Yesterday there was an incident on the BBC that reminded me about something I was going to touch upon a few weeks ago, but completely forgot. They had one of those news segments where they get the views of the public by sticking a microphone in front of random people out on the street for ten seconds. They interviewed one young man who misspoke and called Boris Johnson "Joris Bohnson".
To be fair this was quite funny. It's hard not to laugh. However, it's an understandable mistake to make. The guy looked a bit bedazzled. So perhaps he was a bit nervous or starstruck, which is perfectly natural when you're in that situation. I'm sure I'd end up looking like a bit of an idiot if someone stuck a microphone in front of me on live TV. Alternatively he might just not have been that bright. Which is no crime.
Either way it was just a minor bit of amusement. Adding to the general Brexit spectacle. I won't share the footage on here, the poor guy's been retweeted enough, but a quick Twitter search for the hashtag #JorisBohnson will soon bring it up if you haven't already seen it.
..Oh, and I forgot to mention. He was, of course, a leave voter. So it came with the inevitable cries of "look how stupid leave voters are!", "how are these people even allowed to vote", etc.
(The Remain Brain vs The Leave
Perceiver)
This has been a familiar theme over the last three years or so. Yes, leave voters do tend to be poorer and less well educated on average. So there's been plenty of this type of ammunition for remainers to use. However, when remainers do this they're also highlighting their own ignorance in a more profound way. A way that actually highlights why leavers, for all their crude miscommunications, actually grasp our situation regarding the EU much better than their remainer counterparts.
The classic example comes in relation to immigration. You'll often see a leave voter, let's say a little old lady, get her ten second soundbite on TV. And she'll say something quite crude, along the lines of;
"Well, y'know, we have to leave, there are too many Somalis and Romanians over here. We can't cope. We need to control our borders."
The watching remainers will then jump up and comment;
"OMG, she thinks Somalia is in the EU. How stupid can these people be? Don't they even understand the difference between EU and non-EU migration?"
Seeing such views then brings a sense of confirmation; yes, these leavers are uneducated. Yes, they had no idea what they were voting for. Yes, they have been manipulated by unscrupulous actors. All the time reinforcing a sense of superiority and certainty.
However, they're being quite dumb in doing this. Firstly, because as per the comedic "Joris Bohnson" example. It can be difficult for people to express their views when they're put on the spot in this way. It's very easy to misspeak or get a bit flummoxed. Then secondly, and more importantly, it mistakes a lack of technical precision or knowledge for a lack of general understanding.
Though the little old leave-voting lady may not be able to name every country in the EU, or explain the technicalities of immigration law. She knows full well that many non-EU migrants are coming through the EU. She likewise understands that by being part of the EU free movement area it essentially means that we have a much larger external border with the non-EU world. She also understands only too well that the same people promoting the EU also tend to be the same people advocating mass open borders in general. So she knows that by voting against the EU she can kill two birds with one stone essentially. She understands all this both intuitively and experientially through her everyday life.
It's like going to a football match. If I go to a football match and there are 20,000 football fans there almost every one of them will understand the offside rule. So much so that they'll be screaming at the referee if he gets a decision wrong. However, if I went up to one of those fans and asked them to explain the offside rule to me most would probably struggle. Even if I sat them down exam-style with a pen and paper they'd still maybe find it difficult. That's because it's hard for us to distil our knowledge and understanding down into a few sentences of speech or a few bits of text on a piece of paper.
It can be hard for us to articulate our understanding of something to another person. Especially if it's an understanding about a complex topic, or a broad ranging subject. And doubly so if you're not used to doing this sort of thing. Or don't have the formal education or vocabulary to do it.
Of course, poorer people also tend to do jobs that are more manual and less verbal. If you work in a factory or on a shop floor you're probably not used to standing up and communicating ideas the way that a lawyer or school teacher is. So this adds to it too.
A typical remainer (or remoaner rather - I'm being very unfair on the remainers who are simply pro-EU and just want to get on with things).
Start again :)
A typical remoaner, on seeing a football fan struggle to articulate the offside rule, would then use that as the basis to claim; look, all these people don't have the foggiest idea how football works. However, the opposite of course would be true. These people understand football very well indeed. They watch it obsessively every week.
Likewise the myriad leave voters across the country understand the EU very well indeed. They've lived with it. Watched it develop over the years and decades. Experienced its negative and positive consequences. They understand the game - they've lived and breathed it. They just can't always condense their feelings and views about it down into a coherent, precise argument.
It's very similar with the Supreme Court verdict yesterday in fact. Remainers get bogged down with technical arguments. Unable to see the wood for the trees. Whereas leavers, with their more basic and broad common sense will simply say;
"Sure, the decision to prorogue is politically motivated, but Boris offered an election. He's obviously not a dictator, this is just silly".
A further (and final, - sorry I know it's been long) example of this dichotomy came recently when remainers were again pointing to the lack of education of leavers when the hashtag #BritishIndependance started trending. Where leavers had misspelled independence, using an 'a' instead of an 'e'.
Again, this is a very easy mistake to make. Especially when the online spellchecker doesn't pick it up because "British" and "Independance" are compounded together in a single hashtag. We've all made spelling mistakes. So it can be a bit hypocritical pulling other people up about such things. Yet once more it highlighted the same difference though. Remainers getting obsessed and pedantic about technicalities and details. Leavers trying to make a broader point about the wider state of affairs. Not being especially bothered (or in many cases even aware to be fair) of minor spelling errors and mistakes.
It's almost beginning to look like the extremes on the autistic spectrum.
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