When the BBC does stuff like the Brand-Ross prank call, you know that rock bottom has been hit.
What was most interesting in the coverage I've seen is that although there have been thus far 10 000 complaints, the younger generation phoning in to Radio 1 seem generally supportive.
The answer as to what is going on is all too simple. Brand and Ross know exactly to whom they are appealing: the generation that happy-slaps. For that is exactly what it was: it was public, on air happy-slapping. They are appealing to the generation that thinks nothing of dropping litter and beating up policemen who ask for it to be picked up: for Brand's defending himself by saying it was funny indicates that he clearly thinks he did nothing wrong, and it's the rest of us who are being pompous by standing by common standards of decency.
Common standards of decency brings us ultimately to the point: common standards of decency flow ultimately from shared convictions concerning right and wrong. And whether it's Roger Bolton (see previous post) or Brand and Ross, common standards of decency and their religious underpinning are what is under attack.
If either Mr Brand or Mr Ross finds themselves on the receiving end of youth violence, we must all feel sorry for them. Because as decent people, we are on the side of the victim. They however must not push for prosecutions. They must laugh it off, extend a hand to their tormentors and say, "funny one, guys."
Showing posts with label Problems in the world today. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Problems in the world today. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Islamism, Secularism, Persecution or Stupidity.
The Christian Institute has reported that Tower Hamlets borough council (that's the local authority governing parts of London east of the Tower of London) doesn't allow its Christmas party to be called so, but is requiring councillors not to eat during daylight hours during Ramadan at town hall, and asking them generally to support the fast.
How can we interpret this?
It could be a first step to the imposition of Islam as state religion in Tower Hamlets. Other religions are driven out of the public sphere and only Islam is recognised, with all wanting to play a full role in civil society being required to be practising Muslims.
It could be that rather strange mix of secularism and racism one sometimes hears, whereby Christianity, the white man's religion, is driven out of the public sphere by secularism, but the same secularism has a rather patronising attitude to non-whites, feeling the need to give full recognition to their religions to avoid racism. In fact, such an attitude is a form of racism, because it says that the poor foreigners of different skin colour can't help their religious foibles, but white men ought to grow up.
It could be simply persecution of Christians. Christianity is being driven out of Tower Hamlets just because the people on the council don't like it. One way of doing that is say everyone ought to follow a variety of religious practices and then accuse those who won't of being intolerant and so unfit to work for the council.
Of course, the first is exceptionally unlikely. The second and third options are possible. Britain doesn't do philosophy (Russell and Ayer thought they were smart for confusing epistemological difficulties for ontological answers). So we are incapable of the radical secularism of, say, France, which simply declares a plague on all religious houses: we don't think that deeply. And we do have a somewhat colonial attitude to uncivilised Johnnie Foreigner's religions.
But personally, I don't think there's a thought through ideology at work here, be it Islamism, Secularism or Persecution of Christians. There may be a bit of all of these, but in Britain, I suspect the best explanation is stupidity.
How can we interpret this?
It could be a first step to the imposition of Islam as state religion in Tower Hamlets. Other religions are driven out of the public sphere and only Islam is recognised, with all wanting to play a full role in civil society being required to be practising Muslims.
It could be that rather strange mix of secularism and racism one sometimes hears, whereby Christianity, the white man's religion, is driven out of the public sphere by secularism, but the same secularism has a rather patronising attitude to non-whites, feeling the need to give full recognition to their religions to avoid racism. In fact, such an attitude is a form of racism, because it says that the poor foreigners of different skin colour can't help their religious foibles, but white men ought to grow up.
It could be simply persecution of Christians. Christianity is being driven out of Tower Hamlets just because the people on the council don't like it. One way of doing that is say everyone ought to follow a variety of religious practices and then accuse those who won't of being intolerant and so unfit to work for the council.
Of course, the first is exceptionally unlikely. The second and third options are possible. Britain doesn't do philosophy (Russell and Ayer thought they were smart for confusing epistemological difficulties for ontological answers). So we are incapable of the radical secularism of, say, France, which simply declares a plague on all religious houses: we don't think that deeply. And we do have a somewhat colonial attitude to uncivilised Johnnie Foreigner's religions.
But personally, I don't think there's a thought through ideology at work here, be it Islamism, Secularism or Persecution of Christians. There may be a bit of all of these, but in Britain, I suspect the best explanation is stupidity.
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Late Capitalism and Late Democracy
What shall we make of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers and the impending doom of AIG? If AIG is not supported by the US Government, despite its greater importance to the wider US economy, particularly the housing market so famously propped up by the nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then why?
