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The use of two very old methods of deception by the Economist

In one of several articles supporting ‘universal’ (i.e. tax funded) health care in the United States in last weeks Economist magazine (the people who control it call it a ‘newspaper’ for tax reasons), the line “nobody denies” that the lack of a “universal health system” undermines “economic security” in the United States was used.

It was the words “nobody denies” that interested me. A very obvious obvious lie, as a great many people deny this, but I had heard this sort of lie somewhere before. In another article it was said that some Conservatives wished to “do nothing” about health care – good ‘conservatives’, like Mitt Romney, of course wished to go along with the demands supported by the Economist for ‘universal health care’ (see above).

In reality many American conservatives have long argued for less government subsides and regulations, what with government subsidies and regulations being the main reason that health care is expensive in the United States today. But the idea that anyone could want less statism was not even mentioned, let alone refuted – a ‘conservative’ (of the bad sort – i.e. someone who did not want more statism) was simply someone who wanted to “do nothing”.

I had seen that lie someone before as well. And then I remembered – these are the methods of John Stuart Mill.

In, for example, Principles of Political Economy (1848) whenever J.S. Mill comes out with a demand for more statism, whether it be for police, or for government supply of water or other things, he tends to say something like “nobody denies” that the government should provide X, Y, Z. It was a lie as Mill knew perfectly well at the time as many of his contemporaries did did indeed deny these things – but it was a useful lie in that it meant that he did not have to refute their arguments because he pretended that opponents of his statist views did not exist.

J.S. Mill did a similar thing with the theory of economic value. He did not refute the arguments of such writers as Richard Whately and Samuel Bailey who had largely discredited the labour theory of value in the English speaking world (it had never been the main theory of economic value in the no- English speaking world), he just defended the theory of his father James Mill and his friend David Ricardo by saying the labour theory of value was “settled”, no one denied it. Again a blatant lie – but a very effective one when dealing with young people whose first (and in many cases last) book on Political Economy would be J.S. Mill’s work.

As for ‘conservatives’, J.S. Mill was careful to avoid writing much about conservative minded people who had ideas to roll back the size and scope of government activity, such as Edmund Burke (although the word “conservative” was not used in Burke’s time, J.S. Mill knew of him via the Mill family and friends membership of the “Bowood Circle” a informal grouping of people who were sympathetic to some of the ideas of the French Revolution and hated Edmund Burke). It was much better to either write about poets like Coleridge, or to pretend that conservatives were just ‘stupid’ people, who wanted to ‘do nothing’.

J.S. Mill wrote and spoke like this because he was a utilitarian, i.e. he defined right and wrong in terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’, defining ‘good’ as nice consequences and ‘evil’ as nasty consequences. It is quite true that he did think in terms of “higher and lower” pleasures, but that “good” might not mean pleasant or that “right” might not mean “good” was not something he was willing to concede.

In short he was a man without an ethical basis for honour (I do not mean that as abuse – I mean it as statement of fact). To such a man such old sayings as “death before dishonour” are simply the ravings of mad people, and refusing to break faith even at the cost of one’s life is irrational. If to lie produced good consequences (with “good” being defined as the greatest happiness of the greatest number) then he lied. And his followers follow in this tradition – right to the writers in the Economist to day.

“We are proud to be associated with the founder of modern liberalism” is the sort of response I would expect from such folk (although no response at all would be more in their tradition). This shows the vast gulf between modern ‘liberals’ and conservative minded people. Although, almost needless to say, there are few such folk in the British Conservative party.

29 comments to The use of two very old methods of deception by the Economist

  • Dave O

    You could argue that “nobody denies” is a lie because, quite obviously people can deny it. However, I’m not sure your argument holds much water in the way it was used in context.

    They used the following wording:

    Nobody denies that the insecurity in America has been sharpened

    They then define what they mean.

  • Nobody denies that the insecurity in America has been sharpened

    Er, but people do deny it in the USA, lots of them, not just us British free market fanatics who think the NHS is an abomination and think people in the USA would be derange to want anything like it.

