Conclusion: The Dissent Project

Summary

The point of my argument overall is that dissent ought to be enthusiastically encouraged in all areas of our culture, given that it keeps authority under constant scrutiny and resists any tendency it might display towards authoritarianism and totalitarianism. The latter is an all too common occurrence with large organisations possessing controlling rights over their area of interest, in the public and private sector alike, and claiming an almost divine right to do as they please there. Several examples of this trait have been considered throughout this book, each with its own characteristics and objectives yet a common sense of purpose, to entrench itself by marginalising any opposition or competition; but a host of others will come to mind for almost anyone willing to ponder the issue even for just a few moments. Centralised power gravitates towards absolute power all too easily and there have to be robust checks and balances in operation to prevent that process from being allowed to run its course, bringing prejudice and bigotry in its wake and a general coarsening of our social existence. There has been more than enough of the latter of late courtesy of the Trump presidency and Brexit. Dissent could be conceived, therefore, as a project designed to preserve liberal democratic ideals through its cultivation of an oppositional imperative; it is what stands between us and autocracy and fascism, and the various ways to keep it alive and functioning that the study has identified, plus the social and political implications they involve, will be summed up in this concluding chapter.

The rationale for dissent

Without dissent, authority will be given free rein to impose itself on its citizens, and it is never in a democracy's interest for that situation to be allowed to develop, let alone become the norm: unmistakable harm will almost inevitably be the consequence for many in the community in that event, with minority groups and immigrants being first in line to suffer.