Alisdair Darling of course let the cat out of the bag: we're in the worst place we've been since the end of WWII. Bear Stearns was saved; Lehmann Brothers wasn't. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were saved; AIG won't be. The pattern is clear: an initial intervention is attempted, and then the Government realises that further such interventions are then hoped for and expected. That simply cannot be afforded. Lehmann Brothers had to die: it was sacrificed for the sake of the wider economy, to say that the Government couldn't be relied on to save everything.
Behind this lies a bigger issue. Put simply, capitalism and democracy are less compatible than thought. In a democratic society, particularly what we may soon call late democracy (as per Marx's late capitalism), the population expects the government to act to save the day. So banks do too. They trade irresponsibly to gain the maximum upside during a boom, and expect the government to save them when they go bust, because they expect the government to bail out the depositers, who are also voters.
It's time to decide: who will pay the price? The banks, whose bosses ought to be sued by the governments and not propped up, or Joe Ordinary, who then effectively finances corporate bonuses through the tax system.
But another thought springs to mind. Didn't Joseph Schumpeter, in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy", argue that late capitalism tends to oligopoly, which lends itself to oligarchy? Look at Russia.
Never has it been clearer that Fukayama was wrong: history is not over. Money is in the hands of anti-democratic powers possessing raw material wealth. After Chelsea and Manchester City, so perhaps more serious institutions. Russia increasingly exercises geopolitical power through the gas pipeline; OPEC has spoken of trying to reestablish the $100 barrel; sovereign wealth funds are increasingly the only remaining wealthy people.
In late democracy, the tensions between oligopolistic late capitalism and populist late democracy grow. The question is, which will go.
Alisdair Darling of course let the cat out of the bag: we're in the worst place we've been since the end of WWII. Bear Stearns was saved; Lehmann Brothers wasn't. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were saved; AIG won't be. The pattern is clear: an initial intervention is attempted, and then the Government realises that further such interventions are then hoped for and expected. That simply cannot be afforded. Lehmann Brothers had to die: it was sacrificed for the sake of the wider economy, to say that the Government couldn't be relied on to save everything.
Behind this lies a bigger issue. Put simply, capitalism and democracy are less compatible than thought. In a democratic society, particularly what we may soon call late democracy (as per Marx's late capitalism), the population expects the government to act to save the day. So banks do too. They trade irresponsibly to gain the maximum upside during a boom, and expect the government to save them when they go bust, because they expect the government to bail out the depositers, who are also voters.
It's time to decide: who will pay the price? The banks, whose bosses ought to be sued by the governments and not propped up, or Joe Ordinary, who then effectively finances corporate bonuses through the tax system.
But another thought springs to mind. Didn't Joseph Schumpeter, in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy", argue that late capitalism tends to oligopoly, which lends itself to oligarchy? Look at Russia.
Never has it been clearer that Fukayama was wrong: history is not over. Money is in the hands of anti-democratic powers possessing raw material wealth. After Chelsea and Manchester City, so perhaps more serious institutions. Russia increasingly exercises geopolitical power through the gas pipeline; OPEC has spoken of trying to reestablish the $100 barrel; sovereign wealth funds are increasingly the only remaining wealthy people.
In late democracy, the tensions between oligopolistic late capitalism and populist late democracy grow. The question is, which will go.
Friday, 29 August 2008
On Russian Imperialism
I returned from holiday in Germany armed with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit and the Independent courtesy of Lufthansa, and with a copy of Spiegel. There was plenty to read, and plenty to be concerned about.
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Rights and Responsibilities
Ben Bradshaw thought he had David Davis on the ropes on Any Questions. Davis went onto the attack on Labour's record on liberties and Bradshaw fired back on Davis' record on homosexuals' rights. Davis had voted against homosexuals in the military, against the right of homosexuals to adopt, and against civil partnerships. Davis corrected him on the last point, pointing out that he was absent from the chamber on the last issue, leaving the Tory lead on the issue to be taken by Alan Duncan.
Has Bradshaw exposed Davis the Liberty Man?
Let's start with the easy one. Should homosexual men be allowed in the military? Essentially the case against was what they might get up to. But then again, ask the family of the Danish woman raped and murdered in Cyprus what heterosexual British squaddies get up to. The sad fact is that sex does lead to ill-discipline in the military - regardless of sexuality. But again, regardless of sexuality, it shouldn't.