  • nick g.

    Nobody denies that the Economist is a great paper, because nobody is asked that question! If you are careful to ask questions of similar-minded people, the answers would be ones you agree with. Or could the Economist have a libertarian member called Nobody? When asked about Universal Healthcare, Mr. Nobody denies that it is good, and there you have it- Nobody denies it!
    Samizdata- on the australian Libertatian Society Blog, Thoughts on Freedom, we have a sub-blog called Discussion, and callers can leave a message about a topic they are interested in, but which is not one of the topics being discussed by the others. I think a General Comments page would be useful for you, because we are discussing something of interest to all libertarians, and I am forced to raise it here.
    Is Libertarianism a male interest, or does it just seem that way because less women use the internet than men? On the above-mentioned blog, our most frequent socialist debaters are women, so is socialism, or groups in general, something that is genetic? We’re discussing this in relation to the sort of magazine that would appeal to libertarians, so if they’re naturally male, we can cater mainly to the pub crowd.
    Any thoughts?

  • Dave

    I didn’t deny that.

    I said that the wording using the word “sharpened” was harder to disagree with because a lot of people are more worried and therefore their degree of concern must be sharper, especially if they have work related healthcare.

    Personally, having moved to the US in Jan, I find the quality of care to be pretty much the same as delivered through a GP, if not worse. I certainly didn’t have the same problems making an appointment that I have in the USA.

    Touch wood I’ve not needed any serious care or had to deal with a “pre-existing” condition complaint from my insurers that I couldn’t pay for out of my own pocket. If I had, I’d probably be thinking about flying home.

    The US system is certainly badly flawed, as is the NHS. There are better systems out there.

  • nick g.

    Why was my previous post deemed worthy of being smitten!?? I was making an honest inquiry into the gender balance amongst libertarians, and the reasons for any such bias. What is objectionable about that?

  • guy herbert

    Paul,

    1. … young people whose first (and in many cases last) book on Political Economy would be J.S. Mill’s work.

    Would there really be many of those, even in the 19th century? It was an established textbook, but surely not at an elementary level. Political Economy was a matter of major controversy, then as now, and scarcely even an undergraduate subject until the turn of the century. (LSE founded 1895, Cambridge Economics Tripos started in 1903, perhaps our resident PPE graduates can tell me when the subject started at Oxford…)

    2. I was under the impression, The Economist is a ‘newspaper’ for two reasons, neither of them to do with tax:

    First, it does contain news, as well as opinion.

    Second, purely technically, it is registered with the Post Office as a newspaper, since “newspapers” – weekly and more frequent periodicals – can by national and international convention be delivered to subscribers at much lower postal rates. Being a newspaper lowers its costs, generally. In some jurisdictions it might actually attract a tax. Between its founding in 1843 and 1855 that would have included The Economist’s original market of Great Britain.

    3. To second what Dave says, and depart from our sainted editor on this point, it seems to me that you are misrepresenting what the article says, viz –

    Nobody denies that the insecurity in America has been sharpened by the absence of a comprehensive health-care system. Most Americans still get their health care from their companies: lose your job, and you lose your insurance cover with it.

    It is not talking about “economic security” as you represent – the phrase doesn’t appear in the article – but “security”, which in the context refers to individual sense of security of the voters. It makes no supposition that you agree that comprehensive healthcare systems are intrinsically desirable, but it does suppose that you acknowledge healthcare is a source of anxiety for many American voters.

    Place that in the context of an article about the political prospects for the Democrats, which talks about their “calculated populism,” and it makes perfectly good sense to say that their – divers – policies for healthcare may offer them some electoral advantages over the Republicans. It doesn’t mean they are good policies. It doesn’t presuppose you support them.

    If I say that such and such a policy is “popular”, it does not imply it it is popular with me. Given my contrary nature, probably the opposite.

    The Economist does describe the interest of Democratic candidates in healthcare as “promising” and it does appear willing to make the case for them. But it doesn’t presuppose the reader agrees.

