https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/28/far-right-rightwing-nationalism-populist?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=245704&subid=9545527&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2
“I believe we need to think about more subtle, less easily measurable dimensions of inequality. I would call them inequality of attention and inequality of respect. Attention, as Tim Wu points out in his book The Attention Merchants, is one of the major currencies of our internet age. How much attention did our mainstream liberal media give, until recently, to the “left behind” regions and social groups? In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Linda, the wife of poor, struggling Willy Loman, cries: “He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”
Inequality of attention shades into inequality of respect. A phrase that has become almost proverbial on the Polish populist right is “redistribution of prestige”. It’s an odd phrase, at first hearing, but actually it captures something important. Redistribution is not just about money; it’s also about respect. Our societies have simply not delivered well enough on one of liberalism’s central promises, summarised by the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin as “equal respect and concern” for each individual member of the society.”
At the end of Alexander Payne’s lovely film Nebraska, the son of a battered, weary, old, white, working-class man buys his dad a gleaming pickup truck. The old man drives slowly down the main street of the town where he grew up, enjoying, just for once, the admiring glances of his childhood companions. Attention. Respect.
How my heart sings 