Bradshaw 1-0 Davis
Adoption. The very association of the word "rights" with adoption is a complete failure on Bradshaw's part. No one has the right to adopt. The very concept ought to fill any decent person with horror. If there is a right to adopt, then anyone could seek to exercise that right through the courts. Adoption is a privilege to be granted with care, a responsibility to be exercised only by the most able. The question is not "do homosexuals have a right to adopt?" It is "what forms of relationship are an appropriate matrix for the development of a child?" On religious, scientific or sociological grounds, Parliament needs to provide proper statutory guidance on that question. So the debate cannot be about Parliament granting people an inherent right (rights normally inhering to people by virtue of some metaphysical consideration, such as human dignity or divine image bearing), it's about the appropriateness of relationship matrices. Bradshaw could claim Davis suffered from prejudices on this issue, but it's not a rights issue; others might point out the desperate need for more adoptive parents, but that's not about rights either. Own goal.
Bradshaw 1-1 Davis
Civil partnerships is far more complex, because the key issue is the relationship between such a partnership and marriage. The media, both for and against civil partnerships, have characterised it as "marriage"; the Government sought not to until a recent case in which spinster sisters living together sought to protect themselves from the inheritance tax due should one of them die. They wanted a civil partnership, which would recognise the contribution each made to the welfare of the other, the love that was there, and the difficulties the death of one would pose for the other. Then Harriet Harman came out to the effect that civil partnerships were to afford a legal framework equivalent to marriage for homosexual couples. So the media were right.
So the question comes down to what you think marriage is. It is a question of rights depending on how you define marriage and its spiritual, sociological and relational function.
You score the game.
Then factor in the rest of the Labour record: at least before Labour campaigners could turn up in Parliament Square without registering, at least 1 million innocent people weren't on a DNA register, at least before Labour there was not a threat of identity cards, at least thought was not policed, as it now is on a variety of questions of religion and sexuality ...
Good try, Mr Bradshaw: I hadn't thought of that one, and you were right to raise it. But I don't think it's enough, even if you win this set (which to my mind you don't, because I take a Bible-rooted view of marriage), to win the match.
Two footnotes.
Firstly, I've used "homosexual" not "gay". I understand "homosexual" as the opposite of "heterosexual", describing a sexual orientation. I understand "gay" as an identity-political label, associated with a political and lifestyle choice to emphasise sexual orientation as a marker of identity beyond any other. So gay belongs in the same category as feminist, Muslim, Christian, Marxist or any other identity label that claims overriding precedence in a person's make-up.
Secondly, I know Ben Bradshaw is homosexual. So? The issue is about rights here.
Has Bradshaw exposed Davis the Liberty Man?
Let's start with the easy one. Should homosexual men be allowed in the military? Essentially the case against was what they might get up to. But then again, ask the family of the Danish woman raped and murdered in Cyprus what heterosexual British squaddies get up to. The sad fact is that sex does lead to ill-discipline in the military - regardless of sexuality. But again, regardless of sexuality, it shouldn't.
Bradshaw 1-0 Davis
Adoption. The very association of the word "rights" with adoption is a complete failure on Bradshaw's part. No one has the right to adopt. The very concept ought to fill any decent person with horror. If there is a right to adopt, then anyone could seek to exercise that right through the courts. Adoption is a privilege to be granted with care, a responsibility to be exercised only by the most able. The question is not "do homosexuals have a right to adopt?" It is "what forms of relationship are an appropriate matrix for the development of a child?" On religious, scientific or sociological grounds, Parliament needs to provide proper statutory guidance on that question. So the debate cannot be about Parliament granting people an inherent right (rights normally inhering to people by virtue of some metaphysical consideration, such as human dignity or divine image bearing), it's about the appropriateness of relationship matrices. Bradshaw could claim Davis suffered from prejudices on this issue, but it's not a rights issue; others might point out the desperate need for more adoptive parents, but that's not about rights either. Own goal.
Bradshaw 1-1 Davis
Civil partnerships is far more complex, because the key issue is the relationship between such a partnership and marriage. The media, both for and against civil partnerships, have characterised it as "marriage"; the Government sought not to until a recent case in which spinster sisters living together sought to protect themselves from the inheritance tax due should one of them die. They wanted a civil partnership, which would recognise the contribution each made to the welfare of the other, the love that was there, and the difficulties the death of one would pose for the other. Then Harriet Harman came out to the effect that civil partnerships were to afford a legal framework equivalent to marriage for homosexual couples. So the media were right.