    4. The other point, that there is deception in not mentioning people who make a completely different case, I think is much weaker.

    Leave aside the particular context of discussing the professed views of politicians, where volume, not coherence will dominate. In political philosophy or general political discourse we can complain that an argument is not answered, but why should anyone be entitled to claim the privilege of being picked out to be answered? It is not deceptive to fail to answer a fringe case or one that is not critical for your line of argument.

    It strikes me that in the market of ideas it is the responsibility of those making a particular case to make it sufficiently current and important that others will be obliged to answer it. To insist ex nihilo that the libertarian or conservative point of view must be addressed has no more merit than an assertion that “nobody denies” whatever. We have no more right to demand we are listened to than the Marxists or the Moonies. We have to be sufficiently interesting and persuasive that we cannot be ignored.

  • Why was my previous post deemed worthy of being smitten!?

    It’s done by a bot, for Christ’s sake

  • Is Libertarianism a male interest, or does it just seem that way because less women use the internet than men? On the above-mentioned blog, our most frequent socialist debaters are women, so is socialism, or groups in general, something that is genetic?
    Any thoughts?

    Lots of them – but I’m a male chauvinist, so I doubt many of them would be very helpful. But I can vouch for the observation: very few of my Libertarian friends are female, and most of my female friends are left of center. That said, I don’t think I have any female friends or acquaintences who believe in radical politics of any kind. So maybe there’s another dimension here too: women don’t like rocking the boat as much (i.e. if your magazine wants to appeal to female readers, might be worth stressing stability and continuity with the present system, incremental change, etc.).

    As for whether support for Socialism is genetically determined: given its dismal track record, I can really see no other explanation. Something beyond rationality drives people to want to believe in it, and they fit the facts accordingly. Sorry – that’s not very useful in a public discussion, but in private it’s what I’m forced to conclude.

  • dover_beach

    Ah, I savoured every word thrown at Mill, each of which hit the target, and deservedly so.

    BTW, could someone explain to me the reference to ‘porcupines’ in the table on the right. Is it a reference to Schopenhauer’s parable of porcupines that Oakeshott retells in his essay Talking Politics?

  • BTW, could someone explain to me the reference to ‘porcupines’ in the table on the right.

    Sure.

  • guy herbert

    dover_beach,

    I’m not sure Paul isn’t, in the course of being rude to Mill (Jr and Sr, implicitly), attacking too broad a target. You can be a consequentialist without necessarily being a utilitarian. A great variety of ethical positions proceed from evaluating ends as desirable or undesirable. What makes a utilitarian is his particular criterion of niceness or nastiness: the willingness to trade off the consequence for one person against that for an abitrary other or others.

  • Midwesterner

    Interestingly, even the most radical of the Democrats’ health plans, that of Mr Edwards (see article), is hardly extremist stuff, relying on the private sector but tweaking the system to make sure that no one falls through the cracks and that costs are controlled.

    Where does it say “attempts to”? Is this investigative journalism? Or stealth advocacy?

  • guy herbert

    On sex bias,

    It might have something to do with risk-aversion.

  • I know a few female libertarians. Not a huge number, but certainly a few. However, I also find that if I simply complain about the useless of government, and decry such things as government taking large quantities of your money as taxes and then spending the same money on “benefits” for you if you agree to it being used in certain state directed ways and subject yourself to their burecracy, women are often extremely sympathetic to the “Wouldn’t it be better if they just didn’t take it in the first place” argument. Women may not often be sympathetic to libertarian politics, but I am not sure they are necessarily unsympathetic to libertarian minded ideas.

    Speaking of women with ideas that libertarians like, might I draw people’s attention to the latest Harry Potter book. The Potter books have always been remarkably sceptical of government, showing the wizard government varying between foolish, incompetent, overly bureacratic, unwilling to see reality, and at times leaning to actively malevolent, but in the final book it goes a lot further. Government becomes a tool that is easily dominated by the forces of evil and used to opress the population. At one point the Voldermort controlled Ministry institutes compulsory attendence at Hogwarts and outlaws home schooling, and the heroes respond by being appalled and horrified. I think this was my favourite moment of the book. I have know idea what J K Rowling’s stated politics is, but I think she certainly sees the true nature of government.

