

1) either conventional left (socially liberal, economically statist) or conventional right (other way round)
2) purist - so either individualist or statist on pretty much everything (I'm a classical liberal, so broadly individualist)
3) a bit all over the place, pick and mix

You get the feeling Moz is in camp 3 - he isn't a socialist, can't be called a conservative (his hatred of Thatcher nails that) and you can't see him as a Gladstonian liberal or anything like that. I'm surprised in some ways as you'd expect a man of his intelligence to reach some sort of conventional worldview, but perhaps as Billy says he is still figuring it out.

Morrissey is free market on some points and statist on others, socially liberal on some things yet almost reactionary on others. He pines for a romantic sense of English greatness and speaks highly of certain nationalist causes, yet surprises us with other thoughts on other subjects.

Is Morrissey some sort of far right loon? I honestly don't think so - and those fans who have ditched him over the accusation need to give their heads a wobble.

The assumption was that he was always a lefty - and the discovery that he's a 'pick and mix' guy has come as a shock to many. Ok that I get...you could understand him going full on Tory due to accumulated wealth or coming out as some sort of Libertarian/anarchist.

In the context of 'I've no idea what he stands for' I can perhaps get the disappointment - I don't know either, but he reminds me of so many people I grew up with who were all over the place and didn't seem to formulate a clear worldview on the old 'collective vs individual' question. That I think is the important one.

Perhaps Moz wants the best of collectivism and the best of individualism - at least as he sees it.

Thread started in good faith and for the right reasons so thanks in advance.

 

[Malarkey]

He's a lefty - he quite explicity said he thought that the left & right had switched places - which means he thought he was still on the left.

He was misinformed.

He didn't support UKIP, For Britain no longer exists, when he did mention Anne Marie - he said he thought she'd been lied about & wasn't a racist or a fascist. The only stance of theirs that he mentioned was animal rights.

He promotes PETA at his gigs.

 

[Dazza]

He's a lefty - he quite explicity said he thought that the left & right had switched places - which means he thought he was still on the left.

He was misinformed.

He didn't support UKIP, For Britain no longer exists, when he did mention Anne Marie - he said he thought she'd been lied about & wasn't a racist or a fascist. The only stance of theirs that he mentioned was animal rights.

He promotes PETA at his gigs.

He endorsed Nigel Farage on a personal level, which might not be the same thing as supporting UKIP.

 

[Malarkey]

He endorsed Nigel Farage on a personal level, which might not be the same thing as supporting UKIP.

No, he didn't. He said he was never a supporter of UKIP or Nigel. The Guardian has published more positive things about Nigel than he's ever said.

 

[Dazza]

No, he didn't. He said he was never a supporter of UKIP or Nigel. The Guardian has published more positive things about Nigel than he's ever said.

Ok got it from here, does he explicitly say it?

Morrissey says Nigel Farage 'would make a good prime minister’

Morrissey has voiced his support for the right-wing political group For Britain, said Nigel Farage would "make a good prime minister" and claimed "everyone prefers their own race".

www.standard.co.uk

 

[Malarkey]

Ok got it from here, does he explicitly say it?

Morrissey says Nigel Farage 'would make a good prime minister’

Morrissey has voiced his support for the right-wing political group For Britain, said Nigel Farage would "make a good prime minister" and claimed "everyone prefers their own race".

www.standard.co.uk

What he said was:

sam:
... Are you actually a supporter of UKIP?

M:
No. Never.

sam:
Of Nigel Farage?

M:
No, no, no … but it’s obvious that he would make a good Prime Minister … if any of us can actually remember what a good Prime Minister is.

He thinks politicians need to have strong personalities whether you like them or not - so it's not actually an endorsement. Which - even if you don't know how odd he is - should be obvious from the context. He would be a supporter if he wanted him to be PM.

But journalists had a preconception of him & wanted the scandal.

 

[Redacted]

I don't think he's on the left and I don't think if you dislike Thatcher you can't be a conservative. Just like in the US you can be a conservative and dislike Reagan and the Bushes. I am on the fence about whether Morrissey is a racist or not but he is definitely a bigot and he does seem to lean alt right, according to what he posts on his website.