So the question comes down to what you think marriage is. It is a question of rights depending on how you define marriage and its spiritual, sociological and relational function.
You score the game.
Then factor in the rest of the Labour record: at least before Labour campaigners could turn up in Parliament Square without registering, at least 1 million innocent people weren't on a DNA register, at least before Labour there was not a threat of identity cards, at least thought was not policed, as it now is on a variety of questions of religion and sexuality ...
Good try, Mr Bradshaw: I hadn't thought of that one, and you were right to raise it. But I don't think it's enough, even if you win this set (which to my mind you don't, because I take a Bible-rooted view of marriage), to win the match.
Two footnotes.
Firstly, I've used "homosexual" not "gay". I understand "homosexual" as the opposite of "heterosexual", describing a sexual orientation. I understand "gay" as an identity-political label, associated with a political and lifestyle choice to emphasise sexual orientation as a marker of identity beyond any other. So gay belongs in the same category as feminist, Muslim, Christian, Marxist or any other identity label that claims overriding precedence in a person's make-up.
Secondly, I know Ben Bradshaw is homosexual. So? The issue is about rights here.
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Cynical spinning
The media response to David Davis is full of the most rampant cynicism, but as today's Observer pointed out, much of the public is having none of it. Like me, the public has done the calculation and figured out they think Mr Davis means it. Apparently, again according to the Observer, the rest of the blogosphere agrees.
I stand by my open letter to Mr Cameron. Now is the opportunity to put clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour, yet at the same time force people on the Left, such as myself, seriously to consider voting Conservative. He should see the opportunity to portray Mr Brown as a threat to our liberties and welcome Mr Davis back, as I recommended.
But the media won't have it. On the Today programme on Friday morning, some idiot hack was saying that there was still no better explanation than that Mr Davis meant it. It ain't rocket science, unless you're a cynical idiot hack. As for Eddie Mair on PM on the day, he should be fired for the interview with Dominic Reave. The interview was nothing more than a brazen attempt to spin the story as Tory splits and Cameron losing control. It was partisan, biased and incompetent: when Mr Reave gave simple and straight answers, Mr Mair read stuff into it that was simply not there.
In fact, if you were a conspiracy theorist, and apparently there are plenty of you out there (unfortunately, I suspect you don't read my blog, unless people other than my Mum and a few friends are reading it and just haven't said so), here's one to try. The media is run by liberals like Mr Mair, and they are fighting a rearguard action to prevent the incoming Conservative administration through organs such as the Independent, BBC News, the News Quiz (apparently, someone complained about them!) and the like. There is the legislative curtailing of our freedoms, then there is the attempt to hook our kids to the media (those stupid Government targets for toddlers and ICT - I shall endeavour not to subject my children to the child abuse that would be meeting them), and then there is the above manipulation of the media.
Unfortunately, as I am neither paranoid and gullible, I cannot believe it; and my satirical skills prevent me setting up the appropriate scaremongering blog as a fake. Someone else can do it - I've given you the pointers. Only thank me if you're a satirist - I guarantee my reading your work, if it's funny.
I stand by my open letter to Mr Cameron. Now is the opportunity to put clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour, yet at the same time force people on the Left, such as myself, seriously to consider voting Conservative. He should see the opportunity to portray Mr Brown as a threat to our liberties and welcome Mr Davis back, as I recommended.
But the media won't have it. On the Today programme on Friday morning, some idiot hack was saying that there was still no better explanation than that Mr Davis meant it. It ain't rocket science, unless you're a cynical idiot hack. As for Eddie Mair on PM on the day, he should be fired for the interview with Dominic Reave. The interview was nothing more than a brazen attempt to spin the story as Tory splits and Cameron losing control. It was partisan, biased and incompetent: when Mr Reave gave simple and straight answers, Mr Mair read stuff into it that was simply not there.
In fact, if you were a conspiracy theorist, and apparently there are plenty of you out there (unfortunately, I suspect you don't read my blog, unless people other than my Mum and a few friends are reading it and just haven't said so), here's one to try. The media is run by liberals like Mr Mair, and they are fighting a rearguard action to prevent the incoming Conservative administration through organs such as the Independent, BBC News, the News Quiz (apparently, someone complained about them!) and the like. There is the legislative curtailing of our freedoms, then there is the attempt to hook our kids to the media (those stupid Government targets for toddlers and ICT - I shall endeavour not to subject my children to the child abuse that would be meeting them), and then there is the above manipulation of the media.