  • Stephanie

    I hate thread derailing, but since everyone else is doing it…

    I think the sex bias is due to the fact that government-run wealth redistribution is seen as kind and compassionate (never you mind the fact that it’s done by force), and women — whether through socialization, biology, or a bit of both — tend to find such things more appealing. The tendency of opponents of socialism to present themselves as hard headed supporters of policies that actually work, however true it may be, probably doesn’t help with this.

    I’d actually caution against making things too male centric; in my experience, this is often an invitation to behavior that can drive women away (multiple and inevitable comments about a woman’s appearance when it’s not relevant, etc.). I mean, I’m rather radical, and I’m still pretty put off by some of the stuff I see. I’m not sure that alienating women even further is going to be all that helpful, and if you pick up a wide reputation as sexists, that’s even going to push some men away.

  • Paul Marks

    Sadly Guy is mistaken about 19th century people in Britain.

    In logic and reason he should not be mistaken – but logic and reason were not followed (certainly in the old days students learnt many things they do not learn to today, Latin and Greek for example, but critical minds were not common – indeed “rebels” were normally more statist than their teachers, and this is understandable as they were simply taking their teachers arguments to their logical conclusions, it is very tough to challenge basic principles).

    J.S. Mill came out with “Principles of Political Economy” and young people just assumed that (for example) “the theory of value is settled”.

    Even the Chair at Trinity in Dublin (founded by Richard Whately) was eventually occupied by people who believed in the Labour Theory of Value (because they had never come upon the refutations of it).

    It reminds me of what the late W.H. Hutt said in reply to the question “how did the Keynesians win the debate in economics?” – “they did not win any debate, they gained control of examinations and the appointment of lecturers and that was that”.

    Of course I am sure that many people (at Oxford say) still read such things as Richard Whately’s old lectures.

    But for most people it was “Adam Smith led to David Ricardo and David Ricardo led to John Stuart Mill” Murry Rothbard in his history of economics is rather good on how other economists (who had sold well at first) were forgotten – even though they were right and the “great names” were wrong about the matters at issue.

    Sadly the idea of a “free market of ideas” is largely an illusion. Bad ideas often defeat good ideas – partly because those who support the bad ideas are careful to avoid honest debate, either pretending that contrary opinions do not exist, or twisting them into absurd shapes.

    When William Stanley Jevons reintroduced anti labour theory of value ideas into Britain in the 1870’s the writers who had been anti labout theory of value (who had seemed to be on top in the 1820’s and 1830’s) had been largely forgotten.

    As for the poltiical arguments. J.S. Mill’s line that “nobody denies” that government should provide water, drainage, police, street lighting (and so on and so on) was soon widely accepted. It is simply so much less difficult to defeat opposing arguments if one pretends that they do not exist (although the disinformation reports of Edwin Chadwick were also useful in this area).

    Of course a few people will not be fooled – but as long as most people are it does not matter.

    Dave:

    I seem to remember you from another discussion (I apologize if you are new here and I am being unjust).

    No one is defending any American “system” – indeed both myself and many other people have denounced many times the hundreds of billions of taxpayer Dollars of subsidies that are pushed at health care (Medicare, Medicaid and the other programs) with the “knock effects” they have on the price of health care (similar to the effects that the subsidies in higher education have had on tuition fees). Medicare and Medicaid together cost five billion Dollars in 1965 – how many hundreds of billions of Dollars do they cost now (and remember the knock on effect on costs in the rest of health care).

    Also regularly denounced are the vast network of regulations that are the other major reason for the increase in costs and the bureacracy in the system.