 

[Famous when dead]

Other main mention:
"Therefore liberal educators such as George Galloway and Nigel Farage..."

Why Miley Cyrus is OK in Morrissey books

Last year you were in Sydney for your birthday. How and where did you celebrate turning 57 this year? And without being nosy, how is the health?

www.news.com.au

FWD.

 

[Eldritch]

I think Morrissey is a contrarian, which is also his problem. No matter who are in power, he always has been and always will be against them and what they represent. This has made him adopt contradictory views over the years, as the people in power have veered from conservative and liberal and back. He is also a conservative in the non-party related way: he loves the old world, the old Blighty, the films and the books from the last century. This has inspired him to state views, that can be viewed as controversial or even racist.

As wise and well-read Morrissey can be in some matters, politically he is not very well-informed. "Stop watching the news" -- I don't think he ever even started. His political worldview is a patchwork of things he has read or heard from somewhere without wasting too much pondering the validity of the source. Animal rights is the one consistent thing in his value system, pretty much everything is a bit of a blur and in a flux.

 

[slick]

I don't think he's on the left and I don't think if you dislike Thatcher you can't be a conservative. Just like in the US you can be a conservative and dislike Reagan and the Bushes. I am on the fence about whether Morrissey is a racist or not but he is definitely a bigot and he does seem to lean alt right, according to what he posts on his website.

Why do you call him a bigot?

 

[Redacted]

Why do you call him a bigot?

He's made bigoted remarks, there are threads here about this

 

[Born to Harangue]

Why do you call him a bigot?

For the record, you can find 10x more ‘bigoted’ statements in Redacted’s posting history than you can find in 40 years of Morrissey interviews.

 

[Malarkey]

I think Morrissey is a contrarian, which is also his problem. No matter who are in power, he always has been and always will be against them and what they represent. This has made him adopt contradictory views over the years, as the people in power have veered from conservative and liberal and back. He is also a conservative in the non-party related way: he loves the old world, the old Blighty, the films and the books from the last century. This has inspired him to state views, that can be viewed as controversial or even racist.

As wise and well-read Morrissey can be in some matters, politically he is not very well-informed. "Stop watching the news" -- I don't think he ever even started. His political worldview is a patchwork of things he has read or heard from somewhere without wasting too much pondering the validity of the source. Animal rights is the one consistent thing in his value system, pretty much everything is a bit of a blur and in a flux.

I don't think he is that inconsistent. He didn't like Tony Blair because of the Iraq war. And the "old Blighty" he misses the most is the slum housing he was born into - which was in an immigrant area. The old films he loves are kitchen sink social realist dramas & gritty film noirs.

It's true that he doesn't check sources & he seems to think the people around him reflect the average view - which they often don't.

 

[gashonthenail]

Hiya - I wonder if this is part of the problem.

I'm not going to get into an 'is he racist?' thing because on balance I don't think he is. I think Morrissey is a contrarian and supports the underdog at such things, hence he was 'left wing' in 80s Thatcher Britain and supports 'silent majority' outfits like UKIP and For Britain now. For what it's worth I think that Anne Marie Waters is a strange piece of work and I can't see the appeal, but Moz is welcome to support whoever he likes.

That said...I remember a quote from Billy Bragg to the effect of "I don't think Morrissey ever figured his politics out" and I think there's something in that.

People tend to fall into one of three camps politically in my experience:-

1) either conventional left (socially liberal, economically statist) or conventional right (other way round)
2) purist - so either individualist or statist on pretty much everything (I'm a classical liberal, so broadly individualist)
3) a bit all over the place, pick and mix

You get the feeling Moz is in camp 3 - he isn't a socialist, can't be called a conservative (his hatred of Thatcher nails that) and you can't see him as a Gladstonian liberal or anything like that. I'm surprised in some ways as you'd expect a man of his intelligence to reach some sort of conventional worldview, but perhaps as Billy says he is still figuring it out.