Unfortunately, as I am neither paranoid and gullible, I cannot believe it; and my satirical skills prevent me setting up the appropriate scaremongering blog as a fake. Someone else can do it - I've given you the pointers. Only thank me if you're a satirist - I guarantee my reading your work, if it's funny.
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Dear Mr Cameron
I've been meaning to write for a while. The very thought of writing to a Conservative Party leader fills me with a sense of self-loathing: I was brought up on the Left, I rejoiced with tears in 1997, I consider the privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s insanity and as far as I am concerned, much of the economics of Thatcherism, for which I consider you to stand, is morally neutral to the point of immoral.
But I am disillusioned. I was under the illusion that the current Administration would be a panacea for the ills of post-Thatcherite Britain. Oh, the work of Chancellor Brown on child poverty, pensioner poverty, Third World debt poverty and the like were of vital importance: these are the unsung songs of British political achievement. When I read "Servants of the People" and found listed the unspun success of Labour, I wept. But then we went into Iraq: oh, you voted for it, and some would consider that unforgivable, but I voted for it (well, not really, because I'm not an MP). I honestly could not believe Mr Tony Blair would commit our troops without the best and highest of motives, without being convinced that it truly and undubitably was the right thing to do.
But I am writing today because of Mr Davis. I have always liked his style, even if his policies were on occasion too strident, and was not surprised when someone worked out he was Britain's most straight-talking politician. Maybe I am being duped again, but I believe in his resignation: it seems personal folly and political folly, even party folly. But he is right. Our fundamental freedoms are at issue here. And I find myself believing that actually I believe in political freedom and personal liberty from the State before I believe in the reduction of poverty. We were not made to be comfortable slaves.
There is now the possibility of a deeply plausible conservative narrative: Conservatism loves Britain, and now Britain is under threat. It is under threat from the environmental catastrophe, it is under threat from authoritarian government, it is under threat from political apathy caused by over-centralisation and the concentration of power in Westminster and Whitehall. Britain, Britain as a temperate nation of rain and green grass, of civil liberties and gentle but real civic concern, the Britain of Mr Major's foolish yet true aphorism, needs conserving.
Could I vote for you? It would pain me greatly: I would look at the cross on the ballot paper and consider myself a traitor. But perhaps the point has been reached where political discourse will be restructured, and Conservatism can recast itself as the party of the environment, local decision-making and traditional freedoms, being therefore truly conservative of this country.
When Mr Davis is returned to Parliament, re-appoint him Shadow Home Secretary, or Shadow Attorney-General; commit to repealing 42 days and give him a remit to restore our freedoms. Put someone serious in charge of the environment and nick Liberal Democrat policies concerning switching the burden of tax on wealth creation onto pollution. Finally, get someone of Mr Straw's calibre onto constitutional questions so far as Parliamentary powers and the powers of local government are concerned: strengthen the Houses and commit to devolving power down. Whatever the outcome, it will be good for our country, whether it sharpens our government or puts a (genuinely - we don't want to be let down, like we were post-1997) reforming administration in their place.
There are tears in my eyes.
The Incorrigible Amateur
But I am disillusioned. I was under the illusion that the current Administration would be a panacea for the ills of post-Thatcherite Britain. Oh, the work of Chancellor Brown on child poverty, pensioner poverty, Third World debt poverty and the like were of vital importance: these are the unsung songs of British political achievement. When I read "Servants of the People" and found listed the unspun success of Labour, I wept. But then we went into Iraq: oh, you voted for it, and some would consider that unforgivable, but I voted for it (well, not really, because I'm not an MP). I honestly could not believe Mr Tony Blair would commit our troops without the best and highest of motives, without being convinced that it truly and undubitably was the right thing to do.
But I am writing today because of Mr Davis. I have always liked his style, even if his policies were on occasion too strident, and was not surprised when someone worked out he was Britain's most straight-talking politician. Maybe I am being duped again, but I believe in his resignation: it seems personal folly and political folly, even party folly. But he is right. Our fundamental freedoms are at issue here. And I find myself believing that actually I believe in political freedom and personal liberty from the State before I believe in the reduction of poverty. We were not made to be comfortable slaves.
There is now the possibility of a deeply plausible conservative narrative: Conservatism loves Britain, and now Britain is under threat. It is under threat from the environmental catastrophe, it is under threat from authoritarian government, it is under threat from political apathy caused by over-centralisation and the concentration of power in Westminster and Whitehall. Britain, Britain as a temperate nation of rain and green grass, of civil liberties and gentle but real civic concern, the Britain of Mr Major's foolish yet true aphorism, needs conserving.