    Certainly these regulations go back to the con trick of Doctor licensing (which spread from State to State in the early years of the 20th century) that was exposed as a vast fraud by Milton Friedman just after World War II (but is still going strong). But there are a vast number of more recent regulations.

    This is the other “Economist” trick – pretend that “conservatives” just want to “do nothing”.

    As, of course, previous government interventions are sacred – even mentioning the possibility of rolling the back is blasphemy. So the only ideas that can even be mentioned are those to extend (not roll back) government.

    One trick that I did NOT mention (but is very important so “my bad” as the Californians say) is the trick of making the debate about various “plans”.

    “I do not support government health care, my plan would preserve independence” – I am sure Mitt Romney would come out with something like this.

    The Economist mentioned various plans (by the candidates to be President of the United States) but all the plans it mentioned had one thing in common – “universal health care” i.e. government backing (of course it would not really be “univeral health care” as lots of people would die waiting or from substandard treatment – but the government promise would be there which is the important thing to statist folk).

    There were several articles Dave (not just one) and nowhere was any suggestion of reducing statism mentioned.

    The Economist wants the debate to between (say) the Romney plan, and the Clinton plan and the Obama plan and the Edwards plan – with some of these plans being called “moderate” and others less “moderate” – but all meaning an even bigger government than exists already. When the United States already has a vast network of local, State and Federal regulations that strangle health care and has hundred of billions of taxpayer Dollars are already spent (almost half the total amount spent on health care) thus pushing up costs into outer space.

    Even such recent experience as the increase in the cost of the program to subsidise the health care of “the children” (in some States the money gets spent mostly on adults – but that is another story) was ignored. The cost has gone up from 4 billion Dollars when Presiden Clinton slipped it in (as the price for accepting Welfare Reform) to almost 80 billion Dollars. The program was mentioned by the Economist – but the cost explosion was not (the progam was just mentioned as a nice thing).

    Even the front runner in the Republican side (Rudy G.) has suggested getting rid of some regulations and allowing tax relief on individual health care provision (I know that there are aguments for and against tax relief), but this was ignored.

    We are not just talking about ignoring the ideas of Tom Tancredo or Ron Paul here.

    Only an expansion of the “public services” (not rolling them back) is considered respectable by the powers that be (and that is what the Economist seeks to be part of). Contrary ideas can not even be considered.

    Lastly I may have been unjust (in part) to utilitarians.

    There is, of course, the old distinction between “utility” (including Hutchinson’s “greatest good of the greatest number”) and utilitarianism (the ideas of Jeremy Bentham). Bentham denial of the existance of “good” and “evil” as anything seperate from pleasure and pain would not have been accepted by many 18th century writers who used the word “utility”.

    If one were to take Bentham seriously the only way to judge whether (for example) rape was evil would be to measure the pain of the victim and compare it to the pleasure of the rapist or rapists. However, such a category mistake (confusing right and wrong with pleasure and pain) should certainly not be attributed to every thinker who has ever used the word “utility”.

    There is also (agian of course) the difference between an “act utilitarian” and a “rule utilitarian”.

    A rule utilitarian (an example might be F.A. Hayek – who is very much in the tradition of David Hume) holds that “rules of just conduct” are justified by the general utility they lead to – not that one can or should make pleasure-pain calculations to try and work out what good or evil actions are.

    For example, David Hume would have said that civil society evolved rules against rape because societies that did not do so did not fare so well as societies that did (the idea of cultural evolution going back to the 18th century at least).

    Hume or Hayek would argue against telling lies in academic discourse because they held that telling what one believes to be truth tends to be for the general good in the long run.

    A calculation of (say) “if I pretend that contrary opinions do not exit people are more likely to go along with what I am saying” would be alien to them.

  • Paul Marks

    Guy – good point about political economy being barely an undergraduate subject in the 19th century.

    Quite so – and this was part of the problem.

    A student would tend to read a book or so (after 1848 normally Mill – or the work of Alfred Marshal a few decades later) and then rush back to reading lots of works on their main subject or subjects.