Morrissey is free market on some points and statist on others, socially liberal on some things yet almost reactionary on others. He pines for a romantic sense of English greatness and speaks highly of certain nationalist causes, yet surprises us with other thoughts on other subjects.

Is Morrissey some sort of far right loon? I honestly don't think so - and those fans who have ditched him over the accusation need to give their heads a wobble.

The assumption was that he was always a lefty - and the discovery that he's a 'pick and mix' guy has come as a shock to many. Ok that I get...you could understand him going full on Tory due to accumulated wealth or coming out as some sort of Libertarian/anarchist.

In the context of 'I've no idea what he stands for' I can perhaps get the disappointment - I don't know either, but he reminds me of so many people I grew up with who were all over the place and didn't seem to formulate a clear worldview on the old 'collective vs individual' question. That I think is the important one.

Perhaps Moz wants the best of collectivism and the best of individualism - at least as he sees it.

Thread started in good faith and for the right reasons so thanks in advance.

Moz was brought up working class. That tells you everything you need to know about his politics. He believes in those things that were the greatest achievement of the working class - the welfare state, social housing, the National Health Service. All those things that are the opposite of Thatcher's dreadful maxim - there is no such thing as society. That maxim was a declaration of war on the working class. That maxim tells you everything you need to know about why Moz wrote Margaret on the Guillotine.
And, like any person brought up working class, Moz can see that those things are built on national identity. You can't have a welfare state without a state. You can't have a National Health Service without a nation.
And he has watched as the working class has been eradicated from the great cities of England - London, Manchester, Birmingham. He has watched as the nation state is chipped away by supra-national and trans-national forces that make any notion of 'left' and 'right' appear like quaint old-fashioned notions to tell your grandchildren. The strange death of Europe, indeed.
Moz would naturally be Labour to his core. But the Labour Party gave up the working class several decades ago. And so Moz has given up the Labour Party.

 

[Malarkey]

Moz was brought up working class. That tells you everything you need to know about his politics. He believes in those things that were the greatest achievement of the working class - the welfare state, social housing, the National Health Service. All those things that are the opposite of Thatcher's dreadful maxim - there is no such thing as society. That maxim was a declaration of war on the working class. That maxim tells you everything you need to know about why Moz wrote Margaret on the Guillotine.
And, like any person brought up working class, Moz can see that those things are built on national identity. You can't have a welfare state without a state. You can't have a National Health Service without a nation.
And he has watched as the working class has been eradicated from the great cities of England - London, Manchester, Birmingham. He has watched as the nation state is chipped away by supra-national and trans-national forces that make any notion of 'left' and 'right' appear like quaint old-fashioned notions to tell your grandchildren. The strange death of Europe, indeed.
Moz would naturally be Labour to his core. But the Labour Party gave up the working class several decades ago. And so Moz has given up the Labour Party.

Gash - you're lying.

Morrissey in 2012 - one of many statements that are not nationalist - because he has never been nationalist:

I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The 'dazzling royals' have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press. It is lethal to witness. As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters.

 

[Malarkey]

The fact that someone convinced him that governments may be putting religious sensibilities over animal welfare laws shouldn't be used as evidence of a nationalism he has never expressed.

 

[Mimi Ramone]

And another Moz and politics thread

 

[Redacted]

Bigmouth strikes again and again: why Morrissey fans feel so betrayed

Once his songs of loneliness and shyness made him a hero to misfits and outsiders. Yet now he is voicing his support for a far-right party

www.theguardian.com

 

[Anonymous]

Morrissey described Nigel Farage as a 'liberal educator'. It would be disingenuous to suggest that he's only attracted to Farage for his personality, and doesn't share any of his political leanings.

 

[Malarkey]

Morrissey described Nigel Farage as a 'liberal educator'. It would be disingenuous to suggest that he's only attracted to Farage for his personality, and doesn't share any of his political leanings.

George Galloway is in the same sentence - he was hard left at the time - still is beneath the Russian propaganda.

And Morrissey was talking about his growing disillusion with the media - not surprising after the way the Guardian - a broadsheet which should have standards - let music hacks wage a vendetta on him.