Could I vote for you? It would pain me greatly: I would look at the cross on the ballot paper and consider myself a traitor. But perhaps the point has been reached where political discourse will be restructured, and Conservatism can recast itself as the party of the environment, local decision-making and traditional freedoms, being therefore truly conservative of this country.
When Mr Davis is returned to Parliament, re-appoint him Shadow Home Secretary, or Shadow Attorney-General; commit to repealing 42 days and give him a remit to restore our freedoms. Put someone serious in charge of the environment and nick Liberal Democrat policies concerning switching the burden of tax on wealth creation onto pollution. Finally, get someone of Mr Straw's calibre onto constitutional questions so far as Parliamentary powers and the powers of local government are concerned: strengthen the Houses and commit to devolving power down. Whatever the outcome, it will be good for our country, whether it sharpens our government or puts a (genuinely - we don't want to be let down, like we were post-1997) reforming administration in their place.
There are tears in my eyes.
The Incorrigible Amateur
Saturday, 7 June 2008
Why religious tolerance comes first
I've been sitting on this thought for a while, but now it's time to try it out. Religious tolerance is the most important one.
Let me begin with John Stuart Mill:
"Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs [to be] protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them ..." (On Liberty, Chapter I Introductory)
Well, we are at a point in Britain that Mill in Victorian England could not have imagined. In On Liberty, Mill begins his main argument in Chapter II with a discussion of "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion", assuming that the argument for freedom of the press has been won and arguing that freedom of opinion is a necessary and healthy right. In Chapter III onwards, he argues concerning Individuality - essentially, free action.
In the UK today, the majority opinion, certainly in the elite, would not argue with Mill on the freedom of action to be secured to all men, to develop their individuality as they wish, within certain liberal constraints (I will not enter the debate on Mill's harm principle here, and remain intentionally vague).
But freedom of thought is not secure in the UK, and freedom to develop as an individual is secured firstly by freedom of thought. Now the magistrate is being used by the "prevailing opinion and feeling" to fight against against all who will argue that any action of man within those constraints could still be morally wrong.
In that context I believe religious freedom is the biggest challenge facing us. Religion is under double attack from the "prevailing opinion and feeling". Firstly, it is being privatised: "that's your opinion, what you believe, fine." Secondly, where it expresses opinions on questions in the public square, it is condemned as backwards (issues in medical ethics) or as verging on the illegal (particularly homosexuality). I remember hearing Sir Iqbal Sacrani very carefully state the Muslim position on homosexuality on Radio 4 and knew that he would be accused by someone of a hate crime simply for doing so. He did not encourage attacks on homosexuals, he did not say that they were lesser human beings because of their sexual orientation or even for their acts, which he did say were wrong. He merely said that the acts were wrong. Yet he was accused of stirring up hatred. Why? Because what is really wanted is the rendering of the opinion illegal. Thought policing.
I will grant that for the Britain of the 20th century, the tests of liberalism were questions of racism, sexism and homophobia, and at the street level they remain huge issues. I face and challenge all three on a regular basis at school. As a Evangelical Christian, combatting these forms of intolerance is about whether all people are in the image of God or not, which they are. But for the liberal elite, tempted to thought policing, the challenge is religious tolerance: they need to put it first. Let people say what they want on ethical, social and family questions, from whatever religious or atheistic viewpoint they want. The only rules ought be no ad hominem arguments and no calling on people to act violently against others for their beliefs or actions.
After all, once the liberal destruction of the family is complete and children live in completely unstable homes and go on to live completely unstable lives, someone will be wanting to find the truth that counters the "prevailing opinion and feeling".
Let me begin with John Stuart Mill:
"Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs [to be] protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them ..." (On Liberty, Chapter I Introductory)
Well, we are at a point in Britain that Mill in Victorian England could not have imagined. In On Liberty, Mill begins his main argument in Chapter II with a discussion of "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion", assuming that the argument for freedom of the press has been won and arguing that freedom of opinion is a necessary and healthy right. In Chapter III onwards, he argues concerning Individuality - essentially, free action.
In the UK today, the majority opinion, certainly in the elite, would not argue with Mill on the freedom of action to be secured to all men, to develop their individuality as they wish, within certain liberal constraints (I will not enter the debate on Mill's harm principle here, and remain intentionally vague).