    Still even the three year degrees in Economics that students “read for” now do not seem to lead to much critical thinking.

    Students tend to accept what they hear in the lectures and read in the approved texts. After all (to give one example) if a student said the Keynesian doctrine of the “multiplyer” was nonsense (which it is) rather than “interpreting” such doctrines in various ways they would not do well at exam time as recently as the 1980’s (or today, most likely).

    I remember opting for Economics as one third of my first year at university. It was the same rubbish I remembered from “A” level – I got through by treating the course as mathematics (I carefully put out of mind what the, false assumption based, equations were supposed to prove about the real world).

    At undergradute level Politics and History are more tolerant subjects (they do not pretend to use the method of the natural sciences).

    Of course when one gets to D.Phil level the intolerance of certain opinions appears even in these subjects and one finds that neither facts nor arguments are considered relevant. This was certainly true at the University of York where I was told (after years of playing about with such people as the then Lord Chancellor of England and Wales) that the quality of a thesis was not relevant – as the statutes of the University of York gave the powers-that-be authority, for example, to reject a work on the basis of the colour of the eyes of the author (or indeed without giving any specific reason at all – even colour of eyes).

    Actually under the statutes of the University of York (which I had been stupid enough not to have read in advance) this was quite correct. Only in some Universities (Cambridge springs to mind) is the quality of the work grounds for appeal – at such places the academics must at least pretend to regard the quality of a work as the deciding factor.

    W.H. Hutt would not have been surprised by the situation, but even I was young once.

    Lastly.

    A mistake I made in the posting:

    One should be careful not to say “government funded” as the supporter of one of the “plans” will say “my plan is not government funded, mostly the money is private and…….”

    It is better to say “government backed” (or some such) – then one will not be led into a phony debate between (say) the “Edwards plan” and the “Romney plan” (or whatever).

    Once the principle of (so called) “univeral health care” is accepted the rest is a debate over details. The reality will be ever higher government spending and a decline in medical treatment compared to the treatment there would have been if the “plan” for a “health system” had been defeated.

  • Paul Marks- I generally skip your articles because they are a bit long to be regarded as comments, but that last one was excellent.
    Thanks.

  • Paul Marks

    The words that Midwesterner quote from the Economist reminds me why I do not buy this magazine (I write about it when I happen to read it).

    These words are dishonest in so many ways. “Hardly extremist stuff” (nice and moderate to make the vast government even bigger), “control costs” (by magic) and so on.

    I know that the non aggresion principle lays down freedom of speech, but whoever wrote the words that Midwesterner quotes deserves a punch in the face.

    Give me an honest socialist any day, over these horrible, deceitful …. (Paul goes off into insane rant, which he stops himself typing) “liberals”.

  • James Waterton

    Give me an honest socialist any day, over these horrible, deceitful…”liberals”.

    Absolutely! Quote of the day, that.

  • Paul Marks

    Dover-beach – as in the philosopher on?

    Well the stuff at the side may not have been about anything from Oakeshott – but I admire this thinker. Although, of course, he might have regarded me as a bit of a rationalist in politics – although of the sort that held to a plan not to have any plans.

    I prefer “On Human Conduct” (all three essays) to the better known “Rationalism in Politics” – but I have recently come upon more evidence on Oakeshott’s side.

    The oldest Labour councillor in Kettering has (I am sure) never gone in for libertarian deductive thinking from the non aggression principle (or anything like that), but he normally comes up with good sense on virtually any question of policy.

    In talking to this man I have found that the source of his good sense is his great experince of the practice of local government (in various parts of England) and his thinking about his experiences.

    People can come to the same place by different routes.

    My father went through many years of thought (based on extensive reading as well as the practice of politics) migrating from Marxism to a semilibertarian conservatism.

    But my mother needed no such long experience or extensive reading. As a young girl she watched nice houses being destroyed to make way for ugly flats and was told that the houses had been taken by force (compulsory purchase), this was enough not only to lead her to reject socialism., but also to reject the liberalism of her parents.

    Sadly most of the leadership of the Conservative party (then or now) never got to the stage my mother got to as a young girl.

    If “progress” meant ordering folk about to make the world a worse place, little G.N. Power wanted no part of it.

    Change does not have to make things worse, it can make things better. But change based on threats and on closing ones eyes to the results of the various projects, will tend to make things worse.

    This is something that “modern”, “progressive” or “scientific” “conservatives” do not understand.

    “All very well Paul, but how does one roll things back – appealing to doubts that people have about further change will not achieve this task”.

    How does one roll statism back – that I do not know.

  • guy herbert

    If any of us were to find that out, we would have a party. In both senses. Meanwhile,

    And we are here as on a darkling plain
    Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
    Where ignorant armies clash by night.

  • dover_beach

    Paul, yes, as in the philosopher, but it was a piece of slight mis-direction. I’m not so much a conservative in the Scrutonian sense as an Oakeshottian.

    Actually, if you compare the parable of the porcupines to the FSP you’ll notice that they almost arrive at the same conclusion.

    And, yes, I agree the three essays of ‘On Human Conduct’ are excellent but the third is really a tour de force (I always have a grin on my face reading the last 20 pages or so). There are also other excellent essays/ collections like ‘The Politics of Faith and the Politics of Scepticism’ which are well-worth reading.

    Completely agree with what you say regarding experience.

    How to roll statism back? This is more than a life’s work, but you have to begin the task and hope there are others who will pick the sword up once it falls out of your hands either because of exhaustion or death. I’ve been reading alittle of and about Maurice Cowling and his posture towards liberalism seems to point, in part, in the right direction. To begin with, I think we need to be complete sticks-in-the-mud. I think we also have to employ some ‘gentle malice’ towards statists; I’m mean they really are both befuddled and full-of-themselves. I think a few independents in Parliament help. I think we also need to make in-roads in media, schools and universities; we have almost conceded the field to liberals, socialists, post-modernists, etc. who each in their various ways look upon the state as the means for acheiving their private fantasies eventhough they may deceptively name them the public or common good. And this has been, in Cowling’s words, the locus of Public Doctrine since the mid-19th century onwards.

    ‘Nobody denies’? Rubbish!

  • dover_beach

    Iteration of “nobody denies”:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2123447,00.html

    The last two paragraphs are very instructive.

    The last quote from the Royal Society spokesperson is an utter disgrace. Comments like that are best left to Greenpeace or other political lobbyists, not a purportedly apolitical association of scientists.

    We are literally up to our knees in this filth.

  • nick g.

    I was smitten by a bot?
    Where’s Will Smith when you want a robot-hating cop?
    What would Judge Dredd say about this?
    (And on another topic entirely- I wonder if the Doctor’s name really is Doctor Who? What would ‘Who’ be in Galifreyan? As common as ‘Smith’?)

  • Jason

    ‘That “good” might not mean pleasant or that “right” might not mean “good” was not something he was willing to concede’ – sorry to be sixth form about it, but (if I’ve understood that properly) the implied repudiation is begging the question at issue. Which appears to be the substance of the complaint over the ‘nobody denies’ device.

  • Paul Marks

    Guy Herbert – very good.

    dover_beach on Oakeshott – quite so.

    Jason I hope I did not beg the question (in the sense of not examining it).

    For example, I gave the example of rape. One does not (or at least one should not) say that rape is good because the pain of the victim is less than the pleasure of the rapist or rapists.

    The level of pleasure of the rapist or rapists is not relevant. A feeling of pleasure from doing something (at the time or in memory) does not make that action right.

    “But I deny that it does not make an action right” – O.K. you deny it (I never claimed that there were no “act untilitarians” in the universe).

    If you claim that rape is right if the rapists gain more pleasure than the victim suffers pain then you are wrong. “But why I am wrong” – because you are.

    I am not interested in “proving” that rape is wrong or seeking a “foundation” for ethics outside itself. I have no problem with people who do (the various forms of Aristotelian reasoning seem to be the most popular method), but it is not my way.