But freedom of thought is not secure in the UK, and freedom to develop as an individual is secured firstly by freedom of thought. Now the magistrate is being used by the "prevailing opinion and feeling" to fight against against all who will argue that any action of man within those constraints could still be morally wrong.
In that context I believe religious freedom is the biggest challenge facing us. Religion is under double attack from the "prevailing opinion and feeling". Firstly, it is being privatised: "that's your opinion, what you believe, fine." Secondly, where it expresses opinions on questions in the public square, it is condemned as backwards (issues in medical ethics) or as verging on the illegal (particularly homosexuality). I remember hearing Sir Iqbal Sacrani very carefully state the Muslim position on homosexuality on Radio 4 and knew that he would be accused by someone of a hate crime simply for doing so. He did not encourage attacks on homosexuals, he did not say that they were lesser human beings because of their sexual orientation or even for their acts, which he did say were wrong. He merely said that the acts were wrong. Yet he was accused of stirring up hatred. Why? Because what is really wanted is the rendering of the opinion illegal. Thought policing.
I will grant that for the Britain of the 20th century, the tests of liberalism were questions of racism, sexism and homophobia, and at the street level they remain huge issues. I face and challenge all three on a regular basis at school. As a Evangelical Christian, combatting these forms of intolerance is about whether all people are in the image of God or not, which they are. But for the liberal elite, tempted to thought policing, the challenge is religious tolerance: they need to put it first. Let people say what they want on ethical, social and family questions, from whatever religious or atheistic viewpoint they want. The only rules ought be no ad hominem arguments and no calling on people to act violently against others for their beliefs or actions.
After all, once the liberal destruction of the family is complete and children live in completely unstable homes and go on to live completely unstable lives, someone will be wanting to find the truth that counters the "prevailing opinion and feeling".
The Early Music Show
There's something disturbingly middle-class and aging about having post titles that reflect the BBC Radio 3 Saturday lunchtime line up!
Why is the Early Music Show so called? Why was the label Das Alte Werk so called? After all, the history of music-playing culture stretches back as far as our knowledge of civilisation, and that must be thousands of years! Most people have held in their hands books that contain songs thousands of years old, whether the Psalms of the Bible or songs in Hindu or Buddhist works; and if the Guru Granth Sahib contains Hindu hymns, which it does, perhaps there are works thousands of years old there too. Mesopotamia, India, China and South America can look back over thousands of years and so have music that really is early. Yet the Early Music Show is essentially about the Baroque period of European music: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi - yet they were around only 300 years ago. Das Alte Werk produced recordings of these and composers of a similar period. If you get all the way back to Tallis, then you are getting into musical prehistory on that basis, and he was around under Henry VIII, from whom at school we dated the Early Modern Period!
I am not so worried by the Eurocentricism of that, not because Eurocentricism isn't wrong, but because there are plenty of other people bothered about that online, and they no doubt have commented interestingly. My problem is the underlying assumption in terms of history. Everything pre-Bach, pre-1750, can be called early and covered in that context. Only the most recent deserves any more careful differentiation. We assume the superiority of the contemporary, that everything else is just old, even early, but have you listened to Bach and compared him to Britney? Exactly, no, you haven't. It would be an insult to Bach's quality even to consider making the comparison. And I apologise.
But this one goes deeper. We assume that what is modern renders the wisdom of the past obsolete. However, what we in fact find is that there is nothing new under the sun, that humanity's big issues have already been faced up to, and, if Romans 1:30 is right, that much of progress is inventing evil. We fail to listen to the past at our peril; we exalt the contemporary to the point of idolatry; and we dismiss those who disagree with the Zeitgeist - shutting them up with laws dressed up in the language of tolerance - at the cost, potentially, if J S Mill, that great Victorian liberal, was right, of progressive thought itself.
Why is the Early Music Show so called? Why was the label Das Alte Werk so called? After all, the history of music-playing culture stretches back as far as our knowledge of civilisation, and that must be thousands of years! Most people have held in their hands books that contain songs thousands of years old, whether the Psalms of the Bible or songs in Hindu or Buddhist works; and if the Guru Granth Sahib contains Hindu hymns, which it does, perhaps there are works thousands of years old there too. Mesopotamia, India, China and South America can look back over thousands of years and so have music that really is early. Yet the Early Music Show is essentially about the Baroque period of European music: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi - yet they were around only 300 years ago. Das Alte Werk produced recordings of these and composers of a similar period. If you get all the way back to Tallis, then you are getting into musical prehistory on that basis, and he was around under Henry VIII, from whom at school we dated the Early Modern Period!