    However, I was unjust to J.S. Mill by implying (I never actually stated it) that he never tried to refute people he did not agree with.

    This is, of course, not true. For example, one could point to J.S. Mill’s “An Examination of the Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton” – I do not regard this work of Mill’s as very good, but it is clearly an effort to refute the opinions of someone he did not agree with.

    John Stuart Mill only used the tactic of pretending that contrary opinions did not exist some of the time – he did not do it all of the time.

    As for J.S. Mill and statism. He is, again of course, only statist some of the time – sometimes he supports certain aspects of liberty (although such works as “On Liberty” are not nearly as libertarian as many libertarians think they are).

    Again he is like the “Economist” – it is not in favour of more government on every matter all the time either.

    Only a week or so ago there was good article on the island of Sark.

    This article justly attacked the land laws on Feudal Sark, but also showed what the modern conceptions of “democracy” and “human rights” were leading to.

    The tax code had gone from one page to a small book, the council which had once met for a few hours was now meeting for days at a time, and administrators had been hired (at great expense for such a small community) to try and deal with the endless red tape.

    The “Economist” warned that if things continued like this Sark would not be able to afford its independence and would lose it. Sark presently has no income tax – but with the loss of independence this would change.

    Almost neeless to say the appeals to the British government and to the European Convention on Human Rights were from the Barclay twins – billionaries who only arrived in Sark in the early 1990’s (renting a small island off the coast of the island of Sark) but have already gone a long way to ruin the place.

    “But if income tax comes will not the Barclays lose to” – perhaps they will, but I have given up trying to understand the twisted minds of modern folk.

    However, such articles in the Economist are rare.

    Someone above (I forget who) tried to make a distinction between “news” and “comment”.

    This is a distinction one hears from American journalists quite a lot (an overhang from the “scientific journalism” of the “Progressives”).

    Such folk seem to find it hard to understand that when someone who does not share their political opinions reads their “objective news coverage” their political opinions and cultural attitudes are obvious (ditto with people who try and produce “objective news coverage” in the United Kingdom).

    I do not claim to be superior.

    If I write about a political event I also do it from my own point of view.

    But I do not pretend to “objective scientific journalism” or other such nonsense.

    There should be many sources of news from many different points of view.

    Demands that coverage must be “fair” simply means that it will be dominated by the point of view of the people who decide what “fair” means.

    As for debate – talking heads fireing debating points at each other are useless for explaining any complex political matter.

    Only by allowing a person to explain their point of view – over a long period of time, is that point of view explained to the those watching or hearing or reading.

    This means publications of different points of view, and broadcasting stations of different points of view.

  • Rich

    The Economist, ahh yes.

    I live in London and read it regularly, and for a long time
    I have been a little uneasy about so many of the articles
    using certain phrases like “Then again” or “but then”,
    and having a certain article structure which gives the
    appearance of balance, impartiality and good research.

    The Economist is never strident, but you are
    none-the-less sheparded with great certainty to
    what may be their underlying position. Almost all the
    significant articles have had this kind of makeover.

    Why?

    It is clear that most young would believe that it is a
    conspiratoral political manipulation the public. Maybe.
    But then it could simply be a device to maximize sales
    by not pissing anyone off too much.

    See how it works? 😉

  • Rich

    The Economist, ahh yes.

    I live in London and read it regularly, and for a long time
    I have been a little uneasy about so many of the articles
    using certain phrases like “Then again” or “but then” or
    “Maybe.”, and having a certain article structure which
    gives the appearance of balance, impartiality and good
    research.

    The Economist is never strident, but you are
    none-the-less sheparded with great certainty to
    what may be their underlying position. Almost all the
    significant articles have had this kind of makeover.

    Why?

    It is clear that most of the young would believe that
    it is a conspiratoral political manipulation the public.
    Maybe. But then it could simply be a device to maximize
    sales by not pissing anyone off too much.

    See how it works? 😉