I am not so worried by the Eurocentricism of that, not because Eurocentricism isn't wrong, but because there are plenty of other people bothered about that online, and they no doubt have commented interestingly. My problem is the underlying assumption in terms of history. Everything pre-Bach, pre-1750, can be called early and covered in that context. Only the most recent deserves any more careful differentiation. We assume the superiority of the contemporary, that everything else is just old, even early, but have you listened to Bach and compared him to Britney? Exactly, no, you haven't. It would be an insult to Bach's quality even to consider making the comparison. And I apologise.
But this one goes deeper. We assume that what is modern renders the wisdom of the past obsolete. However, what we in fact find is that there is nothing new under the sun, that humanity's big issues have already been faced up to, and, if Romans 1:30 is right, that much of progress is inventing evil. We fail to listen to the past at our peril; we exalt the contemporary to the point of idolatry; and we dismiss those who disagree with the Zeitgeist - shutting them up with laws dressed up in the language of tolerance - at the cost, potentially, if J S Mill, that great Victorian liberal, was right, of progressive thought itself.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
At my most amateurish
The Amateur is most amateurish when he gets to philosophy, but here goes.
The Enlightenment seems to me the intellectual reaction to the Wars of Religion, particularly the evils of the 30 Years' War - note how figures like Lessing and Kant were German. Deism and then Kantianism ( I would like to distinguish them) reject the transcendental God of theism, because such a God would require revelation to be knowable, giving authority to bearers of revelation, the Church, which carries the can for the Wars of Religion. Kant, by destroying the proofs for God (sorry, I haven't read Kritik der reinen Vernunft - but I'm told so by reliable sources) that Aquinas erected, I would propose does away even with the Watchmaker God of deism.
Kant then wants us to be good. He wants us to submit to categorical imperatives, things that are right simply because they are right, rooted in the twin thoughts of humans as ends (never use anyone) and autonomous (write your own laws). The Kantian then makes such laws as he would want others to live by, and, hey presto, we come up with duties all will accept as right and do.
Is all this a bit A-Level, not university? Spot on! I'm teaching A-Level philosophy of religion.
Problem is, Kant is realistic enough to know that deontological ethics convince no one. So he proves God morally to give us a teleological reason to obey: Kant's God exists for the same reason as the Bogeyman - to get us to bed on time. But the Bogeyman doesn't exist.
But if God is dead, why shouldn't I treat equally random collections of molecules as I want? I am a random collection of molecules, so are you. What gives another being moral value? There is nothing between me and doing what I want other than slave-moralities designed to hold me back in my pursuit of imposing on the world my own will.
London is an atheistic city. 14 youths have been knifed to death in 2008 already, putting us on course for a record. In South-East London in the last month, there have been four knife attacks gaining nationwide publicity.
Just all random coincidences, I'm sure.
The Enlightenment seems to me the intellectual reaction to the Wars of Religion, particularly the evils of the 30 Years' War - note how figures like Lessing and Kant were German. Deism and then Kantianism ( I would like to distinguish them) reject the transcendental God of theism, because such a God would require revelation to be knowable, giving authority to bearers of revelation, the Church, which carries the can for the Wars of Religion. Kant, by destroying the proofs for God (sorry, I haven't read Kritik der reinen Vernunft - but I'm told so by reliable sources) that Aquinas erected, I would propose does away even with the Watchmaker God of deism.
Kant then wants us to be good. He wants us to submit to categorical imperatives, things that are right simply because they are right, rooted in the twin thoughts of humans as ends (never use anyone) and autonomous (write your own laws). The Kantian then makes such laws as he would want others to live by, and, hey presto, we come up with duties all will accept as right and do.
Is all this a bit A-Level, not university? Spot on! I'm teaching A-Level philosophy of religion.
Problem is, Kant is realistic enough to know that deontological ethics convince no one. So he proves God morally to give us a teleological reason to obey: Kant's God exists for the same reason as the Bogeyman - to get us to bed on time. But the Bogeyman doesn't exist.
But if God is dead, why shouldn't I treat equally random collections of molecules as I want? I am a random collection of molecules, so are you. What gives another being moral value? There is nothing between me and doing what I want other than slave-moralities designed to hold me back in my pursuit of imposing on the world my own will.
London is an atheistic city. 14 youths have been knifed to death in 2008 already, putting us on course for a record. In South-East London in the last month, there have been four knife attacks gaining nationwide publicity.
Just all random coincidences, I'm sure.
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